Not an engineer but a system administrator that worked with hardware in a data center environment. I don't think I'll directly answer your questions but it might be a comparable work environment to a lab

Running around the data center is fun, pacing around going from one machine to another, and tinkering with tools. Problem is once I'm in the zone, I would hit auto pilot and that meant doing things in haste. I've pulled the wrong hard drive in a raid set plenty of times. Being in the zone is great, you almost feel invisible, but one moment it's all gone due to a mindless fuck up, or impulsive response to an email that sounded more like a rant. Then que the over analyzing , guilt and shame and the rest of the day is ruined.

The tedious duties killed me. What do you want me to do? Test 100 ethernet cables and sort by size into these bins? Sure. Let me just braid these cables for fun, play lasso cat5 or roll them up and toss them like ninja stars (and miss a lot) into the bin for awhile before I get started.

I don't know if this is the ADHD but something about seeing a row of machines, tangled network cables and trying to make sense of it all frustrates me. Like when I have to trace a failed cable in a sea of them. I just want to give up. also it seems like my mind can't focus and it fucks with my depth perception, makes it hard to recognize stuff that's right in front of me. Over all my frustration tolerance is pretty low especially in said environment.

Speaking about planning, man I sucked at it. Nothing I did was ever uniform. Documentation, labeling servers, cabling. I had difficulties following guideline of how a rack should be setup. We even had to draw diagrams of how we set them up and I hated it so much.

Between the above and mix between long periods of down time and sudden hectic times, throwing off my rhythm, and working in a windowless basement with blaring AC 24/8, I wanted a career change.

The areas where I excelled were when I was doing system administration work, in the comfort of my desk without any distractions. Putting out fires was super fun and engaging, and often times the work comes to you as you get a steady pace of alerts, or people escalating issues to you.

I might just be speaking for myself but I think people with ADHD work well when the work pace is dictated by external factors, with minimal planning and "initiative" as possible, like doing tech support or a server at a restaurant where emails and orders steadily come in. That way there are no deadlines to miss.