Life of leaving home
Sometimes you reach the end of a journey. It’s often a comfortable place where the local sofa has an imprint you can call your own. Your reputation precedes you and there are few undecided about how they really feel about you.
That’s kind of where I was in 2022 towards the end of my stint at my first job out of college. Since the departure of one of our leaders, the organization seemed to be at the whims of a rotating cast in the upper ranks. Cost “optimizations” and a hiring process which privileged failing to reach consensus over finding common ground had made it clear to me that my time was coming to an end.
Throughout my tenure, I had several other opportunities to leave, but somehow 2022 seemed like the time I’d finally walk through the door. So when a group of people I’d been eager to work with since my days as an intern extended me an offer, I started to pack my bags and headed for the exit.
Red flags in hindsight
It was the tail end of the heigh of the pandemic. A time when it was weird to see other people in the office. Everyone was remote but the offices were opening back up.
Culturally, the place I was coming from was much different than the one I joined. On the surface, this new landing spot seemed like a place with a sense of direction and a strong investment in getting to where it wanted to go.
I was asked “Where are you joining us from?” by almost everyone I met. At first it seemed innocent enough. It took me a bit until I realized it was code for: “Should I waste my time listening to what you have to say?”.
Many people at my new gig came from the so-called “Silicon Valley elite”. The FAANG companies and a handful of others considered their equivalent.
Often times, it felt like if you weren’t part of that club, you were treated as if you had nothing of worth to contribute. As if having a company on your resume automatically bestowed upon you all the positive things that have ever been attributed to that company.
In a top heavy team, it quickly became apparent that I’d have to work twice as hard to prove that I deserved my spot on the team. Try as I may, it never felt like I was given a fair shake. Often it seemed that despite being hired at the Senior level, I was expected to have the output of a Staff.
It didn’t take long before the red flags got worse. It started with nit-picking code reviews and situations eerily similar to my first few times on the internet (RTFM NOOB).
Then came disparaging comments made about me behind me back. They were never made in a “let’s help this person become better” way and more in an “this person sucks, is stupid, and I hate them” manner.
In the beginning, my new team comprised of me and my tech lead, was poisoning my confidence. My tech lead never missed a chance to tell me everything I had done wrong in their eyes. And that typically included for intents and purposes existing. Most of all, they seemed to resent me for not being their clone. I don’t think I ever received a single piece of praise from them over the nearly two years I worked with them.
I started to dread meetings with my manager and most of all with my tech lead. Every single word I said was subject to being written in a doc and everything was subject to scrutiny, notes taken on every single passing words you dared utter in the presence of the manager or the tech lead.
The dread and fear eventually gave way to what I can only assume were physical manifestations of the stress I was experiencing. About a month after joining, I developed a kidney stone. An appropriate metaphor for how painful the next two years of my work life would be.
Culture of the dunk
Functionally dysfunctional - that’s exactly how I would describe my experience of the culture of the organization. Propped up by people’s individual heroics and their belief that they, and only they alone, possessed the whole technical truth about the universe.
The top-heaviness meant that fiefdoms had to be carved out in order to succeed. And as SV tightened the noose around the necks of software developers at large after hiring at a fast pace, the company’s demands grew at a furious rate.
We spent days designing components, trying to mimic every single perceived positive aspect from the processes of the elite companies many engineers came from.
It became a sadistic ritual to find small mistakes and blow them up into full-on arguments. Pages and pages of comments on code and design docs that eventually got shelved along with the project that these (admittedly technically sound) self-professed prodigies managed to perfect into obsolescence.
The End
Without enough to show after about a year, the funding for the project I was hired to work on was pulled.
And so began the countdown to my eventual exit. My manager disappeared for a few weeks only to come back to put in their notice (but not before putting in a scathing review of me and the work I had done they had barely been around for).
A new tech lead took over pulling double-duty as EM and TL. Something the company, thanks to an upper management hire made after I joined, believed to be possible, even for someone who had never acted in a managerial capacity before.
And now it was clear. The team wanted me gone. Code reviewing techniques that one might believe were lifted straight out of a satirical blog post started to become an everyday occurrence for me. It seemed like blocking me from shipping anything was an OKR for my manager.
For months I tried: I tried pleading my case, I tried finding common ground, I tried to cater to the changing on the daily wishes of the people who had my career in a vice.
But it was too late.
It was made clear to me that the perception of those on my team was that I had the Midas touch of shit.
So after mentally putting myself through the ringer for 23 months, the end finally came: A series of inexplicable events that could have been a new start ended up pushing me right out the door. In retrospect, a wonderful outcome for me.
Time will tell if the two hellish years I lived through will have a positive impact on my future. For now, something that someone (who also left) said to me rings truer every day:
“It’s easy to think every place is just like that (shitty) place we left”
Not every place is that dysfunctional, but in the moment, it sure feels like it. It gives me new perspective on those who stay in a toxic relationship hoping for a change that will never come. For better or for worse, it seems like the only winning move in such situations is to walk away.
The Aftermath
Moving on from traumatic experiences is never easy. But with the help and support of friends, family, and former colleagues, climbing out of the hole is possible.
To my ex-colleagues who supported me throughout this experience, thank you for caring and being there. Our time working together was relatively short but I treasure the friendships we made.