Front end is how I got started programming, both as a hobby and professionally. It has a certain tangible quality to it that makes it both approachable and satisfying, but that often gets misconstrued as "easy". It's not easy!

I spent several years doing mostly-FE work and all the bikeshedding and meddling and "just make it do X why is it so hard?" burned that appreciation right out of me. It's also the first thing to get blamed for every bug and error, because it's what you see and interact with, which is just exhausting.

I took the technical skills I learned and transitioned to mostly backend where there's more "trust" (i.e., I don't understand what you do so I'll just let you do it) and autonomy. A small part of me misses the visually demonstrable part of front end, but the work culture around it I don't miss one iota.