I also really enjoy programming, and relate to your comment below about sometimes waking up in the middle of the night because your brain figured out how to cod

I also really enjoy programming, and relate to your comment below about sometimes waking up in the middle of the night because your brain figured out how to code a hard problem. Sorry to hear you're having a rough time with work. I do think AI availability has made otherwise smart people put out lazy work. But I also think that there are more people who still "code by hand" than you think. You might find some joy by going to certain events where people talk about different items coding-wise. I enjoyed the talks for this conference recently https://www.youtube.com/@softwareshouldwork https://www.youtube.com/@softwareshouldwork (particularly Richard Hipp's, Delaney Gillilan's and Carson Gross' talks), maybe you can find similar spaces. The benefit has been Youtube's algorithm recommending me better software talks now too.