I think it is more to do with your maturity allowing you to see more of your weaknesses.
When you are young, myopia makes you think you know it all and can solve everything. Young devs run gun ho into things and they focus on happy paths and ignore a lot of the complexity that you learn from experience, noting there is some exceptions.
The second problem is scope, when you are a junior you normally have a single project and a lot of guardrails to support your learning, and typically just need to think about a small bit of code. As you become more senior you are suddenly responsible for a P&L, other people, lifecycle management, stability and scalability.
Last year I was feeling overwhelmed and couldn't learn Quarkus and Java. Turns out I just needed a week of focus. I was able to take my years of .Net, PHP and JavaScript experience and produce amazing code in Java.
My biggest blocker to learning was managing other people, projects, scope, budgets, requirements, approving leave requests, preparing status reports, managing vendors, interviewing candidates, dealing with shareholders, backlog grooming, workshops, committee meetings, CAB preparation, ARB negotiations, and the desire to be instantly good.
This is also something many forget. Learning takes time. I learn one simple concept in a day or so. A framework? That is going to take a couple of weeks at a minimum. Staying motivated during that time can be difficult if you have nothing to directly apply what you just learned on. The old 'teacher when will I ever use this' question. For many if it is not right away it feels silly to do it.
When you are young, myopia makes you think you know it all and can solve everything. Young devs run gun ho into things and they focus on happy paths and ignore a lot of the complexity that you learn from experience, noting there is some exceptions.
The second problem is scope, when you are a junior you normally have a single project and a lot of guardrails to support your learning, and typically just need to think about a small bit of code. As you become more senior you are suddenly responsible for a P&L, other people, lifecycle management, stability and scalability.
Last year I was feeling overwhelmed and couldn't learn Quarkus and Java. Turns out I just needed a week of focus. I was able to take my years of .Net, PHP and JavaScript experience and produce amazing code in Java.
My biggest blocker to learning was managing other people, projects, scope, budgets, requirements, approving leave requests, preparing status reports, managing vendors, interviewing candidates, dealing with shareholders, backlog grooming, workshops, committee meetings, CAB preparation, ARB negotiations, and the desire to be instantly good.