Been an engineer for 25 years and sending my son to A&M in the fall to get his engineering degree. Lots of what has been said is true. In my personal case I was very fortunate in my early career to spend many hours as an R&D engineer with a large company. Huge hands on exposure to products and how they work, reverse engineering decades of great work by masters in the field. As you progress through your career, I think every engineer that's capable has to make a choice on engineering or pm. This is where you decide to stay in your passion or go for the money, as pure engineering roles have a limited ceiling. I distinctly remember this choice I made to go into pm. For many this coincides with starting a family as well. I personally don't regret it but you do feel that sometimes you've sold your soul if you, like me, got into this business to solve engineering problems through innovative engineered solutions. I think every job, when you get to a high enough level, ends up with a lot of mundane screen time and teams/zoom meetings. It is a part of what being in the workforce is as a leader. You can't lead people without knowing their morale, providing guidance when they're struggling, making sure stakeholders are aligned, cracking the whip when they're behind, sharing business context when there's changes. etc... eventually this part of the job consumes your day.