[spirodonfl]

You're not alone. Your experience echoes my experience. Something has happened and the nature of our work has changed from what it was even 5 years ago. I am also frustrated.

What can you do? At a large level, nothing. You're not in a role where you can make massive changes in a medium to large sized company, let alone the tech industry in general.

However, you are in charge of yourself and you do have some ability to help your family. So focus on that. One of the most helpful statements I've ever been told is: "Where people have abdicated responsibility, there lies opportunity". Another way to look at it is to go "look" or "research" the areas where others are not paying attention for [insert reasons here].

It sounds like you are coming across people who are not *appropriately* responsible for their positions. Why? Is there an opportunity there? You might have to play the long game.

Another thing I have personally realized which is similar to something you mentioned is that you do have the power to do your own thing, even though the risk might be high. I am working full time (I love my job) but am taking time to explore things I can build on my own as a backup in areas that the rest of the tech community seems to be paying little to no attention to _or_ they even say is impossible. There are so many opportunities to push the envelope and you can leverage the fact that other developers are too lazy to do the same to work harder and smarter.

This was a really low thought wall of text / brain dump. I apologize. I hope there's a nugget of practical value somewhere, haha.