Good for you that you didn't play the game.

I didn't either, then quit, took a couple of months to recover from the burnout, and joined a smaller, newer business run by honest people where my contributions were valued and I wasn't surrounded by ruthless, unscrupulous cunts. Fuck the corporate environment, and one well-known tech giant in particular.

> The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard

Be careful about getting jaded and cynical. This is far from a universal truth in the tech industry. I've hired a few ex-FAANG who had burned out and become cynical on work altogether. We had to let them go because their negativity was dragging everyone down.

A similar thing can happen to people who go through difficult divorces. If they let themselves become cynical, they start believing that marriage is a doomed institution and that all members of their ex-spouse's gender are equally terrible people and such. It can become very counterproductive to moving on.

Once walked out of a big meeting in frustration with a bunch of upper microsoft partners. The head of ops said something like "Well the only guy who actually knows what's going on just left. so the meeting is over" (at a fortune 500).

I was an asshole. the whole team was assholes. We burnt out after about 18 months and 4 acquisitions.

I don't want to be that person anymore

In my new job, I decided to care about the outcome a little less so that I can play my part better. Sure, we could fix all the stuff that I think is wrong here at the new place, but then we would not get the stuff done that will make more progress with our customers and product. Honestly, just caring a little less does wonders.

I sure wish I could quit and start my own business, though, because surely I could do better! At least my ego tells me that I could do better…

I used to stay at a place and say "Ok, maybe its me, what can I do to put the most effort in, and maybe that will change how upper level toxic management trickles down and fundamentally changes how politics over rule technology and data based decisions, or hard workers over letting the old boys club stay comfortable"

I actually used to believe something I could do would change that or, if I worked hard enough or tip toed around management to make them feel comfortable about their culture and still find time to do the work I felt was important in my own time without offending people who felt comfortable consistently underperforming and had positions of superiority over me, that I would be recognized for my work, work ethic etc.

no, that's not the case. Leave and leave fast because while I was the one who eventually chose to leave those companies, those companies are never going to acknowledge how much you are worth, or that they don't deserve you. They care about self preservation and staying there no matter how well you perform is not going to help you get a better job elsewhere.

if it's short enough of a time then you don't even have to put it on your resume you worked there. A lesson I wish I knew fresh out of college.

of course, all of these things about me are true. There is something you can always do to improve yourself, or change your mindset to help yourself change how you approach frustrating situations to change how a team might respond to a solution or a challenge, and foster a more positive environment.

The biggest red flag? When you are constantly challenging yourself to grow and change to meet the needs of the company and find novel ways to contribute in your spare time, and basically having the "how can I rise to the challenge. How can I challenge myself? How can I grow?" mindset when management does not have a "how can we stay open minded and rise to meet the challenge" mindset. It's not just not a good fit for you, but it will be damaging to your career to be at odds with superiors who will feel threatened by this mentality and approach you have. It will be obvious to your peers this is the case, and it will make them look bad. When your authority is based on optics and politics, people like you are a threat to the company.

the other and only red flag you need is when the company doesnt see people as its most valuable asset, it sees large amounts of funding, and pretty buildings and initial investment as it's most valuable asset. Stay away.

and as a last note on this big red flag, again, all the things the companies I worked for did, was cool, fit my skills and interests, experience in school and previous jobs. If I tell you "hey I worked here developing cutting edge technology and heres some metrics of our stats in the market" people would say wow thats cool.

And it was cool, and it could have been cool, but people ruined it. It's really about the people, no matter what you are working on. If you don't have high quality people, then you can't have high quality products or services. Period.

I went on a medication with a side effect of anger. I was told that at the beginning, I was told that there were other drugs I could use instead. I dismissed the concern, I'd be fine.

I got cocky. I got complacent. I convinced myself that the company needed me and would never dare replace me. I started to get a really bad attitude - openly sneered at projects that I didn't think could succeeded. I was probably right but I didn't help anyone by my griping.

I lost the job. Technically I was 'laid off' but it was that or simply get fired. I lost friends with my unpleasant attitude. I made statements that made me cringe with embarrassment now.

I'm doing fine currently, and am on a new medication. I'm making less though that I would have at my old job, and if I'd stayed there I'd be a lot less worried about my future. They did hang on to experienced engineers and for some people it was their last job before retiring.

I could blame the medicine entirely, but the truth is I'm still an arrogant asshole and I still fall into the trap of believing I'm irreplaceable and can get away with whatever I want.

I wish I'd changed medications. I wish that I'd listen to people who tried to help, who told me that there were teams that didn't want to work with me. I'd be in a lot better place.

I just spent a year at a company that was toxic towards team members who simply did not an aggressive personality. I was one of those team members. It led me to become pessimistic and depressed, and my positive outlook on life quickly changed and I became the most negative I've ever been. I began to constantly criticize IT and development decisions unconsciously, and it got so bad that eventually even the simplest JavaScript code would piss me off.

I started looking around and I got a job offer. As soon as I was going to accept the job offer, someone at my current employer discovered that I was planning to leave and my boss caught wind of it (I suspect I left my computer open). My boss pulled me aside and actually convinced me to stay because of the prospects of success. The company had already given me big bonuses and had very good benefits. That was four months ago. I made the choice to stay in a toxic environment just for some arbitrary gain.

Three weeks ago, out of seemingly nowhere, I got fired. I let go of a valuable opportunity because I convinced myself of some arbitrary gains by staying and I had fears of leaving.

I was desperate to find another job and I accepted a terrible offer using terrible technology. I thought I was fucked; I was severely depressed because it was the first time I had gotten fired from a serious position. But I got lucky. Although I'm now working at another company with terrible technology (ASP.NET Web Forms), the people are the nicest and sweetest coworkers I've ever met. I'm happier here, working with shitty technology and shitty prospects, just because my environment is that much better. And I'm not settling here: I am constantly looking for better positions (and contracts) and looking to advance my career until I find the company that I fit in and is a good fit for me as well.

DON'T SETTLE. LEAVE. If you're not happy, don't stay in the position you're in. Unless you need to build your resume or gain experience, there's no reason for you to stay faithful to a company with a toxic environment. You're going to be there eight hours a day, and if things don't work out they will IMMEDIATELY fire you and you'll be fucked, like I was. Usually a toxic environment simply means that you don't fit, and they will let you go simply for not being a fit. Don't make the mistake I made; leave.

One last thing: good developers tend to be overly critical, but that doesn't mean all overly critical people are good developers or even good workers. Many developers have terrible social skills and are unable to properly and professionally express their opinions or thoughts. Don't let anyone tell you how you should be treated or what you should be okay with. If you have a gut feeling that the people you work with are unprofessional, don't brush it off as "oh, they're developers. That's how all developers are." This is a fucking cop-out. I have met plenty competent developers who are able to give constructive criticism without being a complete dick.

I had a pretty good idea on what was expected of me even back then. Truth be told, I would have cultivated the more business-oriented skills with time if the management environment wasn't so full of self-congratulatory practices and people patting themselves on the back -- while all of them know perfectly well they contributed no more than $500 to their employer's bottom line at the end of the month.

I plan on doing a small business of mine so I have no choice -- I will learn everything necessary from this point of view with time.

But in that particular environment I didn't care about helping those people at all. They were all there because the job was stable, well-paid and expected almost nothing of them. The CEO was an idiot who bought a very cheap "success lingo" all the time. These people didn't want any changes; that meant they had to work more which was the exact thing they were strongly against (and were sabotaging everyone who tried to introduce a more positive change like myself and one girl who was leading team of designers and frontenders).

Thank you for your kind words. Even being strongly dismissive of my own abilities (which IMO is important if one wants to always evolve and improve himself) I believe I would indeed be a valuable addition to a managerial roster but quite frankly, I don't want to be involved in politics and fighting with people who despise change.

You're never going to find happiness that way, friend.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not bitter.

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Have you stopped to consider why you're seeing these results? Do you feel that your perceptions are an accurate picture of the situation?

And those people who couldn't see that? Their loss. Maybe you should start your own company where the actual skills are the most important hiring/jobkeeping factor, not how nice someone is. Results>niceties.

That was me, at a previous job. I eventually was able to bring myself to quit. I made a lot less for a few years but was much happier and realigned my career track for jobs that are more amenable to life.

I left Google after 6 years by carefully, over months, thinking through what was happening, what my limits was, what I'd do next, and whether I could show senior leadership at the company and my division was aligned with me, even if immediate leadership was acting like it didn't matter and playing games and never talked directly.

Regardless, people are awful, people who previously over-the-top treated me like I walked on water and we needed to get the project done by any means necessary, treated me like I was having a sudden mental health issue by not finding a magical way to force someone who had found 1000 reasons to delay and not compromise.

I don't know that I'll ever work _for_ someone else again, and even with A) my full knowledge going in and B) support from professional mentors in the company and mental health professionals, it's taken me almost a year to get back to 90% okay with the world. There's no karma here, they stayed there getting checks.

I agree with your point, and have lived it, but I think you are doing yourself and others a disservice by painting in such stark absolutist terms.

I wouldn't be able to make the decision to accept leaving without numerous previous decisions to bite my tongue and vest.

The problem was, I worked with idiots and the project that I joined failed. No one had any idea why the project failed.

(I wish I stayed at my old job.)

Even though the project I joined was honest and ethical, the sheer amount of idiocy of the people I worked with had a negative effect on me. Ultimately, the money and time wasted because a bunch of "senior" engineers couldn't figure out how to work with a simple embedded database was shocking.

I worked very hard day in and day out for a startup and then quit bcz of bad management and got no severance (not blaming anybody). At the same time not good engineers got fired, they all got severance packages.

It's a good life lesson though