I accepted a remote lead position at a startup. Interviews had gone great. I gave my notice at my soon-to-be old employer and made the transition. Along comes

I accepted a remote lead position at a startup. Interviews had gone great. I gave my notice at my soon-to-be old employer and made the transition. Along comes my first day and surprisingly, it’s mostly radio silence. CTO, my boss, doesn’t respond to my emails, doesn’t answer the phone. I call the CEO and he promises to sort it out. Fast forward a week or two later, something is obviously up. Long story short, the board fires the CTO, making me the most senior engineer in the company. Yikes, but ok. The contract with some of the consultants are up a week or so later, and they choose not to renew. Weird. The only other FT engineer quits. Uh-oh. I’m now the only engineer. I had to learn a new product and code base. The support backlog was long. I was getting called into sales calls. If I had lived in a tech hub, I would have quit. But I didn’t, I lived in a remote mountain town and finding this remote job took months. I ended up lasting about 18 months. It was a learning experience, but horrible on my body, relationships, mental health.