I was fired once, and it really crushed my self esteem and morale for a long time. Similar story, I wasn’t paid overtime and I was a new developer. I worked li

I was fired once, and it really crushed my self esteem and morale for a long time. Similar story, I wasn’t paid overtime and I was a new developer. I worked like crazy. I was the full stack dev slash designer. If my work didn’t meet a standard or I made a mistake, I’d be kind of coerced into recording less hours for the effort. I don’t think this is uncommon in software. I’ve come to believe I was fired for a few reasons, but none of them really reasonable. The main two were that my CTO learned that I found our product morally reprehensible, and he simply didn’t like me. I was never rude or argumentative with him at all, but it became quite clear over time that these things were creating a divide between us. I ended up having a health issue eventually, and I mostly kept it to myself. I became quite depressed because I was facing an operation which might change my life permanently (loss of sex drive being a major risk) and my output dropped for a couple months. It was like hitting a switch. After nearly three years of work and a team who really valued my work (and many even kept in touch to this day), he called me into a meeting and literally had me escorted out. No one understood or saw it coming. My project was passed on to several others out of the blue. At the time though, it crushed me. I blamed everything on myself. The new team would message me for help and I’d actually do it! I felt sure I must have left a legacy of garbage and I owed it to them. Although they expressed that my leaving created a major bottleneck at the company, I was still sure I must have been fired because of incompetence. I must be a failure. I contemplated leaving software for months, convinced that I’m terrible at it. The experience was eventually incredibly helpful though. My filter for people like that CTO is extremely useful. I use the experience as a reference to avoid treating people the same way and to remind myself how hard juniors will work despite bad conditions. Am I treating less experienced people properly? Am I making sure I don’t take advantage of their enthusiasm, making sure I credit them properly for their efforts? Making sure they don’t work overtime and simply learn instead to be realistic and content with their output? Inexperienced people in competitive industries are vulnerable. They often feel like they might never find another job. Sometimes they feel inadequate. They work harder than they should for the compensation they’re given, and tell themselves they’re lucky. Being able to reflect and recognize how crazy I was is helpful in teaching myself how to be a better mentor, and generally a better person to work with. So I’m grateful for that at least. There is still the part where I need to value myself and my work more. That’s the hardest part. I’ll get there eventually.