I am doing the same thing, work felt pointless, just like you I was sitting in useless meetings and not growing, remote working made it worse. I got so depressed and stressed for nothing. Now I've been off for two months doing all sorts of fun coding stuff, and I feel like a new man.
Too many big corps hiring developers for no reason, too many bullsh*t jobs (RIP David Graeber) that stifle our ability to enjoy life. We may get paid really well but for some reason, attending useless meetings and reacting to slack notifications and outlook pings kill my energy.
This resonates with me. Waiting for people to message me. I have had so many issues trying to figure this one out. Zoom fatigue, slack fatigue, etc., etc. Maybe that's all it is just killing my energy.
I too have a very prominent inner monologue, it went away for the first time when i tripped with acid, I think meditation is will give me the same effect but i don't know how to start that habit, every time i try, it works for a minute or two and then its back. When the inner monologue shut up i was so pleased, but a concern i have is its impact on creativity.
There is a bit of survivorship bias there, I've seen a lot of Java projects fail, but the blame is only partly on the language, really its the fact that there are so many developers, and the pareto distribution of good to bad java programmers. That and business do not know what the f*ck they are doing. I've seen really good java devs at work, the software they produce is amazing, but the code and structure is incomprehensible, they are masters and I am a mere mortal. Clojure on the other-hand is simpler, higher level, more expressive, but you can still shoot your foot, just like java.
> too many candidates and not enough positions.
so sad, some of these smart and talented engineers will take the failure personally. The system needs to change, the only way we can progress is to not waste talent like this. We cannot rely on a small set of institutions (Harvard, Oxford, IIT etc) to output a small group of "elite" engineers, surely the world would be better if everybody that wanted to become an engineer had access to "elite" level education. Top companies have one major complaint: not enough engineers.
Bootcamps don't help either, what you want is that "elite" education with a bootcamp price, possibly many bootcamps over time, as skill sets need to adapt and grow.
