It definitely varies person-by-person. People who enjoyed l33tcoding, the act of programming, and the building process feel one way vs. the people who are in it for the end product, or enjoy the design process feel another. In a way, it's almost like those who enjoy the journey vs. the result (although the design process is also a journey).

Personally I enjoyed the act of programming/building. I'm struggling to put this into words, but software engineers have often been interested in solving technical problems, rather than business problems. At least I've felt this personally. I'm working on shifting that enjoyment toward the requirements gathering/design process. At the end of the day, it's still problem solving (which is the root of what I enjoy). But now it's more focused on solving business problems vs. technical problems. Which at the end of the day, is what is valuable to the business.

From the business perspective, this is great, because the end goal of software for the business is "business value". But it is a tough shift for some people to make (me included).

Edited to add: Writing code vs. designing software are both creative. Writing code has a much more concrete/objective feedback loop though.

I also particularly hate the feeling of AI being shoved down everyone's throat.

And I don't enjoy digging through the mess that AI creates, whenever I have a particular bug that it can't quite get right.