First, I would suggest you edit your post right now to remove any hints about the school where you did your PhD (even the geographic location). There's no reas

First, I would suggest you edit your post right now to remove any hints about the school where you did your PhD (even the geographic location). There's no reason anyone needs to know who you are, but from what you've written, it's almost a dead giveaway (to anyone who may know you -- like your coworkers for example). As to the subject of your post: No, you're not "thick", by any stretch. But it seems pretty clear you that you think ... differently from the people around you. That by itself doesn't have to be a problem. But it does seem that at some point you started to run into objective performance difficulties at your job, which were causing you to doubt yourself... which results in brain fog, causing more performance problems and self-doubt. So it's something of downward spiral. As to advice? I don't know right off -- this is a tough one. But I would suggest (1) looking into what's called "imposter syndrome", which is amazingly common in our industry and may be part of what's holding you back; and (2) and you may also look into the possibility of that, while you definitely are not stupid, you may be what's called "neuro-atypical" (or not "neurotypical"), if there is such a thing (this itself being something of a hotly debated research field). The bottom line is -- one way or another, you'll probably have to accept that (either from habit or neurological makeup) your brain seems to march to the beat of a very different drummer than from that of most people (as least those involved in CS research). Which by itself is neither good nor bad. What matters is that you find a way to play this to your advantage -- which most likely will require changing jobs, from what you've written about the profound difference in working styles compared to your teammates. And one more suggestion: apart from hypothetical differences in cognitive makeup and style -- you may want to develop more of a "take the bull by the horns" approach to life. Spending 7 years of one's life in (as you say very up front) a research area you didn't care about would be pure torture to most people I know (who go the academic route, at least). Seriously: why do that to yourself? Was it because you felt you had "no choice"? Because you didn't "deserve better"? You may want to start asking yourself what went wrong here. But also (and this is very important) without ruminating too much. What matters for you is not the past, but what you do now.