I've been lucky enough to work in a couple places where I felt I could relax and be myself. Not feeling that way at many other companies is a part of why I've s

I've been lucky enough to work in a couple places where I felt I could relax and be myself. Not feeling that way at many other companies is a part of why I've started businesses. I consider it quite the luxury and I think it's especially rare outside tech. Also once you find it, enjoy it because it does tend to fade. I remember one job in particular there was a focus on openness, transparency, and being yourself. I wasn't really sure if it was marketing or not, always hard to tell early on. I was even meditating with a group there which is not something I would normally talk about with coworkers. But alas they eventually fired everyone involved with the transparency stuff and replaced the leadership. I think smaller tends to be better. I don't really have any tips on searching. It's not like something you can ask about very directly. Ok here is one thing that's maybe something. You want to try to work in places that engineers are delivering real tangible value and the buerocracy feels like this flimsy thing that just happens to be there to defer to all the value being created every day. Both of the companies I felt the most comfortable at had that in common. The inverse has also been true. If I think of the easiest jobs where it's mostly meetings and nonsense, buerocrats have had more power and have made up more imaginary culture you're supposed to repeat.