Yeah, the recurring meetings were brutal. Near the end of my time in big tech, I had probably 80-90% of my time dominated by recurring useless meetings, design reviews, etc. I hadn't actually built a thing or directly delivered any value in 6 months at which point I decided it was time to go and do my own thing to gain full control of my time.

It's interesting to hear the diversity of experience. I worked at a startup and I built a lot of stuff. Like all day everyday. Close to no meetings. Mostly ad hoc stuff with product managers and other engineers. Bigger companies though I hear is kind of rough depending on the team.