I love when people appreciate what I have built - and this cycle of "work -> appreciation" has been shortest in software engineering. Other fileds rarely feel the same (eg research, hardware, etc.)
With the tiktokification of software engineering with AI - this cycle has never been shorter - though I do agree making production grade software still requires meaningful amount of efforts and us as programmers have always been writing toy software just for the fun of it.
But lately, I have been deeply interested in pursuing psychiatry research and have been thinking of doing it full time by going for a masters degree. All things aside, I am not sure how would I get over this extremly short feedback cycle of delight that software has made possible and if there's any advice on how should I think about this transition.