As a people style thing I’ve encountered two broad types of engineers - the intuitive types, and the detail types. Neither type is wrong but it’s a different set of desires and interests. The detail type wants to ponder every corner case and every possible use (that the specific engineer cares about). The intuitive type can find this infuriating. They’d rather just build it and learn as they go. They have aesthetic tastes and feelings about different layers and they just go with their gut. I’ve seen both types be very effective. An intuitive type with good taste Will just have a sense of what to build and roughly why, but with many specifics left open. A detail type who is good can get to the neatest parts of a problem(maybe even rephrase the problem a bit differently) and solve it well, so well that it builds a foundation that everything else fits into easilt and with less grief. I think for both types a key aspect is being curious about the right things. Everyone has a different list of things they find interesting and other things they find to be grunt work and/or limiting as you said. Being aware of your own list of these is useful. Adding things to the list that the industry will hire you for could be called career management