[w0rd-driven]

How do you know you're unable to be a programmer? Are you just basing that on having issues with leetcode or CTCI?

I spent 2 years in college studying CS before I couldn't continue. I had just started getting into harder courses using primarily assembly and my interest faded quick. I had this incorrect assumption that developers lived in terribly small cubicles and it didn't interest me much. I had also quickly burnt out, having a job at 40+ hours a week for an ISP and going to school full time in addition was unattainable. Networking and systems seemed to be more interesting at the time and I took a 10 year detour in IT.

In my IT tenure I slowly developed programs to solve business needs, starting with batch scripts and working my way up to very simple automation tools. Somewhere along the way I no longer cared about the work conditions a developer, doing the work was just too fun and I gained an immense sense of accomplishment when my creations were being utilized. Fast forward to getting my first full time developer-only position as a C#/.NET developer doing primarily Windows apps 8 years ago to now being a full stack web developer. It took being paid solely as a developer before I really felt like one and it took until probably 2-3 years ago before the imposter syndrome started to completely wear off. Where I may lack in algorithm knowledge I make up for it in understanding devops topics to have a more complete understanding of the full technology stack running the web apps I have a hand in. I believe every developer could benefit from a little operational knowledge as it usually makes debugging esoteric issues with a technology platform easier.

I'd describe my capabilities as more of an integrator. I used to write every library I used but I find other developers often have more complete solutions I could bastardize into something to fit a specific use case. While the puzzles I work with primarily involve fitting packages together into solutions, the end result still involves all of the same developer workflow of debugging and automated testing. I'm not incapable of algorithm knowledge, it just bores the ever living fuck out of me. I'm extremely fulfilled in spite of having some less than enjoyable positions, so hopefully you don't let this period try to define your future. There's an amazing breadth to this field to the point of easily having analysis paralysis.

Other comments give good alternatives but there are companies all over the planet paying great money for CRUD/LoB apps solving all sorts of interesting problems. There's also an amazing breadth of jobs for people with the knowledge of computing that comes from a CS degree if being a developer really isn't for you. You don't have to be in a wildly different industry but something else may involve solving interesting problems that keep you more engaged.