[stillicidious]

It sounds like you deserve a new job with more challenging peers. Environments like that can suck the life out of a bright flame

Reminds me of a younger self going to interview for the technical team at a bank. I arrived full of youthful zest, thoroughly aced the interview. One of the interviewers, who already looked rather zombie-like, accompanied me to the exit. As I walked off he lit a cigarette and shouted after me, "don't accept the offer, this is not a place for someone like you!"

Made a variety of friends over the years who have shared stories of that bank. It's notorious, the interviewer was absolutely right.

[grogenaut]

I had a similar in 2000 during the .com bubble, interviewed at an ecomm company doing libraries, Amazon had not yet put them out of business. All c++ cgi. I asked a lot of questions about the stack and dev speed. They had looked at java but didn't have experience so were just going to plug along in c++. Their customers, libraries and book stores, didn't care.

They passed. Reason was I was too much of a cowboy and they were afraid I'd rewrite their whole system within a few months of starting.

I can read that many ways these days but I'm glad they passed ...