4 ms·

Bad workplaces definitely exist. Sometimes, they can be changed, and there's a ton of scope for you to be the person who came in and got a dysfunctional departm

Bad workplaces definitely exist. Sometimes, they can be changed, and there's a ton of scope for you to be the person who came in and got a dysfunctional department functional; sometimes, they're broken at a higher level than you can fix, and you just need to leave. But if you work at a bad workplace and your takeaway is "this industry is completely broken" and you turn into a full-bore cynic who refuses to believe that anything better is possible, you've gone badly astray.

lotyrin 10y ago
I've left. I've left every time, and I've got a resume full of shit jobs I left after a year because they were shit, and I'm not sure what to do at this point to get the kind of position where this isn't how things are, where the sky is blue and up isn't down. If there's part of the industry that's not like this, I haven't seen it and none of the people I've worked with have seen it, and I don't know it. At this point my wife has all but begged me to give up and settle for steady money with no purpose, my therapist is telling me to consider going back to school and pull a career change. I'm the only person I know in real life where there's any expectation that software makes sense and I question myself, wondering if pragmatic engineering in software is just a fantasy perpetuated by strangers on the internet.
- lovich 10y ago
  Nah man. I've had the same experience until my current job and I think the only reason my teams been given the power to so things right is because the company went through 2-3 other teams that would take 6 months to take data from one of our services and put it in an excel sheet. Most of the places I have worked have had the engineers so far removed from anyone who had the power to actually allow changes to the process, that me and my coworkers didn't even know what they looked like. It seems like a matter of luck of being in the right place and right time, so that managers have had so many failures in software development that they are finally open to listening to alternatives
- neffy 10y ago
  Search for companies whose products you respect, and have quality design, and apply to them. Also, look for areas that require good quality - safety critical, high reliability systems for example. It's not guaranteed, nothing is, but there are good working environments out there.
- flukus 10y ago
  I'm in the same position. Plus with too many short term positions on your resume it makes finding a job at all (let alone a decent one) harder. I have been at one place that was good though, unfortunately I left it to relocate. I haven't found anyway remotely close to the same quality in they ~6 years since. I've developed a few proxy questions to estimate exactly how shit they are though.
  - lotyrin 10y ago
    Definitely have a refined set of interview questions developed, if nothing else to show for it. Never really get past: "Walk me through the steps of the your design process, what steps does software go through to get from conception to production on your team, who is responsible for each step, and how do they test the assumptions inherent in their designs?" "Uh... well... <handwaving about how roles aren't defined so nobody's responsible, why wouldn't you be confident about your 'decisions', maybe 'design' is too strong a word?>"
    - flukus 10y ago
      My best is "when I fix a bug, what are the steps to get it in production". It gives an insight into the corporate culture as well as their automation level. Also, anywhere that uses TFS is an instant no, and I think SVN will be on that list now too.

lotyrin 10y ago

I've left. I've left every time, and I've got a resume full of shit jobs I left after a year because they were shit, and I'm not sure what to do at this point to get the kind of position where this isn't how things are, where the sky is blue and up isn't down. If there's part of the industry that's not like this, I haven't seen it and none of the people I've worked with have seen it, and I don't know it. At this point my wife has all but begged me to give up and settle for steady money with no purpose, my therapist is telling me to consider going back to school and pull a career change. I'm the only person I know in real life where there's any expectation that software makes sense and I question myself, wondering if pragmatic engineering in software is just a fantasy perpetuated by strangers on the internet.

lovich 10y ago
Nah man. I've had the same experience until my current job and I think the only reason my teams been given the power to so things right is because the company went through 2-3 other teams that would take 6 months to take data from one of our services and put it in an excel sheet. Most of the places I have worked have had the engineers so far removed from anyone who had the power to actually allow changes to the process, that me and my coworkers didn't even know what they looked like. It seems like a matter of luck of being in the right place and right time, so that managers have had so many failures in software development that they are finally open to listening to alternatives
neffy 10y ago
Search for companies whose products you respect, and have quality design, and apply to them. Also, look for areas that require good quality - safety critical, high reliability systems for example. It's not guaranteed, nothing is, but there are good working environments out there.
flukus 10y ago
I'm in the same position. Plus with too many short term positions on your resume it makes finding a job at all (let alone a decent one) harder. I have been at one place that was good though, unfortunately I left it to relocate. I haven't found anyway remotely close to the same quality in they ~6 years since. I've developed a few proxy questions to estimate exactly how shit they are though.
- lotyrin 10y ago
  Definitely have a refined set of interview questions developed, if nothing else to show for it. Never really get past: "Walk me through the steps of the your design process, what steps does software go through to get from conception to production on your team, who is responsible for each step, and how do they test the assumptions inherent in their designs?" "Uh... well... <handwaving about how roles aren't defined so nobody's responsible, why wouldn't you be confident about your 'decisions', maybe 'design' is too strong a word?>"
  - flukus 10y ago
    My best is "when I fix a bug, what are the steps to get it in production". It gives an insight into the corporate culture as well as their automation level. Also, anywhere that uses TFS is an instant no, and I think SVN will be on that list now too.