> I hear stories from the 90s of all these rockstar engineers and scientists that would go from job to job just getting shit done and not having to worry about

> I hear stories from the 90s of all these rockstar engineers and scientists that would go from job to job just getting shit done and not having to worry about corporate bs. Some of this may be selection bias: you're less likely to hear the stories about people in the 90s who were working in unremarkable corporate jobs because those stories were, well, (tautologically) unremarkable, despite likely being representative of the vast majority of professional experience. That said, because I grew up with both parents in the tech (semiconductor and later more general software) industry, I did hear both kinds of stories at home. To echo another commentor, I think you'll find that size of company matters far more than industry. Notable exceptions may be government contractors or anything heavily regulated like healthcare or finance.