[ThrowawayR2]

> I've read "Code Complete", "Clean Code", "Extreme Programming Explained" and thought that "real" developers solve interesting problems and write maintainable and high-quality code covered by unit tests.

Remember that the people who wrote those books cut their teeth in the pre-web days. It was a much different world back then; there was a huge incentive to get things right the first time because patches were difficult to get to users.

Jobs like the kind you describe exist but are uncommon; usually they can be found in businesses that build tech products and platforms (software or hardware) or in the FAANG companies. Given your background, I'd suggest looking for a job at one of the games middleware companies if you haven't soured on the idea of being a developer entirely.