?? it's not something that's hard to do, it's like the foundation of my career. I use the principles all the time. my whiteboard /verbal / code solutions are based on that.
Using the principles all the time is different from regularly reimplementing CS textbook trivia under conditions in which your job is on the line. Where do you work, that you have to constantly re-invent the wheel over and over again under such constraints? I'd consider such a job to be hell. Not hard, just tedious and uninteresting to the point of pain.
I'd also not consider it to be an engineering job. What you describe seems to me to be more like a CAD technician job at an engineering firm.
