We were for a time a small company, and we broke off to become an even smaller company. I had a pretty big (perhaps oversized) say in the way things worked, UI,

We were for a time a small company, and we broke off to become an even smaller company. I had a pretty big (perhaps oversized) say in the way things worked, UI, UX, architecture, and had the power to affect and stop decisions I thought would be bad for the users, etc. Working with our designer was a collaborative process. We got bought out by a much bigger company a number of years ago. The pay is better, but the amount of say I have has slipped away basically to almost nothing. We just get told what to build and how it should work and look by people with no actual connection to the product. People who frankly have barely used it and just got assigned to design a new feature, and have very little idea how it fits into the bigger picture. I feel like now I'm only here for my ability to code and not my mind more generally and it's frankly kind of soul crushing. I've considered leaving, but I'm getting old and a well paying job is a trap, doubly so when you now have kids.