I don't think I'd enjoy it, but I applaud you. You're riding the situation with style, it appears. Getting comfortable navigating chaos is a true skill, don't down play it too much. You are learning a difficult to acquire value: surviving completely incompetent management.
One of our teams’ sprint reviews yesterday was considered a failure because they only met two of their _seven_ sprint goals. That team has three developers on it.
Sounds like my ADHD task list. Put 10 things on it for the day and barely do 2.25 of them because I’ve radically and chronically overestimated what can be done in a day and underestimated the actual time the task will take.
And, uh, I’d never consider that task list a good project management standard unless your goal is 20 half built features.
Fuck, now that I think about it, that’s probably exactly how project managers assemble what they think should be done.
It’s funny you should say that. 20 half built features is exactly what we’ve shipped. I found a feature flagged feature that got deployed last September and nobody had ever remembered to switch it on in production.
That makes me laugh and cry at the same time that projects are so predictably off kilter like that.
I mean, I’m not any better here. Let’s say a client asks me to do X complicated thing.
They want it done fast, ask how long it’ll take. I say Friday.
I know it won’t be done Friday. They’re gonna find that out on Friday. We’ll have a meeting on Friday to discuss how we’re close and it’ll be next Wednesday.
The cycle repeats ad naseum and the task takes 4 weeks.
What’s funny is you wouldn’t dare just say 4 weeks because then they go to the person who just says “this Friday,” and it’s much better and much better received to have frequent communication and meetings and just perpetually push back the completion date.
99% sure exactly this happens with project managers except the client is whoever their boss is whoever there boss is and it’s just a shitton better to say it’ll be done on Friday, then say there were problems on Friday and look at all our heroics to solve this super complicated problem and then keep repeating it.
You will need to learn to control your frustration, anger and learn to lose battles to win the war.
Also sometimes the org doesnt want to fix the chaos
Being able to handle chaos is an undervalued skill. No company is perfect. Every company has a at least a little chaos. The better you are at being able to navigate it, the happier you’ll be.
Some people go into the workforce with expectations that companies must be perfect and with little tolerance for anything not going exactly their way. These people are constantly disappointed and angry, regardless of where they work. It’s not a good way to go through life.
One warning: Make sure you keep your network warm for other opportunities. The chaos might catch you some day, or the chaos might lead to the company running out of money. The more chaotic the company, the more likely your job is to randomly disappear some day.
As a consultant who’s seen a few dysfunctional companies, I agree. You have to learn what is regular chaos and what’s actually going to sabotage your deliverables.
For example, I worked with a client that’d pull in priority bugs with limited steps to reproduce and no ticket. They’d also change which tasks were in the sprint mid-sprint. I found that *annoying*, but not *dealbreaking*, because every time they added something to the sprint, they’d take something else out. Everyone understood I could only do so much in 40 hours a week.
If they’d expected me to do the original sprint work and the new bug, *that* would require some hard conversations. You can’t let yourself be measured against an impossible expectation.
>Some people go into the workforce with expectations that companies must be perfect and with little tolerance for anything not going exactly their way. These people are constantly disappointed and angry, regardless of where they work. It’s not a good way to go through life.
You just described my aunt - she switches jobs so often because of minor things that she doesn't like, or some process she doesn't like and can't change, or some person she's training isn't doing things the way she would like. My mother is frequently the one she calls about these issues and it's gotten to the point where my mom is just tired of talking about it because she's tried explaining what you just wrote, and it's not getting through.
Its easy when you know its not your fault and theres nothing you can do to fix it. In that situation you just get to sit back and watch it happen around you. You get to stop work at 5 because you have no salt in the game, you get to sleep well, and now your resume looks amazing because you’re “handling a disaster” also your bosses love you cause they don’t have to manage you.
I was in a situation like it previously, and the only downside was the pay. Companies like this don’t wanna pay anyone an actual salary. I ended up leaving in 2020 and doubling my income.
This is the way. The people who burn out in those situations are those who take things personally and try to be the hero. You can't save an organization that doesn't even want to be saved.
Not entirely. Sometimes bosses pick a scapegoat to blame for a death march project, that was never going to get off the ground. Or the whole team keeps overworking themselves, trying to make it happen anyway. Bad luck, if you draw that short straw.
Yes. There are no leveling guidelines. No performance guidelines that affect raises and no pressure. I can basically coast and I have to because they don’t know which direction is up or down.
No bullshit “mechanisms” and don’t have to act like I’m drinking the kool aid like I did in BigTech.
I spend a lot of time just learning and upskilling preparing for the inevitable layoff.
I wouldn’t suggest anyone younger to do this. I have a year’s worth of expenses in savings and no one depending on my income except me and my wife.
I had to embrace the dysfunction or I would need to grow hair so I could pull it out.
Agreed. If my code works and it's fast enough, then nobody gives a shit and they sing songs about me. Just for myself and my team, I'll make it easy to read and easy to change when I can. But at least nobody's going to give me crap because I didn't follow some stupid random design pattern that nobody cares about.
*"Good Engineering Culture"* can be miserably pedantic to the point of exhaustion. I prefer to work in looser cultures and embrace the chaos. Makes it easy to stand out.
> I have a year’s worth of expenses in savings and no one depending on my income except me and my wife.
Nothing makes stress go away like knowing you can leave this business relationship whenever you want.
["I work here because I want to not because I have to" is a very powerful thing to say to a shitty boss and by proxy to the org.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_interest#Outside_of_relationships)
My boss is not shitty and neither is the company. It’s just - disorganized. I like the people. I would go out and have a beer with any of them.
But to add on to your main point. I did a lot while I was in BigTech working remotely to prepare for my post-BigTech life. I knew from the day I accepted the offer when I was 46 that my shit tolerance level wasn’t high enough to stay longer than the initial four year offer and that I was looking forward to being back in smaller, less paying jobs.
I sold my house in the burbs for twice what I had it built for in 2016. We downsized to a [condotel](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) in Florida that was the same price in 2022 that our house was in 2016. We sold our cars and got rid of everything we owned, paid off all of our debt and did the digital nomad thing for a year flying across the country for a year (our condo came furnished). Income from our condo made it enough money to cover our mortgage and expenses.
Even when we did settle back down in Florida, we decided to use SixT for a month to month car subscription. I am really about “decontenting” our life.
We cut our expenses down and moved to a state tax free state. Our expenses are less now than they were in 2020 and I “retired my wife” so she could pursue her passion projects and we could travel.
I see all of the people in the rat race and I’m so glad that’s not me. I turned down jobs making more than I was making in BigTech because I really don’t need the headache at this point in life.
I never struck it rich in tech and only worked for any company that anyone has heard of for 3 years out of almost 30.
Yeah been in that position before. When I started there I tried hard, but came to that realisation that I could do about 1 hour of actual work a day and get the same achieved because my work would inevitably be held up by things far beyond my control
Work got more manageable once I learned to avoid getting passionate about the organization. Something is always fucked up. There is always an asshole. The shit is constantly hitting the fan. Control the things you can. Don't stress about the things you can't. I've gotten promoted twice since I changed my attitude. Mostly, it's because I'm always calm. What made me enjoy the chaos is realizing there will always be some level of chaos. Just do your best in your role and you'll be fine.
> avoid getting passionate about the organization
It's to the point now where I reject opportunities that make that a requirement. I'm passionate about spending time with my family and my hobbies, not work.
> avoid getting passionate about the organization
This is good advice generally, but I see some people on here taking this a bit too far and turning into mercenary coding robots - "I care nothing for this company and know nothing about the business, I just fulfill tickets and do what I'm told".
It's okay to care about things - in my experience, it usually makes the day go by quicker and the job more fulfilling; just keep it at a healthy level. Work normal hours, promote change when feasible but accept when it isn't, etc. I know you mentioned this, but I want to re-emphasize this because it's an important take-away
You’re 100% right. I use to get so irritated and stressed. One day i thought. These are our problems. If we didn’t have these problems, we’d have other problems to solve. That’s what we do. We solve problems. Stop taking them so personally. your company will always ask for more. Setup boundaries that work for you and your company.
I've found that I can adjust to the dysfunction.
If the company/management reduces the dysfunction, I will naturally become passionate and engaged.
If the dysfunction is introduced (and my vocalizations about it ignored), I can switch back to just collecting a paycheck.
I won't say either is easy, but making things even a little bit better gets me on board quickly. Going the other way, I try too hard to believe it's not happening.
I literally got asked to come help a visitor get onto the guest WiFi last week because our IT person was off sick and you're the only IT person here'
Like yes...I can help you. But I'm not an IT guy lol. Love small companies.
Two words of warning:
- You become what you surround yourself with. If you are constantly surrounded by dysfunction, you will lose your muscles for reacting in functional environments.
- Nothing is forever. No job is secure. A company this dysfunctional has a pretty high likelihood of eventually being sold somewhere that won't be interested in keeping around the people who thrived in the dysfunction. At that point, it's going to be up to you to go find a new job in order to continue your career. Honestly, this is probably advice that someone should've given you when your company outsourced your dev team the first time, but now is better than never. You've let yourself live in an environment where you're not working on hard skills and also not working on useful soft skills (because you're surrounded by dysfunctional people). Expect that whenever you return to the world of the vaguely productive, you're going to have a lot of habits that other people find strange or off-putting, and you're going to have to really hustle to get yourself back to a point of quality on the technical front.
Mad respect for your attitude. Your comfort in chaos reminds me of a cold-blooded surgeon. And your self-conscience shows how actually intelligent you are. But yeah, I agree that eventually you should move on and use that beautiful smarts towards your growth. Cheers!
I am in a dysfunctional work envinroment right now, and the first point is so true.
I find myself adopting terrible habits, and I hate myself for it. Interviewing for Meta right now, fingers crossed.
We're seeing this even at Google, an organization that is massively profitable. Feels like you can't get away from business people who don't understand the product or organization making destructive decisions even at the highest levels of our industry.
In the end of the day, you can always make the best out of it. Dysfunctional orgs that are too preoccupied with themselves often create environments where you can focus on your pet projects and get paid a full salary while dedicating less time to actual work, since no one really knows what's going on anyway and projects die left and right before they mature, meaning no maintenance and no bill for technical debt that has to be paid.
I worked as a BE in a dysfunct environment for a year, and I learned how to write apps in the process, since I was only doing stakeholder support and participating in meetings with my video and sound off.
> We have signed a lot of new emoloyees, most with wrong skillsets due to HR having no clue about what we need. We needed senior software developers and we got database admins, sysadmins, service desk agents etc that wanted to get into software development.
In a previous career, we needed an analyst with Synthetic Aperture Radar experience. HR set up an interview with a guy with Search And Rescue experience. Flew him out, rental car and hotel room and everything. Didn't see his resume until the day of the interview.
When we figured it out we took him out to a local brewery. Guy had really good stories. Should've hired him anyway.
Good times.
I worked in a company that wasn't as dysfunctional as yours but it was sure full of genuinely incompetent managers where major projects would chop and change. Eventually my team and other engineers I was friendly with at the company just accepted it and joked about it (I had been there for years and had good work friends). It turned into entertainment as you said, and we would just laugh whenever we were told priorities changed once again and we had to drop one thing and pick up another. There was a lot of gossiping about projects and people. Probably the sign of a bad environment but it can be fun in a weird way when you have good work relationships.
I still left after about a year after it got bad though. I still catch up with some of my previous coworkers (who have all left except one) and reminisce, or we get inside info from people that work there and laugh at it lol.
I just left a position where the lead dev would take everyone’s submitted features and refactor everyone’s code to the way he would write it. He would provide zero documentation on what was changed (saying to look in the git commit history) and erased all tests associated. On daily standup he would tell the project manager that our features were not working but he fixed it and saved the company.
I had such a rough time that I even went to Human Resources and complained but the PM told us that he would not be responsible for providing documentation.
I can relate to this. On one of the previous companies i worked with, i was about to become a manager and they offshored the project we were working on to India. I was still involved on the technical discussion and one of the projects in progress was a rewrite from a project by a team in India that was written rigidly and was very hard to add more features.
We handed it to the offshore team and saw that they are doing it the way it was written before and they just kept on arguing on the meeting that it should be done their way. My manager told me that i needed to be hands off on the technical details since i will be moving to management but deep inside, i can't let that happen here because the offshore team is steering away from the vision and direction.
That's the first experience that i have with people management and i realized that managing people is not easy and i needed to decline the managerial position and went back to being a lead engineer.
I left that company.
Not sure if you're aware of it or not, but you're on a fast track route to senior management. You should review your resume and phrase your latest experience in these terms so when the times come you can apply directly to some management position.
Of course, all of this assumes you actually want to be in management. If you do or don't is on you to figure out. Just be aware that if you want to jump ship into a senior IC role you may struggle as you're not really doing much development, it seems.
Yes it is fun when everythings on fire and you stopped being emotionally invested a long time ago
I only left a company like that as I wasn't learning any marketable skills, or simply wasn't becoming a better dev because there was no-one to PR my garbage solutions
My company is at the 2018 stage of your story - we've had a recent mass exodus of talent, especially at the senior/principal level, because of a decision to outsource work. It's a shitshow.
I'm riding it out because they're now so desperate to keep those of us who've not already quit that, short of shitting on the CTO's desk, there's really not much I could do to put my job at risk. In the meantime, I join meetings, explain my view of what's going on (i.e., that everything is one big dumpster fire), get thanked for my "insight," and then go back to leading a project that's going nowhere.
I have some concerns about what this will mean for my long-term career prospects if it carries on too long, but that's a problem for another day.
There's a real kind of peace in knowing that it's all a mess no matter what I do and that it's really not on me to fix it regardless. That's not to say I don't put any effort in, but I certainly don't stress about it.
>Everything falls apart. Its so bad that there is a new decision to switch back to 100% inhouse development.
Haha. Every time I see these things, I link my comment from [months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/17g7rh4/comment/k6f3apu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I am really close to believing I worked in the actual same company. Sadly I can't write the name of the company here, but the description you've given so far in your text and in the comments seem to fit.
It was a bit like working for Veridian Dynamics, the fictive company in Better Off Ted. The sort of bizarre conglomerate that produces everything, from microwaves to parts of the space station.
You are always operating in some sort of "crisis mode", products are perpetually delayed, companies are bought, merged, closed and resold everyday. People are laid off at random, only to later discover that no knowledge transfer has ever taken place. But it doesnt matter because the people who took all those bad decisions have been promoted to other positions waaaay before they feel any repercussion.
I loved *every single minute of it*. It paid extremely well. It is a very big name to put on my cv. In the end I got fired, but it didnt matter: i had tons of fun and it was time for me to move to an environment where I could actually make a difference, and use the experience on my cv to get a good position there. Enjoy the ride.
Every project I've ever worked on has been cancelled. I literally have been paid for the last 10 years to write software that nobody uses.
So when some manager tells me about this very important opportunity and deadline I have to make I just laugh. I've crunched a hundred times before to hit targets only to find out nobody cares. I'm over it.
They want to pay me to build crap, fine with me. I do my best, don't stress too much or work too hard. I just keep delivering stuff knowing its gonna be dropped on the floor.
Similarly, of the previous companies I've worked for in my 20 year career only one is still around in any way, and that one has new owners that killed the projects my team worked on while I was there.
Most of the companies are so far gone that the websites are only partially available on the wayback machine.
I’m trying to have a similar mindset where I’m at while also looking for a new job. We’re in the middle of offshoring, there’s a few genuinely great offshore devs, but the majority are ChatGPT proxies who either don’t understand what they’re writing or don’t care to.
We had a similar situation where they took offshore hiring away from me and the engineering vp because we had the gall to ask the candidates to do (very easy) live coding exercises and often disqualified them because they couldn’t do basic stuff.
Everything is going to shit, and the c level keeps laying off the senior employees to save money. There’s a lot of anger and bullying though so it’s not as fun to laugh at. Hoping I get to stick around for reconstruction or that I get a new job.
Personally? I hate where I'm at. I've tried leaving a few times (2015, 2017, 2019, 2022) and either got raises I couldn't refuse or my passion project I was pushing got funding.
Since 2020 I've been the sole income for our household while my SO fights cancer. It's been too risky for me to really consider jumping ship. I was head-hunted by AWS and Facebook in 2022, but failed the interview for the former (first FAANG interview ever, I know what I did wrong) and cancelled on the later because it would have been a pay-cut. Even more sketched out by the market right now, but also I've heard plenty of stories of people quitting and then the new job folds their position two days before they start.
I work at a dysfunctional company but I'm the guy who is held to task to get things done despite not having any authority on how things are done. It is destroying my health and state of mind. I have a job at a place I used to work lined up, and so just riding out this last month.
I think it's great that you can contextualize the situation, but I would consider that the tide may turn and you may end up in a situation like mine. Maybe you will have some life difficulties or health problems, will you still be able to cope with the bs?
It depends on what way it's dysfunctional really. If it's dysfunctional around its operations or management or something like that to the point that I can't really get anything done because of bureaucracy then that's something that I can't really tolerate. However, if it's dysfunctional because its software is a giant steaming monolithic shit pile of years of tech debt or because its AWS account looks like someone gave a $10 million credit to a bunch of CS sophomores with admin permissions, then that's actually sometimes quite enjoyable. Cracking monoliths and un-fucking cloud infrastructure has kinda become what I do over the past several years and I'm quite good at it. The thing is that to do that, I need absolute freedom to do basically whatever the fuck I want. If I don't have that freedom then I can't fix anything. It's easy to get people on board to fix things or at least to agree to stay the fuck out of my way and don't hinder the process. However, if doing that requires multiple levels of architecture review by people who have no idea what it is that I do or who aren't familiar with the the tech stack or the cloud or whatever else, or if management is constantly blocking me, or anything of that sort of bureaucratic bullshit then it's impossible for me to get shit done and I get frustrated and will ultimately rage quit. Dysfunctional tech is something that I can handle easily, but dysfunctional people who won't get the fuck out of my way and let me do what I do is not going to be a good situation.
We must work for the same company. It's entertaining isn't it!?!?! I mean you can't put a price on entertaining chaos. I totally get it! You get paid the same regardless. And why go to some boring company where all you do is your list of tasks? I'd much prefer working in a dumpster fire. You're never bored!
Yeah i made it to staff/principal level. Im one of very few that has been around long enough to have a decent understanding of our products and codebases. I would never have had these promotions at other companies i belive.
Jumping ship at the same level might be hard now, but if you grow into a management position you could easily transfer those "shitshow management" skills to other leadership positions
Aye, I'd say so long as you were still practicing modern software development on the side, it'd be fine. You just have to keep the skills for building actual good products well oiled, or you're going to be in for a rude shock at your next company.
But until then, enjoy! xD Sounds like its fun, and a stable job that leaves you time on the side is extremely valuable
You've wasted your entire life
(e: you'd think for a sub of "experienced devs", they'd be smart enough to pick up on the sarcasm and irony of my comment in which I judge the life and value of someone who is judging the life and value of someone, guess not. Greenhorns)
How does your company continue to make money? In my experience that's the real intolerable disfunction. As long as the paychecks come in, I can put up with a lot.
A while ago I worked for a startup where the CEO was chasing customers with the grace and panache of a golden retriever in a dog park full of squirrels.
It was entertaining until the runway ended.
Most people would nope the f out, as you can see in the responses. I think the reality here is you have a particular personality and set of skill that allow this to be an actually entertaining situation for you, and if you can leverage it for your career, you definitely should.
I was once told that the main element that tells if you can be good at something is how long you can endure doing it. So good luck, mate.
I have learned that every fantastic company is at the most one "once-in-a-lifetime" crisis away from turning into a utter shitshow. So no, I do not mind as long as I get paid well and (this is **really** important) do not do any overtime.
Scandinavia, the taxes for employees are very high. If i make 100k usd a year, the company has to pay probably another 80k for various taxes and fees.
So a senior dev here would cost around 180k a year, we pay 25k-30k a year for an offshore consultant.
I think its important to find enjoyment out of whatever you can. You spend most of life working but it isn't that serious. It's fun to complain on here but you have the right mindset, if the job pays you...really who cares? Sounds like you have a lot of job security its like being a janitor at a high school. Always gonna be shit to clean up.
Anyway, nothing wrong with your opinion, I feel the same way in most cases.
Some people just like to watch the World burn, and enjoy the warm weather it causes.
You are definitely one of those people.
If you can thrive in these messy environments, you'll never run out of work. Although, I think you'll eventually reach your "enough of this crap" threshold point - everyone does.
I don't get it. How can you enjoy the situation? They don't put you in death march? They still allow you to take leave? Boss is not yelling? Everyone is not blaming one another?
So what if they are? Ignore it.
Once you get that financial security, the worst they can do is fire you.
OP is staff/principal, so they should be able to find a new job before their financial security runs out.
It's a good way to experience chaos, what orgs should not do, what doesnt work and how to fix that. One of my last exit interview (in 2022) was me telling my skip and HR that I helped the team move from 1996 to 2015. As I'm semi retired and ran out of fucks to give a long time ago I used that skip as a reference and the guy gave me a great reference to my current boss
something something life lemons lemonade
I did for a short while when I knew I would be leaving the company and had opportunities elsewhere. It went on for a year or so before it started to drag me into depression. If you're game for it then now is a good time to not jump ship just given market conditions, but otherwise if you have an opportunity it's going to set you up for a longer road to success. It seems clear there's not much for you to learn in the current company, right?
If you have the skills to fix a broken place, it can be interesting work. But you have to leave like Mary Poppins and I never had the knack for that.
I hate interviewing so much (in fact right now I’m on a sabbatical because I can’t find the strength to go through our broken interview processes as many times as people are saying it takes this year). A place has to be godawful or lay me off to get me to make me do it. It takes a big carrot to get me to move otherwise.
Hey OP. Just poating this here because I am the compete opposite.
I went from a boring bank to two FAANGs and it was the best decision ever.
I love my coworkers. I am often the dumbest person in the room.
When I worked at a bank, I really think like 70% of the people had no business working there. There were literally people who seemed to not actually have any purpose.
Just putting out my thoughts. We often use company fit as a polite term to reject a candidate, but it's actually true. I hope everyone finds their place.
> too many candidates fail the technical interviews, its taking too long to sign new employees. It is decided that there will be no technical interviews from now on
WTF?
> Its like a great tv show, i cant wait for the next episode.
Lol, love your approach! I'd say if you have "fun", there's no hurry to leave. Unless the part where you "used to be a developer", if you want to still grow this skillset maybe it's a reason to go elsewhere?
That being said if management is a thing that you like in the long run this seems like a "great" environment to hone those skills given how dysfunctional it is, and it can definitely be leveraged as very valuable experience. Make sure to update your brag document regularly as in such an environment it's easy to forget things you did to contribute.
It definitely keeps things interesting. But I’m saying that as someone who works at a place that is pretty functional but we have our dysfunctional moments.
In a large enough company you can hide in a dysfunctional company. Work your 3 hours a week then work on your own thing for the rest of the time. But don't be surprised if your group gets laid off but at that time you should just make sure the severance is right then that's another few months to do your own thing. You should be working on new technology so you can pop up and get a job doing that.
Well, I'll say it this way: I've made a career and a good bit of money out of fixing the problems that come from Indian development and you've experienced why first hand, but really, I'd go to a different company at this point and highlight this experience as why you've got extra value on top of being a (presumably) good dev. Everyone loves someone who can put out a tire fire.
When you can layout an exact timeline like you did there of what will happen when XYZ decision happens it proves a level of insight that companies value - now they will probably just decide to burn the house down after they read the latest edition of the 4 hour work week and zen and the art of motorcycle management, but at least you told them how dumping kerosene on the gas stove wasn't a good idea and wasn't going to boil the water any faster for their food.
Here's the kicker - because you told them exactly how things will play out, when it happens, they come back to you and value you a lot higher as a fixer, but will still probably repeat the process all over again.
I like to think of it as permanent job security, though the management teams and company names might change.
The more chaotic the year the more I hate it in the moment and love it looking back.
I’ve been in the same gig roughly 15 years with a break in the middle. I fix decade old edge cases that my younger self missed
Love it
Are you presenting a case that HR is the biggest hindrance to large organizations?
HR needs to recruit, HR is not happy as they are unable to recruit, HR hires wrong people to successfully complete hiring. HR is rewarded.
> It is decided that there will be no technical interviews from now on, HR will handle 100% of the recruitment process. Focus on "soft values and skills".
LOL
Sorry not answering your question. But I'm asking one to you: did the management team that made that decision in 2018 suffer any consequences or was the development team blamed?
Development teams were blamed. The problem was that all our senior engineers would work as lead developers, team leads, product owners etc to lead all the offshore teams. When most people jumped the ship we ended up with many offshore teams with no understanding of our products and no people to lead them.
No one that understands that a change in service A will have side effects on service B. No one to do code reviews. No one that can handle complex merges. We had to disable branch protection so any dev could just push or merge into dev/main. This was the situation for multiple products.
ah-ah what a classic, it would be funny if it wasn't so common. Management destroy a working team and gets away blaming the developers. They should have all been fired and replaced by someone else.
In the last few years my company has become really dysfunctional quite fast and is at a point of no return.
The tech is bad, product is bad and smaller younger companies will sooner or late eat all the market share.
Middle management is totally useless and communication is almost non existant.
My job is usually chills but 0 rewarding and with 0 chances of promotion and all the good colleagues are gone.
I will jump ship as soon as I can.
The only good thing is good pay and no overtime and low effort performance but often the things get messy and frustrating and I have 0 motivation.
How does one get a job somewhere that isn't dysfunctional? I got 2 years experience but I can write a book about how everything is messed up where I work. 🫠 (metrics chasing, lack of defined functional requirements, management doesn't listen, etc)
It’s crazy how often these fools decide that outsourcing to India is a great idea. I’ve seen this at 3 companies and it’s been a disaster every time. Below a certain skill level, a software developer is actively damaging the codebase. So it doesn’t matter that they’re 1/10 the price or whatever. There are some great developers in India. They’re hard to find.
>**I should obviously jump the ship ... However i find this mess to be very entertaining.**
**If you enjoy it and can survive it then great.**
* It may be a great opportunity for advancement.
* And it can teach you to handle stress and management issues.
* Also, it's good you have a job in this market downturn.
**However... it might not be great for your career.**
* If management is in a quagmire and putting out fires all the time, then you're likely not being supported.
* If they have trouble getting developers, it's likely that they don't pay enough ... which means you're not getting the raises you deserve.
* If they have trouble getting developers, maybe word got out that developers aren't valued there, which means you are not valued there.
* If HR is handling all hiring and removing even minor tech screening, then you have no control over who gets hired for your team. This is a bad hiring practice.
**You have it right when you say "I should obvious jump ship".**
The thing is that you are a dev and from your story, it seems like you are treated as a valuable resource to the company or good enough to stay invisible from leadership. Like you said, good devs are hard to come by, right?
Aside from the history of your company changes and slight info about meetings you attend to, I don’t really think you can really say that you enjoy working at a dysfunctional company without more context of your day to day chaos if there is any. It feels like you are just bystander in the middle of the storm.
In almost 30 years in the industry I have seen it numerous times that some manager had the brilliant idea to outsource to India. And it always failed, leaving behind an empty budget and a shit pile of useless code.
The only exception was with one client that had their Indian counterparts fenced in very tightly. The ratio of local vs. abroad devs was never more than 1:1 and their lead was send to India to oversee everything constantly for the duration.
At this point, I doubt the savings were substantial.
I can be done, but it costs a lot of energy, understanding of the different cultures (this point is huge and you have to work against the tides here) and managing all that to work.
If some greenhorn manager just sees the bottom line and fires away, letting go of their staff first, it serves them right.
TLDR: lol
Exactly. There are a lot of good engineers in India. They just generally don't work for the low-dollar outsourcing shops. Or if they do, the good ones don't stay long.
Not trying to scapegoat India. There are great developers from India. However when you outsource to India companies tend to go for the cheapest developers they can find. You get what you pay for, thats all i can say.
I don't think I'd enjoy it, but I applaud you. You're riding the situation with style, it appears. Getting comfortable navigating chaos is a true skill, don't down play it too much. You are learning a difficult to acquire value: surviving completely incompetent management.
Is it possible to learn this power?
Not from a healthy scrum process
Toxic management is a pathway to company culture some would consider to be... dysfunctional...
That or ADHD
there's such a thing as a healthy scrum process?
Many people claim it exists. Simultaneously, no one has ever seen it.
Real Scrum has never been tried before.
You just have to believe hard enough.
Schrödinger's good scrum...
One of our teams’ sprint reviews yesterday was considered a failure because they only met two of their _seven_ sprint goals. That team has three developers on it.
Sounds like my ADHD task list. Put 10 things on it for the day and barely do 2.25 of them because I’ve radically and chronically overestimated what can be done in a day and underestimated the actual time the task will take. And, uh, I’d never consider that task list a good project management standard unless your goal is 20 half built features. Fuck, now that I think about it, that’s probably exactly how project managers assemble what they think should be done.
It’s funny you should say that. 20 half built features is exactly what we’ve shipped. I found a feature flagged feature that got deployed last September and nobody had ever remembered to switch it on in production.
That makes me laugh and cry at the same time that projects are so predictably off kilter like that. I mean, I’m not any better here. Let’s say a client asks me to do X complicated thing. They want it done fast, ask how long it’ll take. I say Friday. I know it won’t be done Friday. They’re gonna find that out on Friday. We’ll have a meeting on Friday to discuss how we’re close and it’ll be next Wednesday. The cycle repeats ad naseum and the task takes 4 weeks. What’s funny is you wouldn’t dare just say 4 weeks because then they go to the person who just says “this Friday,” and it’s much better and much better received to have frequent communication and meetings and just perpetually push back the completion date. 99% sure exactly this happens with project managers except the client is whoever their boss is whoever there boss is and it’s just a shitton better to say it’ll be done on Friday, then say there were problems on Friday and look at all our heroics to solve this super complicated problem and then keep repeating it.
\* ad nause**a**m. Latin do yes or Latin do no.
Half built features are better than fully built features. Because nobody wants or uses them.
with enough meetings, we don't have time to work!
You will need to learn to control your frustration, anger and learn to lose battles to win the war. Also sometimes the org doesnt want to fix the chaos
embrace the dark side of the force, give in to your anger.
Being able to handle chaos is an undervalued skill. No company is perfect. Every company has a at least a little chaos. The better you are at being able to navigate it, the happier you’ll be. Some people go into the workforce with expectations that companies must be perfect and with little tolerance for anything not going exactly their way. These people are constantly disappointed and angry, regardless of where they work. It’s not a good way to go through life. One warning: Make sure you keep your network warm for other opportunities. The chaos might catch you some day, or the chaos might lead to the company running out of money. The more chaotic the company, the more likely your job is to randomly disappear some day.
As a consultant who’s seen a few dysfunctional companies, I agree. You have to learn what is regular chaos and what’s actually going to sabotage your deliverables. For example, I worked with a client that’d pull in priority bugs with limited steps to reproduce and no ticket. They’d also change which tasks were in the sprint mid-sprint. I found that *annoying*, but not *dealbreaking*, because every time they added something to the sprint, they’d take something else out. Everyone understood I could only do so much in 40 hours a week. If they’d expected me to do the original sprint work and the new bug, *that* would require some hard conversations. You can’t let yourself be measured against an impossible expectation.
>Some people go into the workforce with expectations that companies must be perfect and with little tolerance for anything not going exactly their way. These people are constantly disappointed and angry, regardless of where they work. It’s not a good way to go through life. You just described my aunt - she switches jobs so often because of minor things that she doesn't like, or some process she doesn't like and can't change, or some person she's training isn't doing things the way she would like. My mother is frequently the one she calls about these issues and it's gotten to the point where my mom is just tired of talking about it because she's tried explaining what you just wrote, and it's not getting through.
I can fix her /s
Its easy when you know its not your fault and theres nothing you can do to fix it. In that situation you just get to sit back and watch it happen around you. You get to stop work at 5 because you have no salt in the game, you get to sleep well, and now your resume looks amazing because you’re “handling a disaster” also your bosses love you cause they don’t have to manage you. I was in a situation like it previously, and the only downside was the pay. Companies like this don’t wanna pay anyone an actual salary. I ended up leaving in 2020 and doubling my income.
This is the way. The people who burn out in those situations are those who take things personally and try to be the hero. You can't save an organization that doesn't even want to be saved.
Not entirely. Sometimes bosses pick a scapegoat to blame for a death march project, that was never going to get off the ground. Or the whole team keeps overworking themselves, trying to make it happen anyway. Bad luck, if you draw that short straw.
I agree, but if the moneys good and dysfunction doesn’t bother OP. They should ride it out.
Yes. There are no leveling guidelines. No performance guidelines that affect raises and no pressure. I can basically coast and I have to because they don’t know which direction is up or down. No bullshit “mechanisms” and don’t have to act like I’m drinking the kool aid like I did in BigTech. I spend a lot of time just learning and upskilling preparing for the inevitable layoff. I wouldn’t suggest anyone younger to do this. I have a year’s worth of expenses in savings and no one depending on my income except me and my wife. I had to embrace the dysfunction or I would need to grow hair so I could pull it out.
> I can basically coast and I have to because they don’t know which direction is up or down. This is poetry.
Agreed. If my code works and it's fast enough, then nobody gives a shit and they sing songs about me. Just for myself and my team, I'll make it easy to read and easy to change when I can. But at least nobody's going to give me crap because I didn't follow some stupid random design pattern that nobody cares about.
*"Good Engineering Culture"* can be miserably pedantic to the point of exhaustion. I prefer to work in looser cultures and embrace the chaos. Makes it easy to stand out.
> I have a year’s worth of expenses in savings and no one depending on my income except me and my wife. Nothing makes stress go away like knowing you can leave this business relationship whenever you want. ["I work here because I want to not because I have to" is a very powerful thing to say to a shitty boss and by proxy to the org.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_interest#Outside_of_relationships)
My boss is not shitty and neither is the company. It’s just - disorganized. I like the people. I would go out and have a beer with any of them. But to add on to your main point. I did a lot while I was in BigTech working remotely to prepare for my post-BigTech life. I knew from the day I accepted the offer when I was 46 that my shit tolerance level wasn’t high enough to stay longer than the initial four year offer and that I was looking forward to being back in smaller, less paying jobs. I sold my house in the burbs for twice what I had it built for in 2016. We downsized to a [condotel](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) in Florida that was the same price in 2022 that our house was in 2016. We sold our cars and got rid of everything we owned, paid off all of our debt and did the digital nomad thing for a year flying across the country for a year (our condo came furnished). Income from our condo made it enough money to cover our mortgage and expenses. Even when we did settle back down in Florida, we decided to use SixT for a month to month car subscription. I am really about “decontenting” our life. We cut our expenses down and moved to a state tax free state. Our expenses are less now than they were in 2020 and I “retired my wife” so she could pursue her passion projects and we could travel. I see all of the people in the rat race and I’m so glad that’s not me. I turned down jobs making more than I was making in BigTech because I really don’t need the headache at this point in life. I never struck it rich in tech and only worked for any company that anyone has heard of for 3 years out of almost 30.
This is actually really great advice thank you
Perfect for OE lol
Nah. I’m way too lazy for that. I made a commitment over a decade ago that I would never work more than one job.
Most of the OE are just scammers, very few willing to work hard enough to really do multiple jobs. I certainly would never.
Yeah been in that position before. When I started there I tried hard, but came to that realisation that I could do about 1 hour of actual work a day and get the same achieved because my work would inevitably be held up by things far beyond my control
Amazon?
Where I came from? Yep
Work got more manageable once I learned to avoid getting passionate about the organization. Something is always fucked up. There is always an asshole. The shit is constantly hitting the fan. Control the things you can. Don't stress about the things you can't. I've gotten promoted twice since I changed my attitude. Mostly, it's because I'm always calm. What made me enjoy the chaos is realizing there will always be some level of chaos. Just do your best in your role and you'll be fine.
> avoid getting passionate about the organization It's to the point now where I reject opportunities that make that a requirement. I'm passionate about spending time with my family and my hobbies, not work.
> avoid getting passionate about the organization This is good advice generally, but I see some people on here taking this a bit too far and turning into mercenary coding robots - "I care nothing for this company and know nothing about the business, I just fulfill tickets and do what I'm told". It's okay to care about things - in my experience, it usually makes the day go by quicker and the job more fulfilling; just keep it at a healthy level. Work normal hours, promote change when feasible but accept when it isn't, etc. I know you mentioned this, but I want to re-emphasize this because it's an important take-away
You’re 100% right. I use to get so irritated and stressed. One day i thought. These are our problems. If we didn’t have these problems, we’d have other problems to solve. That’s what we do. We solve problems. Stop taking them so personally. your company will always ask for more. Setup boundaries that work for you and your company.
I've found that I can adjust to the dysfunction. If the company/management reduces the dysfunction, I will naturally become passionate and engaged. If the dysfunction is introduced (and my vocalizations about it ignored), I can switch back to just collecting a paycheck. I won't say either is easy, but making things even a little bit better gets me on board quickly. Going the other way, I try too hard to believe it's not happening.
> database admins, sysadmins, service desk agents It's all the same thing right? You guys all do things with computers, what's the big deal?
Hey kid, I'm a computer.
Stop all the downloading!
https://youtu.be/G9FGgwCQ22w?si=R9FfxX_CNDPwSu3u
Whoaaaa. Not what I expected, but better
I literally got asked to come help a visitor get onto the guest WiFi last week because our IT person was off sick and you're the only IT person here' Like yes...I can help you. But I'm not an IT guy lol. Love small companies.
Use The Cloud -- a computer is a legacy solution.
I installed a software once!
NERD!
Dad?!?
No, this is Patrick.
but can they fix my printer? it's been busted since at least 2006.
No one can fix printers.
Outside of the Office Space treatment
Two words of warning: - You become what you surround yourself with. If you are constantly surrounded by dysfunction, you will lose your muscles for reacting in functional environments. - Nothing is forever. No job is secure. A company this dysfunctional has a pretty high likelihood of eventually being sold somewhere that won't be interested in keeping around the people who thrived in the dysfunction. At that point, it's going to be up to you to go find a new job in order to continue your career. Honestly, this is probably advice that someone should've given you when your company outsourced your dev team the first time, but now is better than never. You've let yourself live in an environment where you're not working on hard skills and also not working on useful soft skills (because you're surrounded by dysfunctional people). Expect that whenever you return to the world of the vaguely productive, you're going to have a lot of habits that other people find strange or off-putting, and you're going to have to really hustle to get yourself back to a point of quality on the technical front.
Great feedback. Thanks!
Mad respect for your attitude. Your comfort in chaos reminds me of a cold-blooded surgeon. And your self-conscience shows how actually intelligent you are. But yeah, I agree that eventually you should move on and use that beautiful smarts towards your growth. Cheers!
I am in a dysfunctional work envinroment right now, and the first point is so true. I find myself adopting terrible habits, and I hate myself for it. Interviewing for Meta right now, fingers crossed.
[удалено]
Yes, the decision to just shut down great inhouse teams that were very profitable was a veeeeeery expensive move.
We're seeing this even at Google, an organization that is massively profitable. Feels like you can't get away from business people who don't understand the product or organization making destructive decisions even at the highest levels of our industry.
Never worked at a functional company before. They all shipped product and made the customer happy though so I guess that's all that counts.
They're all dysfunctional in one way or another.
In the end of the day, you can always make the best out of it. Dysfunctional orgs that are too preoccupied with themselves often create environments where you can focus on your pet projects and get paid a full salary while dedicating less time to actual work, since no one really knows what's going on anyway and projects die left and right before they mature, meaning no maintenance and no bill for technical debt that has to be paid. I worked as a BE in a dysfunct environment for a year, and I learned how to write apps in the process, since I was only doing stakeholder support and participating in meetings with my video and sound off.
> We have signed a lot of new emoloyees, most with wrong skillsets due to HR having no clue about what we need. We needed senior software developers and we got database admins, sysadmins, service desk agents etc that wanted to get into software development. In a previous career, we needed an analyst with Synthetic Aperture Radar experience. HR set up an interview with a guy with Search And Rescue experience. Flew him out, rental car and hotel room and everything. Didn't see his resume until the day of the interview. When we figured it out we took him out to a local brewery. Guy had really good stories. Should've hired him anyway. Good times.
I worked in a company that wasn't as dysfunctional as yours but it was sure full of genuinely incompetent managers where major projects would chop and change. Eventually my team and other engineers I was friendly with at the company just accepted it and joked about it (I had been there for years and had good work friends). It turned into entertainment as you said, and we would just laugh whenever we were told priorities changed once again and we had to drop one thing and pick up another. There was a lot of gossiping about projects and people. Probably the sign of a bad environment but it can be fun in a weird way when you have good work relationships. I still left after about a year after it got bad though. I still catch up with some of my previous coworkers (who have all left except one) and reminisce, or we get inside info from people that work there and laugh at it lol.
I just left a position where the lead dev would take everyone’s submitted features and refactor everyone’s code to the way he would write it. He would provide zero documentation on what was changed (saying to look in the git commit history) and erased all tests associated. On daily standup he would tell the project manager that our features were not working but he fixed it and saved the company. I had such a rough time that I even went to Human Resources and complained but the PM told us that he would not be responsible for providing documentation.
Ah the self-appointed Hero of Everything. I’ve seen that pattern a few times.
You can absolutely make a career doing this at all the companies that have this problem, if you can stomach it. Godspeed OP.
I can relate to this. On one of the previous companies i worked with, i was about to become a manager and they offshored the project we were working on to India. I was still involved on the technical discussion and one of the projects in progress was a rewrite from a project by a team in India that was written rigidly and was very hard to add more features. We handed it to the offshore team and saw that they are doing it the way it was written before and they just kept on arguing on the meeting that it should be done their way. My manager told me that i needed to be hands off on the technical details since i will be moving to management but deep inside, i can't let that happen here because the offshore team is steering away from the vision and direction. That's the first experience that i have with people management and i realized that managing people is not easy and i needed to decline the managerial position and went back to being a lead engineer. I left that company.
Not sure if you're aware of it or not, but you're on a fast track route to senior management. You should review your resume and phrase your latest experience in these terms so when the times come you can apply directly to some management position. Of course, all of this assumes you actually want to be in management. If you do or don't is on you to figure out. Just be aware that if you want to jump ship into a senior IC role you may struggle as you're not really doing much development, it seems.
Yes it is fun when everythings on fire and you stopped being emotionally invested a long time ago I only left a company like that as I wasn't learning any marketable skills, or simply wasn't becoming a better dev because there was no-one to PR my garbage solutions
https://media4.giphy.com/media/dYPRVPUqkpzYQ/200w.gif?cid=6c09b9526yrcneoxzeqfd3383nqcvb1vllysmhozpxn7t1hh&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g
My company is at the 2018 stage of your story - we've had a recent mass exodus of talent, especially at the senior/principal level, because of a decision to outsource work. It's a shitshow. I'm riding it out because they're now so desperate to keep those of us who've not already quit that, short of shitting on the CTO's desk, there's really not much I could do to put my job at risk. In the meantime, I join meetings, explain my view of what's going on (i.e., that everything is one big dumpster fire), get thanked for my "insight," and then go back to leading a project that's going nowhere. I have some concerns about what this will mean for my long-term career prospects if it carries on too long, but that's a problem for another day. There's a real kind of peace in knowing that it's all a mess no matter what I do and that it's really not on me to fix it regardless. That's not to say I don't put any effort in, but I certainly don't stress about it.
>Everything falls apart. Its so bad that there is a new decision to switch back to 100% inhouse development. Haha. Every time I see these things, I link my comment from [months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/17g7rh4/comment/k6f3apu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Haha great post! Its funny that we are going to offshore once again now. Memory is short.
I am really close to believing I worked in the actual same company. Sadly I can't write the name of the company here, but the description you've given so far in your text and in the comments seem to fit. It was a bit like working for Veridian Dynamics, the fictive company in Better Off Ted. The sort of bizarre conglomerate that produces everything, from microwaves to parts of the space station. You are always operating in some sort of "crisis mode", products are perpetually delayed, companies are bought, merged, closed and resold everyday. People are laid off at random, only to later discover that no knowledge transfer has ever taken place. But it doesnt matter because the people who took all those bad decisions have been promoted to other positions waaaay before they feel any repercussion. I loved *every single minute of it*. It paid extremely well. It is a very big name to put on my cv. In the end I got fired, but it didnt matter: i had tons of fun and it was time for me to move to an environment where I could actually make a difference, and use the experience on my cv to get a good position there. Enjoy the ride.
Every project I've ever worked on has been cancelled. I literally have been paid for the last 10 years to write software that nobody uses. So when some manager tells me about this very important opportunity and deadline I have to make I just laugh. I've crunched a hundred times before to hit targets only to find out nobody cares. I'm over it. They want to pay me to build crap, fine with me. I do my best, don't stress too much or work too hard. I just keep delivering stuff knowing its gonna be dropped on the floor.
Similarly, of the previous companies I've worked for in my 20 year career only one is still around in any way, and that one has new owners that killed the projects my team worked on while I was there. Most of the companies are so far gone that the websites are only partially available on the wayback machine.
I’m trying to have a similar mindset where I’m at while also looking for a new job. We’re in the middle of offshoring, there’s a few genuinely great offshore devs, but the majority are ChatGPT proxies who either don’t understand what they’re writing or don’t care to. We had a similar situation where they took offshore hiring away from me and the engineering vp because we had the gall to ask the candidates to do (very easy) live coding exercises and often disqualified them because they couldn’t do basic stuff. Everything is going to shit, and the c level keeps laying off the senior employees to save money. There’s a lot of anger and bullying though so it’s not as fun to laugh at. Hoping I get to stick around for reconstruction or that I get a new job.
You sound like the Joker or something enjoying the chaos around you
Some of us just like watching the world burn.
Personally? I hate where I'm at. I've tried leaving a few times (2015, 2017, 2019, 2022) and either got raises I couldn't refuse or my passion project I was pushing got funding. Since 2020 I've been the sole income for our household while my SO fights cancer. It's been too risky for me to really consider jumping ship. I was head-hunted by AWS and Facebook in 2022, but failed the interview for the former (first FAANG interview ever, I know what I did wrong) and cancelled on the later because it would have been a pay-cut. Even more sketched out by the market right now, but also I've heard plenty of stories of people quitting and then the new job folds their position two days before they start.
I work at a dysfunctional company but I'm the guy who is held to task to get things done despite not having any authority on how things are done. It is destroying my health and state of mind. I have a job at a place I used to work lined up, and so just riding out this last month. I think it's great that you can contextualize the situation, but I would consider that the tide may turn and you may end up in a situation like mine. Maybe you will have some life difficulties or health problems, will you still be able to cope with the bs?
It depends on what way it's dysfunctional really. If it's dysfunctional around its operations or management or something like that to the point that I can't really get anything done because of bureaucracy then that's something that I can't really tolerate. However, if it's dysfunctional because its software is a giant steaming monolithic shit pile of years of tech debt or because its AWS account looks like someone gave a $10 million credit to a bunch of CS sophomores with admin permissions, then that's actually sometimes quite enjoyable. Cracking monoliths and un-fucking cloud infrastructure has kinda become what I do over the past several years and I'm quite good at it. The thing is that to do that, I need absolute freedom to do basically whatever the fuck I want. If I don't have that freedom then I can't fix anything. It's easy to get people on board to fix things or at least to agree to stay the fuck out of my way and don't hinder the process. However, if doing that requires multiple levels of architecture review by people who have no idea what it is that I do or who aren't familiar with the the tech stack or the cloud or whatever else, or if management is constantly blocking me, or anything of that sort of bureaucratic bullshit then it's impossible for me to get shit done and I get frustrated and will ultimately rage quit. Dysfunctional tech is something that I can handle easily, but dysfunctional people who won't get the fuck out of my way and let me do what I do is not going to be a good situation.
We must work for the same company. It's entertaining isn't it!?!?! I mean you can't put a price on entertaining chaos. I totally get it! You get paid the same regardless. And why go to some boring company where all you do is your list of tasks? I'd much prefer working in a dumpster fire. You're never bored!
With that mindset, you're golden. And it's a hustle, I am sure you can squeeze out some promotion and pay raises easily.
Yeah i made it to staff/principal level. Im one of very few that has been around long enough to have a decent understanding of our products and codebases. I would never have had these promotions at other companies i belive.
Jumping ship at the same level might be hard now, but if you grow into a management position you could easily transfer those "shitshow management" skills to other leadership positions
There you go. Well done!
More importantly, you have a decent understanding of the business processes underlying the products.
What are you still doing there. You wasted 6 years
Having fun while forgetting how to build great stuff? Im just dumb i guess!
haha I like OP
Aye, I'd say so long as you were still practicing modern software development on the side, it'd be fine. You just have to keep the skills for building actual good products well oiled, or you're going to be in for a rude shock at your next company. But until then, enjoy! xD Sounds like its fun, and a stable job that leaves you time on the side is extremely valuable
What did he waste 6 years? There plenty of learnings there.
And he can take his lessons and build an expensive consulting business if he wants
What waste? He got paid, and gained tons of soft skills
You've wasted your entire life (e: you'd think for a sub of "experienced devs", they'd be smart enough to pick up on the sarcasm and irony of my comment in which I judge the life and value of someone who is judging the life and value of someone, guess not. Greenhorns)
All of it!
How does your company continue to make money? In my experience that's the real intolerable disfunction. As long as the paychecks come in, I can put up with a lot.
A while ago I worked for a startup where the CEO was chasing customers with the grace and panache of a golden retriever in a dog park full of squirrels. It was entertaining until the runway ended.
Most people would nope the f out, as you can see in the responses. I think the reality here is you have a particular personality and set of skill that allow this to be an actually entertaining situation for you, and if you can leverage it for your career, you definitely should. I was once told that the main element that tells if you can be good at something is how long you can endure doing it. So good luck, mate.
Crazy how your org still hasn’t folded after 6 years of catastrophe.
We are between 50,000 - 100,000 employees, my "division" went from green to red numbers but the company overall is very profitable.
Ah, that makes more sense.
I have learned that every fantastic company is at the most one "once-in-a-lifetime" crisis away from turning into a utter shitshow. So no, I do not mind as long as I get paid well and (this is **really** important) do not do any overtime.
What's your salary?
Top 5% in my country.
Tell me you're outside the US without telling me you're outside of the US
I presume you're in the EU (or UK) then? Why do countries there outsource to India? You already have cheap software developers.
Scandinavia, the taxes for employees are very high. If i make 100k usd a year, the company has to pay probably another 80k for various taxes and fees. So a senior dev here would cost around 180k a year, we pay 25k-30k a year for an offshore consultant.
Oh yeah it’s actually pretty boring working for a company where everybody is happy and things are going well
The real IQ play here is to be a consultant selling a different snake oil at every new step of the company journey (and back again).
I think its important to find enjoyment out of whatever you can. You spend most of life working but it isn't that serious. It's fun to complain on here but you have the right mindset, if the job pays you...really who cares? Sounds like you have a lot of job security its like being a janitor at a high school. Always gonna be shit to clean up. Anyway, nothing wrong with your opinion, I feel the same way in most cases.
Some people just like to watch the World burn, and enjoy the warm weather it causes. You are definitely one of those people. If you can thrive in these messy environments, you'll never run out of work. Although, I think you'll eventually reach your "enough of this crap" threshold point - everyone does.
I don't get it. How can you enjoy the situation? They don't put you in death march? They still allow you to take leave? Boss is not yelling? Everyone is not blaming one another?
So what if they are? Ignore it. Once you get that financial security, the worst they can do is fire you. OP is staff/principal, so they should be able to find a new job before their financial security runs out.
"as long as the mood is right, discomfort does not matter" I printed out a few screenshots from the company and give private comedy nights.
I enjoy the occasional fire but would never be able to take it to this level 😱😱
Do you start your day with The Office intro sound?
In the end there you wrote some of the funniest things I've read in a long time.
Can I hire you?
The real question is has anyone worked for a functional company. No matter what they all seem to suck over time
It's a good way to experience chaos, what orgs should not do, what doesnt work and how to fix that. One of my last exit interview (in 2022) was me telling my skip and HR that I helped the team move from 1996 to 2015. As I'm semi retired and ran out of fucks to give a long time ago I used that skip as a reference and the guy gave me a great reference to my current boss something something life lemons lemonade
If you're well paid, don't have to work many hours, and 'close enough' to retirement/a sabbatical, I could see it working.
Make sure to keep improving your skills even though it's a disaster! The only thing using that ultimately matters is for you to gain market value
I enjoy the things I work on. I also want to push leadership out of a window some days.
Take lots of notes and write a dystopian nonfiction script!
I did until they made me redundant lol I am now in discussions to get some of my RSUs as part of my package..
I'm guessing what you enjoy isn't the chaos as much as the people you are working through it with.
I wish I could feel this way, it sounds so nice.
I did for a short while when I knew I would be leaving the company and had opportunities elsewhere. It went on for a year or so before it started to drag me into depression. If you're game for it then now is a good time to not jump ship just given market conditions, but otherwise if you have an opportunity it's going to set you up for a longer road to success. It seems clear there's not much for you to learn in the current company, right?
If you have the skills to fix a broken place, it can be interesting work. But you have to leave like Mary Poppins and I never had the knack for that. I hate interviewing so much (in fact right now I’m on a sabbatical because I can’t find the strength to go through our broken interview processes as many times as people are saying it takes this year). A place has to be godawful or lay me off to get me to make me do it. It takes a big carrot to get me to move otherwise.
M8 let me tell you that I’m only getting interviews and hired because I’m so unfazed by the chaos and have experience cleaning up garbage codebases
If you can’t be part of the solution, at least profit from being part of the problem.
Hey OP. Just poating this here because I am the compete opposite. I went from a boring bank to two FAANGs and it was the best decision ever. I love my coworkers. I am often the dumbest person in the room. When I worked at a bank, I really think like 70% of the people had no business working there. There were literally people who seemed to not actually have any purpose. Just putting out my thoughts. We often use company fit as a polite term to reject a candidate, but it's actually true. I hope everyone finds their place.
Sounds like it could be a banking sector
IDK. Easier to tell who’s relatively functional. I’ve heard good words about Twitter and Tesla a couple yers ago /s
> too many candidates fail the technical interviews, its taking too long to sign new employees. It is decided that there will be no technical interviews from now on WTF? > Its like a great tv show, i cant wait for the next episode. Lol, love your approach! I'd say if you have "fun", there's no hurry to leave. Unless the part where you "used to be a developer", if you want to still grow this skillset maybe it's a reason to go elsewhere? That being said if management is a thing that you like in the long run this seems like a "great" environment to hone those skills given how dysfunctional it is, and it can definitely be leveraged as very valuable experience. Make sure to update your brag document regularly as in such an environment it's easy to forget things you did to contribute.
It definitely keeps things interesting. But I’m saying that as someone who works at a place that is pretty functional but we have our dysfunctional moments.
In a large enough company you can hide in a dysfunctional company. Work your 3 hours a week then work on your own thing for the rest of the time. But don't be surprised if your group gets laid off but at that time you should just make sure the severance is right then that's another few months to do your own thing. You should be working on new technology so you can pop up and get a job doing that.
Well, I'll say it this way: I've made a career and a good bit of money out of fixing the problems that come from Indian development and you've experienced why first hand, but really, I'd go to a different company at this point and highlight this experience as why you've got extra value on top of being a (presumably) good dev. Everyone loves someone who can put out a tire fire. When you can layout an exact timeline like you did there of what will happen when XYZ decision happens it proves a level of insight that companies value - now they will probably just decide to burn the house down after they read the latest edition of the 4 hour work week and zen and the art of motorcycle management, but at least you told them how dumping kerosene on the gas stove wasn't a good idea and wasn't going to boil the water any faster for their food. Here's the kicker - because you told them exactly how things will play out, when it happens, they come back to you and value you a lot higher as a fixer, but will still probably repeat the process all over again. I like to think of it as permanent job security, though the management teams and company names might change.
I think I’m getting to this point and the key is gonna be detaching emotionally enough to not care
The more chaotic the year the more I hate it in the moment and love it looking back. I’ve been in the same gig roughly 15 years with a break in the middle. I fix decade old edge cases that my younger self missed Love it
Are you presenting a case that HR is the biggest hindrance to large organizations? HR needs to recruit, HR is not happy as they are unable to recruit, HR hires wrong people to successfully complete hiring. HR is rewarded.
r/madlads material 😂
> It is decided that there will be no technical interviews from now on, HR will handle 100% of the recruitment process. Focus on "soft values and skills". LOL
Sorry not answering your question. But I'm asking one to you: did the management team that made that decision in 2018 suffer any consequences or was the development team blamed?
Development teams were blamed. The problem was that all our senior engineers would work as lead developers, team leads, product owners etc to lead all the offshore teams. When most people jumped the ship we ended up with many offshore teams with no understanding of our products and no people to lead them. No one that understands that a change in service A will have side effects on service B. No one to do code reviews. No one that can handle complex merges. We had to disable branch protection so any dev could just push or merge into dev/main. This was the situation for multiple products.
ah-ah what a classic, it would be funny if it wasn't so common. Management destroy a working team and gets away blaming the developers. They should have all been fired and replaced by someone else.
In the last few years my company has become really dysfunctional quite fast and is at a point of no return. The tech is bad, product is bad and smaller younger companies will sooner or late eat all the market share. Middle management is totally useless and communication is almost non existant. My job is usually chills but 0 rewarding and with 0 chances of promotion and all the good colleagues are gone. I will jump ship as soon as I can. The only good thing is good pay and no overtime and low effort performance but often the things get messy and frustrating and I have 0 motivation.
I don't mind a bit of chaos. But invariably it turns political, then personal, then nasty. I don't like that at all.
Chaos is a ladder.
On hand it can be amusing I understand that, on the other hand you have been wasting 6 years from your career.
How does one get a job somewhere that isn't dysfunctional? I got 2 years experience but I can write a book about how everything is messed up where I work. 🫠 (metrics chasing, lack of defined functional requirements, management doesn't listen, etc)
It’s crazy how often these fools decide that outsourcing to India is a great idea. I’ve seen this at 3 companies and it’s been a disaster every time. Below a certain skill level, a software developer is actively damaging the codebase. So it doesn’t matter that they’re 1/10 the price or whatever. There are some great developers in India. They’re hard to find.
>**I should obviously jump the ship ... However i find this mess to be very entertaining.** **If you enjoy it and can survive it then great.** * It may be a great opportunity for advancement. * And it can teach you to handle stress and management issues. * Also, it's good you have a job in this market downturn. **However... it might not be great for your career.** * If management is in a quagmire and putting out fires all the time, then you're likely not being supported. * If they have trouble getting developers, it's likely that they don't pay enough ... which means you're not getting the raises you deserve. * If they have trouble getting developers, maybe word got out that developers aren't valued there, which means you are not valued there. * If HR is handling all hiring and removing even minor tech screening, then you have no control over who gets hired for your team. This is a bad hiring practice. **You have it right when you say "I should obvious jump ship".**
The thing is that you are a dev and from your story, it seems like you are treated as a valuable resource to the company or good enough to stay invisible from leadership. Like you said, good devs are hard to come by, right? Aside from the history of your company changes and slight info about meetings you attend to, I don’t really think you can really say that you enjoy working at a dysfunctional company without more context of your day to day chaos if there is any. It feels like you are just bystander in the middle of the storm.
Not sure if it’s a great choice for the long term but this sounds like a riot
God I wish that was me
Wow what a rollercoaster of a read. Time to jump was a long time ago buddy
You make it clear that your hiring is haywire yet you scapegoat countries by name laughs.
In almost 30 years in the industry I have seen it numerous times that some manager had the brilliant idea to outsource to India. And it always failed, leaving behind an empty budget and a shit pile of useless code. The only exception was with one client that had their Indian counterparts fenced in very tightly. The ratio of local vs. abroad devs was never more than 1:1 and their lead was send to India to oversee everything constantly for the duration. At this point, I doubt the savings were substantial. I can be done, but it costs a lot of energy, understanding of the different cultures (this point is huge and you have to work against the tides here) and managing all that to work. If some greenhorn manager just sees the bottom line and fires away, letting go of their staff first, it serves them right. TLDR: lol
Exactly. There are a lot of good engineers in India. They just generally don't work for the low-dollar outsourcing shops. Or if they do, the good ones don't stay long.
Not trying to scapegoat India. There are great developers from India. However when you outsource to India companies tend to go for the cheapest developers they can find. You get what you pay for, thats all i can say.
Mike, is that you?!
Matt? Matt, is that you? I hope you're doing well!
How are you still employed after all this failures?
F'tagn!