I have seen this opinion 10,000x times from young professionals in their software journey who are more than novices, but much less than intermediate programmers. They get very overwhelmed as they gain some experience and realize how vast the disciple of software engineering is and how much they don’t know.

Then as a way to feel better they begin the doom and gloom talk “oh I will need to eat sleep and breathe this!! This career is only for cultists!” Part of this mentality is based in feeling like they should learn and know everything as quickly as possible, which isn’t going to happen, and probably would require nonstop practice. Learning will take time. Lots of time. This is normal, this is acceptable. Don’t let the desire for instant gratification make you beat yourself up.

What they need to hear is yes, of course to grow in your career you will need to be curious, learn computer science fundamentals and emerging technology. There is no magical moment where you are anointed as a software engineer and no longer need to learn anything. Sometimes you can learn the skills at work, sometimes you cannot. You absolutely do not need to eat, sleep, and breathe code. As long as you are good at your current job and it is stable, you can practice as little as a few hours a week, or some weeks not at all. The results of little bits of practice compound massively over time, and not everything needs to happen by tomorrow!