What I actually do. My job is super interesting, but I can't find a good way to explain it to outsiders. I am a software engineer in the games industry. If I worked on gameplay it would be a bit easier, but I work on core tech/central engine tools. A layperson has no idea what that means and any examples I can think of to give them are just as confusing unless they already have some familiarity with AAA game dev infrastructure and workflows. This is surely a failure of me not being able to find a good way to explain it yet; it feels like I'm working on so many different things in this area that there isn't a single clear-cut description I can come up with that an outsider would easily understand.

Why it's so difficult (impossible) to accurately estimate software projects and why programming does not fit the "assembly line" model.

I'm working mainly with machine learning field, if there is something difficult for me, then it means I dont fully understand it. Then I'm trying to improve my knowledge. The good test of understanding is to try explain it to the wife :)