A couple of nice projects I can think of are DragonRuby [1] - a 2d engine that uses SDL under the hood and mruby for its game logic. I created this [2] game jam entry in under two weeks of part time effort (has a few bugs but works)
[3] Sonic Pi - Music creation tool that uses ruby for instruction
I personally wouldn't but I have a leaning towards foss tools where possible, currently using godot, blender and gimp, my gamedev holy trinity.
Godot is good enough for a lot of 3d games especially if you have stylised art that doesn't need the highest fidelity rendering.
If I was trying to make a high production, high realism, commercial 3d game I would probably look at Unreal engine over Unity because I think the former is better but also Unity have shown they're willing test the limits of money extraction from their licensees, Unreal so far haven't pulled any similar nonsense as far as I'm aware.
I, very fortunately, landed a small NGO as my first dev job out of boot camp. We're a team of 3 with full autonomy over how we structure ourselves and the tools we use. Also, the bureaucracy is little to none.
Based on what I've read here, other sites, friends and colleagues, I should have changed jobs at least a couple of times by now but I've been here almost 4 years now and don't regret it. If you've found a place that you find fulfilling then I don't think I need to follow conventional advice. The downsides are less exposure to different project types and not working with a bigger team of experienced devs. I need to compensate for this by putting in extra effort on my side but I still think I've made the right choice for now.
I think if I ended up in a commercial dev job, I would have started looking at other options as well. It makes a real difference when you see you work being used for a greater good.
While you're considering other options, maybe also consider joining a smaller dev team where you have more autonomy and less red tape.
I think a lot of us suffer from this at different scales. I've always found it difficult to work on things that will pay off in the future, even if I plan something I just don't seem to be able to carry through a long term project to the end unless I'm in an environment where there's accountability such as deadlines on projects at work.
I'm very prone to instant gratification, which is why I can easily lose most of my spare time in video games, netflix, youtube etc.
I've seen a similar result with video games. I'd much rather play a self contained single player game that I can play through once than be hooked into a multiplayer adrenaline fest (for me that was team fortress 2 and left 4 dead).