Even your boss wants to quit

Re:Even your boss wants to quit by karaterobot on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:26AM (#31837290)

My career trajectory was Dev -> Senior -> Lead -> Director -> Senior. I left a company and purposefully looked for my next job further down the ladder, after having profound burnout that made me question whether I wanted to keep working in the industry at all. I decided I like making software, I just didn't like the amount of stress, anxiety, uncertainty, politics, and bickering I was experiencing. In my experience, these things grew exponentially at each level, while the salary only grew linearly. So, I'm fine making merely "way more money than I need" while not crying in my car in the garage before work, which is something that actually happened many times at my old job.

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by mattgreenrocks on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:52AM (#31837667)

Thanks for sharing. Sorry to hear you had to go through all that.

What I've realized is the corporate ladder is a fiction that serves to keep people working harder and harder without significant pay bumps. It is an artificial status game that has real ramifications; however, since it is a zero-sum game, it ends up bringing out the worst in everyone.

What are your goals now around your career?

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by RemoteIsHeaven on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @12:51PM (#31838527)

> My career trajectory was Dev -> Senior -> Lead -> Director -> Senior. I left a company and purposefully looked for my next job further down the ladder, after having profound burnout that made me question whether I wanted to keep working in the industry at all

Any chance you had terrible, even substandard leadership where you were Director (assuming that's where you had the profound burnout) and you would absolutely have loved it otherwise?

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by reureu on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @02:44PM (#31840102)

the more places I work the more I realize that the standard is bad leadership.

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by RemoteIsHeaven on Thursday June 23, 2022 @07:10PM (#31856231)

> the more places I work the more I realize that the standard is bad leadership.

True!

Why is that, though?

Like - do the great leaders retire quick?

Or is it that we are just an unlucky bunch who get exposed to bad leadership?

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by zeroonetwothree on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:52AM (#31837661)

How do you find a job at a lower level? I was trying to do this and no one would hire me. I guess I could lie about my experience.

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by lelandfe on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @12:03PM (#31837807)

I stepped back from a lead to a senior dev this year. I was open about it to recruiters, saying my intent was to get back into being an IC.

No one was even slightly put off by my resume or career direction. I'm not sure what "no one would hire me" means, precisely, but I didn't have an easy time – it took many months and near 100 applications to find the right spot.

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Re:Even your boss wants to quit by hackerfromthefu on Thursday June 23, 2022 @08:50AM (#31848318)

Yeah, BUT its the easiest job market in IT history to get hired right now ..

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