[yieldcrv]

hm, that might be happening to me, I'm an IC right now

I make it pretty clear during hiring that I don't have aspirations beyond IC anymore. Been there done that kind of vibes, I like to build. I say my value add is that I can add a vote for whatever policy or method would improve an org, people seem to like that.

But I'm currently on a team where leadership is doing everything outside of the sprint cycle, random demos in the middle of the week that nobody ever heard of before that day and so we must have all these features ready for right then, so I asked - I thought - a light question in the middle of the standup "are we using the sprint cycle?" because we have 2 week sprints and standups. and that was the.biggest.deal I've ever seen, all the leadership was convulsing amongst each other because they all have to show face to each other, instead of addressing their incompetence. "We- we- we'll take this offline!"

the meeting offline never happens. leadership can't be reached throughout the day. and the other IC's I do talk to (who don't know I've been in other non-IC roles before) act like I asked the biggest boat rocking question ever and I'm putting a target on myself.

To me, thats funny because the biggest boat rocking question would have been "why don't you do a demo from the staging branch that you're supposed to merge from dev in a schedule that's parallel and independent of the sprint" "why don't we have a staging branch, do you know what you're doing?" "why are you merging our pull requests in any order, not knowing the code base, and then yelling at us when there are merge conflicts, we should be reviewing each other's PRs"

Its actually a tolerable position,

but maybe there is a reality that I do have other jobs and maybe more comfortable about my prospects than other ICs there, and also have management experience that is impossible to hide.

[vrinsd]

This reeks of a situation where the people in the management position(s) really aren't the right people for the job and having a logical discussion or trying to explain how or why something should be done differently falls on deaf ears (or worse, antagonizes them).

Maybe I'm projecting from my own experiences but this usually is because the leadership has a "top down" mentality, "we know better because we are in this role" and your other team members who are likely less experienced than you can't tell the difference between "dissenting with evidence" vs. "being contrary".

Seems like the best plan is to keep your eyes open for other opportunities when it's no longer tolerable.

[yieldcrv]

edit: I got fired today for that

[yowlingcat]

You're a newly fired IC? In a comment several days ago about vesting schedules it sounds like you were speaking as a cofounder. If these were the same role then something smells suspicious about how your coworkers were treating you from the start IE any of these leaders and the general style of operating the company should have included your input. Moreover, I'm surprised they'd make a decision like this so flippantly as I'm not sure how it could be easy to fire a cofounder without significant legal headache to the company.

[yieldcrv]

I’ve been everything

I work for other people right now

These were not the same roles

[yowlingcat]

I guess I don't get it -- if you've founded a company and it went successfully enough to where you can be an LP (or you are otherwise independently wealthy), why would you join an early stage company full-time as an IC when you could join as a consultant or advisor to smoke out whether the collaboration is a good fit for you?

[yieldcrv]

bear market in my asset class and fallback employment sector was a little long

and its not an early stage company

I want fresh IC references and thats been successful

I want subsidized health insurance / contribute to an HSA and that's been successful, at least I have COBRA again and can keep contributing to an HSA uninterrupted

I want professional validation on stacks I want to use, get paid to do that

I want structure because doing side projects on my own schedule didn't have the same motivation for me

why does being versed in other parts of the industry dilute the point, need me to log in with an alt to be relatable?

[mousetree]

You got fired for just asking "are we using the sprint cycle?" There must be more to this story, no?

[yieldcrv]

the aforementioned guy merging PRs in random order decided that the existence of merge conflicts were all the devs fault, pinned a merge conflict on me and said I wasn't a good fit for their management style, a charitable explanation as none of us would pass an interview if we described an application development process this way

so I did in fact put a target on myself for asking anything

all happened at the end of yesterday, thought I was in the clear but they were conferring. My weekend post and reflection ironically turned out to be foreshadowing.

(hm all the time stamps are wrong, I originally posted the observation two days ago. I posted this sunday or so and got fired on monday afternoon)

[yieldcrv]

Yes, it is top down management, and comically ineffective for application development

We’ll see.

[AnimalMuppet]

> and the other IC's I do talk to (who don't know I've been in other non-IC roles before) act like I asked the biggest boat rocking question ever and I'm putting a target on myself.

That tells you much about the culture of the place. The other ICs know that you can't ask questions like that - they know that not only is the place dysfunctional as far as the sprint cycle, but it's vengefully dysfunctional - management will get you if you point out their dysfunction.