| This post was just a couple of months too late. I recently started a new, lucrative team lead job in a problem space I was interested in that promised to be structured, ambitious, and full of opportunity. I even requested a follow-up post-offer to make sure it was a good fit. But after only two weeks, I realized it was a command-and-control death march. No product ownership. Design your database up front. Complete waterfall but with developers and team leads responsible for each phase. A drive-by micromanaging executive with a team far too large to micromanage. Implementation teams of (only) junior developers had spent months prior to my arrival talking/meeting/designing - with virtually nothing to show for it. Every day was a calendar full of meetings to prepare for other meetings. Other teams and their managers were reporting fraudulent statuses creating the illusion of progress when no actual progress actually existed. Asking questions or offering any pushback was met with passive-aggressive anger. Any effort to create a little bit of structure amidst the chaos was, almost immediately, thrown away. So I decided it was best if I resigned. They even kept me around for a couple of weeks after I resigned which was nice, and that two weeks confirmed I made the right decision. A number of other team members and peers reached out and expressed agreement or envy - they wanted to leave as well. But despite those assurances that I'd made the right choice, it was a tough pill to swallow. I've never worked anywhere less than 18 months. I love building good software and I hate job hunting. I'm debating whether to put this experience on my resume or not because it's such an outlier in my professional experience and was such a short stent. Here's hoping the next opportunity is a better match. If you're an employer in DFW (or willing to take on a remote) looking for a Team Lead or hands-on Development Manager that can code, I'd love to chat. |