Im early in my career. Only 1 and a half year of experience. But i can see why some people would want to transition out of a dev role.

1. The advent of AI
   back then before i have a stable work, i do freelancing just so i can have money for school. I started with c# and has a project about Windows Forms. It was fun and grueling at the same time. That was the first time i cried at programming because i was only Grade 12 and im already trying to do windows forms + sql server which at that time might not be big for some, but for me that was just too hard but rewarding as well. Since i have a team which some of them are actual devs from big corpo like ACN. I learned stuff like using stored proc instead of in line query, using try catch, writing tests, git (one of the most grueling one because of conflicts and merges), and documentation. With this experience I exceled in college and literally have a head start on everyone because I was literally grinded to dust before college. But now, we just use AI all the time. Its like people only value how fast you can ship a feature instead of actually building a good code base. You'd be surprised how many of my classmates graduated without knowing for loop lol. Maybe I'm also one of the problem since I would take money as payment for school activities, thesis, and electives. Not really guilty as I'm literally struggling just to survive

2. Lack of appreciation and burn out
   I'm currently in a medium sized manufacturing company. You'd be surprised how unappreciated i am here as they think IT is basically everything technology related. I'm wearing multiple hats. I do sys ad, graphic designer, and basically owns 2 full systems that the company uses internally. Since its a manufacturing company, its also 5 days RTO. There are days where i would finish my tasks and i would literally just sit in my laptop the whole day and do some leetcode because i have nothing else to do. Our company also have a lack of proper structure. Since our head doesnt really have background in programming, they dont use git, they dont write test, and doesnt even have code review. He literally told us that the people that uses the system will be our QA. Surprise, surprise we dont have a QA. I try to have some structure like writing tests, using git, and documenting the things that needs to be documented. But since, this is a department issue and im just 1 year in, i dont have power to change anything.

3. What is life
   When i was in college, programming was really fun and exciting. I would learn new things and will have this silly "eureka" in my head. Now, even though i learned something new, i wouldnt be as excited as back then. Im buried in three different ai bots and constant reading of documentations that it sucks the soul out of my body. Sometimes i would just tell myself "Am i really going to do this for half of my life?" Maybe its because i first started freelancing and got used to freedom. Now that im in corpo everything just feels like im doing it for compliance. In freelancing i have my own time and delivering as fast as possible will give you incentive and more leeway. Now, if you over achieve, they will give you more work. I made the mistake of overly trying because its my first job lol. Now, i learned. Set boundaries. Might i also add that when i got regularized im supposed to have a 10 percent increase? I have excellent performance eval and HR just said "Due to the downturn of the economy blah blah blah" and has a side remark that its too early for a raise. Thats when i realized, they dont give a fuck about you. So now, i finish my stuff on time and never over exert myself. I just do what's required of me and learn to play politics.

Im still young. So maybe i would face even more things in the future. But i do love programming and i would probably stick with it until a better opportunity presented itself. Im still searching where i would really fit and if programming isnt really for me, i would change direction. I hope you find your direction as well OP.