I'm in your boat. I picked this career because I enjoy solving problems and thinking and understanding. I'm interested in how things work inside below the layers. To me, it's like the tech has a purpose of its own, and not just to provide value.

Using agents effectively is this whole other skillset including managing requirements, prioritization and, worse yet, I'm rarely left with any knowledge. I don't nearly get the same joy out of "I finished a task with an agent" like I do with "I had a problem, I delved deep to understand it, learned something new and solved it"

Then again, I bet people making furniture out of wood felt the same about industrial furniture factories. And it can be argued that not every use case needs custom tailored furniture...