> Something that I've been thinking about for the past year or so is coming to grips with the fact that the vast majority (anecdote) of software engineering work is not novel (and maybe that's okay)

Correction, essentially 0% of software is novel. Git wasn't novel. Chromium wasn't novel. Linux wasn't novel. Even C when it came out wasn't novel. Likewise Unix. They're all permutations of either prior knowledge, or evolutions of already existing concepts. They only might _appear_ novel to people who lack the depth to see what technology really is. Effectively applied physics (which has been solved for... over a few centuries at this point?) which itself is applied mathematics. There is novely to be found in physics and math themselves, but it's far out of scope of practical engineering.