Exactly this. Grinding away inside various places I've worked for the last 10 years I longed for intense chunks of actually writing code. It was actually a rare treat to get something large and coherent enough to involve code production.

Most times were spent juggling paperwork, bouncing back and forth on code reviews, negotiating ambiguous requirements, and attending pointless meetings.

Granted... the agentic tools can also help with that. I've had them automate JIRA tedium for me before, much to middle management's chagrin.