Hello Fellow Engineer,
I have worked for years as an engineer and for years I disliked it too. The fact is I disliked many things about my life. I kept changing jobs, changing cities, changing countries looking for better conditions. Fortunately I realised that wherever I went I kept having more or less the same problems and that I couldn't be so 'unlucky' everywhere. I recognised that my attitude was the problem and the main problem was that I thought that I was a hell of a lot better at things that I was in reality. I denied that for a long time and thought that everyone and everything else was to blame but finally I faced up to the fact that actually, I was not a very competent engineer.
True confidence in any skill or activity can only come from robust competence in those things. It's hard to admit and accept a lack of competence but if you have the courage to explore this suggestion then perhaps you will find a lot of truth in it.
Work out the aspects of your engineering skills and capabilities that you are robustly competent at and for the moment focus on playing to your strengths. This will give you confidence and a relief from feeling despondent. Then work out what deficits you have between your current skill levels and the levels that you desire. Work from your foundation of strength and grow your ability incrementally.
I now enjoy working as an engineer because I accepted my inadequacies, played to my strengths and made improvements in other areas.
I spent a lot of time moving around and sometimes it is worth considering quitting. You can read more about my own personal experiences and thoughts on that here:
Nick Pagan » When It’s Okay to Quit
I hope that you don't quit engineering. What I most value about the profession is how good engineers are at solving problems. They have abilities at this far greater than most other professions because we have to deal with such difficult constraints of physical and technological limitations as well as commercial considerations. Progress in the journey of life comes down to how good your problem solving abilities are. You are fortunate to be in a great proving ground (but I understand that maybe you don't yet realise that).
Correspond with me if you want to talk about this further.
Take care,
Nick