Nick S. Where did the version of myself that was excited to program and advance my career go? They disappeared sometime after I got my first development job.

☝️ Jean-David Moisan Do you have new passions now or you're just feeling down in general?

Nick S. Bit of both. Professional software dev as a junior (just started 2nd job, 1 yr experience) has so much friction setting up fragile environments that regularly break and understanding complex build processes and libraries that I can never get into the flow of things. It's a far cry from my personal projects (and even school assignments) where environments are easy and building is as simple as 'make'. I love to code when I actually know what I'm doing.

☝️ Jean-David Moisan That's been my experience too working as a professional software dev. Going in, I expected everyone to have their own side projects, but most people seemed to not care about programming outside of work. Though going back further, while in university I was surprised how few people had done any coding before joining. (Not that there's anything wrong with any of that.) If you want to try something fun, join the MonoGame community, and try to make a simple game with it.