These kinds of jobs often point to an unhealthy co-dependency between non-technical management and (usually) younger engineers. Everyone wants to play the hero

These kinds of jobs often point to an unhealthy co-dependency between non-technical management and (usually) younger engineers. Everyone wants to play the hero. The manager reporting to his boss about how hard his team is working and how they will all pull together to solve the problems, and the engineer feeding off the praise that he has saved the day and that without his efforts all would have been lost. It's just papering over a lack of planning on everyone's part, and it never ends well. The big salary bump is always just a quarter or two away. The engineer eventually burns out and is replaced by a more naive individual, and the vicious cycle begins again. Sorry if I seem a bit pessimistic, yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine who is a programmer in exactly this situation. I was telling him to get out and find another job, but he was convinced that once he proves himself and solves all these problems, he'll get a big raise and a large option grant. His boss won't put that in writing of course, but he just really believes that he'll be rewarded. It breaks my heart.