I'll throw in my $0.02 I enjoy coding, I'm not some whiz but I can throw together a CRUD app in a weekend and hook libraries together so it's enough. I feel as

I'll throw in my $0.02 I enjoy coding, I'm not some whiz but I can throw together a CRUD app in a weekend and hook libraries together so it's enough. I feel as if any job I take will be intellectually stimulating but spiritually unfulfilling. I would much rather be moving things in the real world with my body, or working outside, or still doing coding as long as it's something that has an immediate visible impact on my community. But jobs like that don't pay the bills. So instead I take the high-paying tech job. I have no real desire to advance except to increase my income so I can save more and partially retire early and take a much lower-paying job doing something that makes me proud. When that's my motivation it's difficult to care about anything other than doing the bare minimum to get the next paycheck. This sentiment is reflected by a lot of the engineers I know my age who escape it through partying, sitting around all day doing nothing and still getting paid, having multiple remote jobs where they barely do any work, or trying to escape the rat race via entrepreneurship. None of them are lazy, the incentives just aren't aligned for employee satisfaction. There's no amount you can be paid to give a shit.