>I have a friend working as an engineer in a company where engineers I categorize this as a place where there are "leaders" and "peons." The "leaders" see the

>I have a friend working as an engineer in a company where engineers I categorize this as a place where there are "leaders" and "peons." The "leaders" see themselves as the important people who have ideas and make decisions. The "peons" are the grunts who are involved in execution and are easily replaceable by another peon. The most valuable people are the ones talking about all supposedly great revenue generating stuff they getting peons to do. Don't work for these places if you like to be an engineer. As you pointed out, an individual manager may be great, but everybody above them sees you as a cog. If your manager is replaced you are done. I think the only benefit of these places is that execution is mixed in with so much BS that great work life balance can result from it.