I've had some similar experiences; it's tricky to keep up with what's going on in some environments. It's easier when you and the team have regular communicati

I've had some similar experiences; it's tricky to keep up with what's going on in some environments. It's easier when you and the team have regular communication and build up a shared set of interpersonal experiences and terminology over time, and have similar tolerance levels for quality and detail. Over the past few years I've had a sense that there's room for improvement regarding details, bugfixes and maintenance in software, but I think that says more about my own preferred pace and problem-solving style nowadays. If any of that resonates, I'd suggest you try out one or two puzzles from last year's Advent of Code - I enjoyed those a lot, and I think that part of the reason was that they allowed me to digest, tackle and experiment with solutions at my own preferred level, with preferred tools, and on my own timescale -- with a clear, binary "success" criteria. Software needs to lean towards FOSS and become simpler for it to be sustainable, in my personal and long-argued opinion. A nice thing about FOSS software issues is that you can solve them at your own pace, but you'd need to find an employer who is willing to invest in improving that kind of software, and would like you to work on it -- assuming that any of that even appeals to you in the first place. As with one or two other comments here, please take these thoughts with a grain of salt and take your time to figure out what works for you; I'm probably just projecting my own situation here.