The magic, curiosity and joy I had also faded for me once. Like you say, much of my jobs included lots of plumbing. For work the elegant solutions that gave me

The magic, curiosity and joy I had also faded for me once. Like you say, much of my jobs included lots of plumbing. For work the elegant solutions that gave me joy would be seen as anti-patterns. The languages I enjoy would scuffed at as being relics. The problems I enjoy seen as useless because there are already solved in bloated over complex enterprise libraries. When I would program for myself in the weekend I wanted to work on problems that would look good on my CV. Focus on techniques and languages that will be beneficial for my carrier. Soon also my hobby coding became a lot less enjoyable. I then decided to seperate my hobby and carrier. In my spare time I started working on the things that fascinated me. Implementing operating systems, creating software rendered 3d engines, compilers etc. All from scratch. All in my favorite language (which is Common Lisp for me). Not caring if it would bring me money once, not worrying if anybody would use it or wanting to put it on my CV once. The only reason that is to enjoy it. Straight away the magic I felt as a kid about computers came back in full strength. It hasn't faded since. And the funny thing... I started enjoying my enterprisy work also again. Already getting my coding passion fix in another way I could appreciate my work and the way of working for what it is.