I was feeling a certain way about UX too and the industry is currently requiring designers to be more than designers, which to me kind of sucks but a necessary path. At my current job I’ve been diversifying my skill set with product, eng, & sales knowledge that I’ve got just from being pulled into other short-staffed opportunities. I didn’t even want to but I did and I’m happy I learned it
I’m going back to school next month to finish my BA in business administration and try and see what opportunities I can bring my thought set to in the future. The act of digital designing was never long term for me, but I do love to solve problems at the end of the day. My background is consulting so that’s fueled a lot of that drive
RE your tools comment - I know tools will evolve to help us and that might spell doom for the workforce if there’s a level of confidence that POs find to automate everything they need…copywriters went first and this might be a risk for designers next unless we’re shepherding the process