[davismwfl]

Ahhh, welcome to software engineering.

While partially joking this is a real issue and sadly is common in our software. Software is the way most things in life function these days, yet those of us on the inside see that software is generally poorly put together and then held together by hamstrung people because of funding or mismanagement. Some companies are better than others, but all companies need to make compromises. What I have seen is when the compromises line up with your value system (whatever that might be) then you are way happier at work daily and want to do more generally. When the compromises are anti your personal value system for too long you will dread being there or going to work. There will always be some percentage of decisions you disagree with, so I wouldn't take it as you bolt if you disagree with a few things.

I've been in software for over 20 years, and that has been the repeated process since even before I started. And even as a founder I realized this is how engineers (and most educated intelligent people) work (value system alignment) and while we can always improve, you need to find the balance that works for you. Most problems in software are problems of compromise, e.g. we hacked X feature to get Y done and now have 12 new problems to solve, but now we have Z needs and have to compromise somewhere else too. It is almost always a game of tradeoffs, and that is ok to some degree.

I love the idea that if you are not happy doing what you are doing for too many days in a row you need to change what you are doing. I usually think of that in slightly longer time periods given software schedules, but I think it is a good core idea. If you aren't happy and you feel like you have learned what you can at an opportunity then move to the next. Granted, I am not saying job hop every year, nor am I advocating taking off just cause things aren't going your way, but you have to evaluate your mental and physical health with where you are and where you are going. After 2.5-3 years seems like you have a fair reason to potentially move on if it isn't making you happy at this point.

[zaneyard]

I have definitely internalized the idea that it's all just tradeoffs. I think I value delivering quality software and it's hard to feel like I'm doing that when I see so many production outages and most of my interaction with co-workers is people telling me something is broken. I get that stuff happens sometimes, but we can't seem to keep a test environment stable. Managers are definitely aware of the issue, but I feel like it keeps getting worse. I can't hold back a tidal wave alone.

Thank you for sharing your perspective.