I think you have a point. The thing is, I'm weirdly OK with labouring away at the coalface. It's hard work, it's more toil and drudgery than people admit, but I

I think you have a point. The thing is, I'm weirdly OK with labouring away at the coalface. It's hard work, it's more toil and drudgery than people admit, but I'd rather that than finding the white collar 'cheat codes' that allow me to skive off. It helps to work on a product that you're into, or believe in, if you're lucky enough to find such a thing. I think one of the secrets is to become a product-centric engineer, and focus more energy on understanding the domain and what the business needs.