Management, it's almost always management. It's quite horrifying to watch the rest of that companies software department either leave or be driven out by the single problematic person.
I got an offer to do the same work for more money elsewhere. But if I'm being honest, the environment at my last job was pretty hectic and I went out looking for a new job in the first place. I describe my last job to people as being like working on a pirate ship.
In a move that was later admitted to be a mistake, I was moved into an IC role from one where I managed several high performing teams. This came after a successful acquisition.
I was bored, not challenged, and completely disheartened to watch morale slowly evaporate. Teams were fractured and everyone went from moving fast with a common purpose to "meh" in a matter of months. New management was assigned, though they were 3000 miles away and showed a tremendous lack of experience in anything other than being a medium-sized cog in the big company machine. For example, the solution to being late on a release with no requires was to both rewrite it in a new language and build it for a completely different infrastructure, and with a 5 month deadline. Months later, people are still arguing about requirements.
Management made demands that exceeded resources available and kept blocking my vacation to try to meet deadlines. I literally left with 100% of my vacation accumulated.
I got tired of executive doublespeak. The company made lots of promises during recruitment that never materialized. It has made me super aware of the importance of culture. I haven't found any full-time positions that fit me yet. In the meantime, I am taking a break from corporate life and freelancing.
Bored. The people I really liked working with weren't there anymore. Development environment was getting more overbearing (emphasizing process just for the sake of it while ignoring its flaws). Finally just got sick of getting up every day and coming to work.
My last job was a freelancer, which was fantastic. But then I met three ambitious guys and we built a company with now over 100 employees in just two years.
I was way overworked on a way overrun project and since I was one of the most senior ICs, being pushed into leadership due to literal lack of actual managers for a while due to turnover and family leave.
That wasn't great, but it was managable because everyone understood our circumstances. When I went on my own family leave as my daughter was born, and came back to new management, I shouldered a lot of blame for the project because I was the last one left (it was a series of bad technical decisions from before my time) and still overworked despite having a newborn at home.
After finally going live, even when I warned them it would be a bad idea, I was in charge of the horrible production website. I gritted my teeth and left when my daughter was 9 months old, with no job in sight because I just needed a break.
Best decision I ever made. They fired my problematic boss 3 days before I left (he was one of the new managers, not good at managing or doing his technical work) and it took months to get the production site working. No idea if the next phase went through or not.
I had a nice five month sabbatical with my family and educational projects while I interviewed. It ended up with four job offers, and I'm thrilled with the ones I chose.
I was in a very similar situation. Overworked, but got a bit of a break due to family leave. When I came back, I was met with a lot of aggression and blame that I had never experienced at that job before. I was still overworking but not at the same level pre-baby - my wife needed me and my priorities had changed. It soon became clear that I was being managed out of my position and I found another job. Several trusted peers agreed that I was being managed out, but didn't offer any insights into why.
I 100% believe they didn't want me there any more once I had a child. The new job is very family friendly (not overworking), pays more, and so far is very low stress. I'm sure the stress level will go up as I become more integrated in the company, but I couldn't be happier.
My team lead was the least competent person on the team. This was constantly frustrating. When it finally bugged me enough to look around, much better pay was available. So that pretty much did it.
Exact same reason as me. They were the personification of Dunning-Kruger. It's so damn disheartening to go to work everyday when you know what you are working on is absolutely doomed to fail, and you are powerless to stop it thanks to office politics.
You might look around a bit. Alternately, I’ve found that not caring about consequences can be surprisingly liberating. As in: if it’s really that hopeless, you may as well speak your mind and say what’s fucked up. What are they going to do, fire you?
I am a team lead and my team members are at least my level of competency (which means they're usually better than me). I listen carefully, trust the team and shield them from problems from above.
Sounds like that makes you a pretty good team lead, though. Competence isn't all technical -- you have to be good at what you do. There's no benefit in a team lead that sucks at leading a team but is a total luminary at $TECHNICAL_TOPIC.
My current manager, one of the best I’ve ever had, is much the same. Technically not superb. But at least pretty good. Also a great listener, and really keyed in to what the team is up to, struggling with, contributing, etc.
The TL I had the issue with very much behaved like an IC, almost never met with me, seemed to be dialing it in most of the time, and just generally was very hard to explain things to. An absent parent, more than a bad parent.
I ran out of money trying to build my startup for just under 3 years. It was sad but a better decision overall. Went back to an old VPs company which was recently acquired as a senior web engineer. 10 months later I took over the web engineering team as our first engineering manager.
Was not given any meaningful work and felt I was not growing as a developer.
Been at my current job for 1.5 years, and feel the same way. I'm looking around, but after being a "Software Engineer" for 4 years, employers look for a particular set of skills and experience I simply have not gained during my track record. Feels like a catch-22.
I feel like I'm in the same boat. I'm not learning more valuable skills at my current place but it's hard to find something above junior with my skillset even though I have 4 years experience.
I'm thinking that you study the big picture stuff by reading HackerNews, and get good at the "interview questions." Then you build something on the side with a full modern stack and devops practice. That part is tough.
Then I think you (we'd) have the confidence and the experiences to fall back on during an interview.
The way out is as you've said. To fill the gaps, possibly attempt contributing to an open-source project you feel passionate about, just to demonstrate you can collaborate in a team and collectively solve problems.
I've done front-end & back-end on web applications, without ever specializing in either. These days, I mostly write single-page applications with a vdom JS library.
I left because the place was going downhill and morale was rock bottom. Weak management and funding shortfalls meant that non core departments were being starved of money. Staff were leaving or being made redundant and I was going to be the only one left in my department with little to do. I took the chance to apply elsewhere where they hopefully value the work I do and got in. I am taking a 20% pay cut to do so and I hope it works out. I might have been ok for another year but management turnover meant we have had 3 'staff reorganisations' in 4 years all of which seemed to be cost cutting measures and I can't see that it was going to go on much longer anyway. The latest set of management have come in and shown only slash and burn style; I think they could be aiming to cut back to core and then build from there. Perhaps it will work for them, but I was not optimistic about it.
Honestly, I think you should have stayed and keep working hard. With fewer competition and obvious competency, it was more like an opportunity than an unfortunate situation...
I understand what you say, but in truth the rewards available for hard work in this arena would not really have suited me. I do not want the responsibility of a higher position, especially since I see that many well qualified and motivated people are unable to keep up with the pressure. I like my life simple, so I have moved on. Actually, I am well pleased at my new position and although it is the virtually the same job, embedded organisational differences mean that the pressures and frustrations will not be the same.
They were starting to adopt a cutthroat culture where managers boast about firing people. I remember the point where I knew I was going to quit was when the VP called all the tech leads in a room and essentially told us, "Good riddance to these other folks, but good news! You are the ones we wanted to keep..."
My CEO was proud of his rapid firing skills, and the only people he kept around were the people who built his tech-debt ridden system in the first place, or put in 60h+ a week. For such a young company, the Github contributions were full of ex-people with a few hundred lines of code. Like, if you have to fire so many people you hire, then fire the people who are hiring everyone, or treat your employees better so they actually feel like doing good work for you.
101 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadI was bored, not challenged, and completely disheartened to watch morale slowly evaporate. Teams were fractured and everyone went from moving fast with a common purpose to "meh" in a matter of months. New management was assigned, though they were 3000 miles away and showed a tremendous lack of experience in anything other than being a medium-sized cog in the big company machine. For example, the solution to being late on a release with no requires was to both rewrite it in a new language and build it for a completely different infrastructure, and with a 5 month deadline. Months later, people are still arguing about requirements.
I hate them, refuse to play along, and the moment I can no longer keep the drama at least a meter away from me I start talking to recruiters.
That wasn't great, but it was managable because everyone understood our circumstances. When I went on my own family leave as my daughter was born, and came back to new management, I shouldered a lot of blame for the project because I was the last one left (it was a series of bad technical decisions from before my time) and still overworked despite having a newborn at home.
After finally going live, even when I warned them it would be a bad idea, I was in charge of the horrible production website. I gritted my teeth and left when my daughter was 9 months old, with no job in sight because I just needed a break.
Best decision I ever made. They fired my problematic boss 3 days before I left (he was one of the new managers, not good at managing or doing his technical work) and it took months to get the production site working. No idea if the next phase went through or not.
I had a nice five month sabbatical with my family and educational projects while I interviewed. It ended up with four job offers, and I'm thrilled with the ones I chose.
I 100% believe they didn't want me there any more once I had a child. The new job is very family friendly (not overworking), pays more, and so far is very low stress. I'm sure the stress level will go up as I become more integrated in the company, but I couldn't be happier.
What's a polite way of telling someone "Lead, follow, or get out of the effing way?"
Saying it during the exit interview would probably have the most impact.
Key points to bad team leadership: bad or no communication at all with your team members, no clear vision/direction, lack of ability to delegate.
My current manager, one of the best I’ve ever had, is much the same. Technically not superb. But at least pretty good. Also a great listener, and really keyed in to what the team is up to, struggling with, contributing, etc.
The TL I had the issue with very much behaved like an IC, almost never met with me, seemed to be dialing it in most of the time, and just generally was very hard to explain things to. An absent parent, more than a bad parent.
Also to work on something that has more impact on people instead of only profiting big corps.
Been at my current job for 1.5 years, and feel the same way. I'm looking around, but after being a "Software Engineer" for 4 years, employers look for a particular set of skills and experience I simply have not gained during my track record. Feels like a catch-22.
I'm thinking that you study the big picture stuff by reading HackerNews, and get good at the "interview questions." Then you build something on the side with a full modern stack and devops practice. That part is tough.
Then I think you (we'd) have the confidence and the experiences to fall back on during an interview.
What kind of stuff have you done so far?
I've done front-end & back-end on web applications, without ever specializing in either. These days, I mostly write single-page applications with a vdom JS library.
I left because the place was going downhill and morale was rock bottom. Weak management and funding shortfalls meant that non core departments were being starved of money. Staff were leaving or being made redundant and I was going to be the only one left in my department with little to do. I took the chance to apply elsewhere where they hopefully value the work I do and got in. I am taking a 20% pay cut to do so and I hope it works out. I might have been ok for another year but management turnover meant we have had 3 'staff reorganisations' in 4 years all of which seemed to be cost cutting measures and I can't see that it was going to go on much longer anyway. The latest set of management have come in and shown only slash and burn style; I think they could be aiming to cut back to core and then build from there. Perhaps it will work for them, but I was not optimistic about it.