I'm in my third year as a developer, and I've been feeling disillusioned a lot lately

There's nowhere else for me to write, so I'm going to vent a bit here. If it makes you uncomfortable while reading, feel free to hit back.

This year marks my third year. In my first year, learning anything was fun. In my second year, I was proud that the features I owned were running. But these days, there are many mornings when I get to work and think, "Did I come here to do this again?" It's not because there's no work. If anything, there's too much.

The most frustrating thing is feeling like I've stopped growing. New features are almost all similar patterns, and when I try to do something new, schedules and legacy code hold me back. Since I don't have a mentor, there's no code review, and no one to confirm whether I'm heading in the right direction.

So here's what I've been doing lately.

• One hour after work is always for my own code. Not company code.
• Every quarter, I pick one thing to "do properly this time" and leave a record of it.
• I deliberately look at job postings. Not to make myself anxious, but to see what the market wants.
• On weekends, I don't turn on my laptop at all. This has been the most effective.

I don't know if this is the answer. But if there are people who've been through a similar period, I'd like to know how you got through it. Was changing jobs the answer, or did you change something within the company?