First of all, I'm willing to bet that you are, indeed, a good programmer. I say that as a programmer who is in all likelihood a pretty average programmer (I don

First of all, I'm willing to bet that you are, indeed, a good programmer. I say that as a programmer who is in all likelihood a pretty average programmer (I don't have a huge amount of comparative experience to know for certain). You're almost certainly average at a minimum, based on what you wrote. Second, I feel like you're...overthinking it? I don't play office politics, but I'm not gunning for a promotion or even a "senior" in front of my title. I don't care about any of that. I complete the work assigned to me and go home to my hobbies. I've always worked at small shops. There's no room for cutthroat office politics. Maybe that would be an okay move for you. I've yet to have a bad interaction with another coworker and it's been years at this job. (I do have an occasional bad interaction with a client, which is to be expected). I'd take the job and do my best to avoid getting wrapped up in it to the point of depression. If corporate culture is depressing, aim to find a new culture.