You're having a blast because you have a great attitude towards your work and feel empowered. This isn't always true for everyone, particularly if you're in a situation where the organization around you isn't healthy.
I love software engineering too but being a "key contributor" golden handcuffed to an organization that's "optimizing costs" has made me appreciate why some people might not enjoy this line of work.
The thing about ‘jobs’ is they pretty much all involve working for companies.
So ‘dream jobs’ and ‘nightmare jobs’ alike are going to share all the downsides of that: clueless management, misaligned incentives, layoffs, etc.
But my point is, if you’re going to have to work for a company anyway, software engineering isn’t a bad profession to choose.
Additionally, if you decide you would rather work for yourself than put up with corporate life there are few jobs that pivot as easily into starting your own business or becoming a consultant.
You're just furthering my point that your good attitude is a major component of your success. I agree with you 100% and I'm always grateful I get to work in this career, bad parts and all.
For the record, you sound like exactly the kind of person I like working on my teams.
I love software engineering too but being a "key contributor" golden handcuffed to an organization that's "optimizing costs" has made me appreciate why some people might not enjoy this line of work.