However, I still find satisfaction in learning new things, trying to be better each day, overcoming new and more challenging problems and solving riddles in a nicer and more elegant way. I fail in all these things, too, of course - but it does give me a sense of purpose. And I don't appreciate any tool that comes my way, I'm picky that way. I love Python for its stdlib, React for its declarative nature, C for its simplicity... and avoid dealing with the JS build system of the month as much as I can. Enough to understand, but I try not to lose too much time and mental energy on them.
That said, if I didn't enjoy programming, I would be happy to move to management or even leave the industry to become a carpenter. I think that as long as you do something meaningful and also help other people (so that you can live off it), it doesn't matter much what that thing is.
would you go for project management in particular or are there other paths?
Couldn't agree more. I'm an SDE1.5 at best, working with a guy that's probably a 3.5. Writes code that's way over my head sometimes, and always well-tested and elegant.
Lately I've been helping him by debugging issues in eg tsconfig and various JS build fuckery, and it's been both a relief and a surprise that even really brilliant people struggle with a lot of the same stuff I do. It's not (just) that I'm stupid and unintuitive – the tools are too, even for experienced engineers.