This resonates with me. Hard.

I'm lucky though - as a hybrid engineer/manager, I've been able to lean away from the former and into the latter.

And I've come to notice that humans doing agentic work seem to need more emotional support per unit effort than those doing traditional engineering.

So there are opportunities there. I don't want to spend a second longer than I have to prompting machines - there is zero dopamine loop in that for me, I get more doing housework and at least that makes my wife happy - but I'm happy to support a few other humans engaged in that kind of work.

It's sad though. I used to love dreaming intricate machines into existence and then watching them come to "life", or at least actually start working. That dream seems dead for now, I hope it comes back but I won't hold my breath.