Sorry about your unfortunate situation. Hope things turn out well for you. Strongly questioning business strategies of your employer is usually a red flag for

Sorry about your unfortunate situation. Hope things turn out well for you. Strongly questioning business strategies of your employer is usually a red flag for most employers. Cowboying projects despite disapproval of your proposed strategy pivot or direction is a deal breaker for a lot. Specially if it's a consistent behaviour. IMO, references are one of the most important aspects of your career. From the looks of it, it appears if your future employer does a thorough reference check, they'll likely get skeptical about hiring you. Being a team player is not playing B-league office politics. Most of us at some point of our careers, didn't agree with our employer's business strategies and anyone who loved their work would have very likely voiced that loudly at some point. Depending on the work environment's culture, sometimes their voices would be heard and other times they'd be shun. To each their place in the organization hierarchy and you should be humble enough to respect that. If you are not comfortable with the company's direction, or business practices then you could always look for another job. So I don't know about the economy state there, whether jobs are plentiful or scarce, in Egypt our job market is dry. So if it's hard to get a decent job in SF, I suggest that you suck up whatever problems you have at your future job as long it serves your needs of putting food on the table and saving up for some future endeavour. With regards to starting a company at 29 or later, I don't see a reason to worry about that. Majority of us truly reach our prime success at around mid 30s, disregard the young and fortunate you keep hearing about everywhere in the valley. But if starting your own business is your passion and the eventual route you want to take, then maybe you should give it a try now. TL;DR. - Voice your opinion, be respectful, remember your place (that's one of the cons to working for someone) and don't be a fork in someone's back - It's not too late to build a startup at 29 - You got pretty much nothing to lose now, so why don't you try building a startup now. Edit: Fixed formatting