[michaelt]

> Speaking to recruiters and prospective employers is cringe because, for most of them, I'm the best developer they'll meet this year

Have you considered instead applying to the kind of organisations that are in the habit of hiring people at your skill level?

You should - there will be far more people to learn from, and they're probably in the habit of paying higher wages.

[jongjong]

In reality, almost nobody wants to work with intelligent people. Most highly intelligent people don't want to have to compete with other people who may be more intelligent than themselves. Not everyone gets to play the game of 'meritocracy.' You have to be a good actor first and foremost.

Especially as you get closer to the big money, the theatrics, double-dealing, sabotage, and dirty games. etc... increase by a huge factor. It's very hard to find a company of intelligent people. I've worked for maybe 15 companies in my career and out of thousands of people, I met maybe 3 intelligent people. Intelligent people aren't interested in helping out the like-minded. They'd rather surround themselves with 100 idiots they can easily manipulate. They don't need another intelligent person around them.

[bruce511]

To be honest, the fact you've worked for 15 companies, and you're only 35 would be a red flag to us. (Assuming that's employment not consulting.)

People change jobs for 2 reasons. They leave, or were kicked out. Doing that 15 times in (say) 20 years is not a good look regardless of which camp you fall into.

I'll be honest, we wouldn't hire that. We're looking for 10 years plus, and your track record suggests we're not a good fit for you.

As you are a good developer, and smart to boot, you may find that starting your in gig is your route to long-term satisfaction. I say that as someone who works a lot with self-employed developers (most of them self employed because they'd be terrible employees) and indeed because I'm self-employed (again because I'd be a terrible employee).

I will caution though that being self employed means you take the blame for all your mistakes (and the success or fail every month I'd revealed by the paycheck or lack thereof.)

[ffsm8]

Sorry that I've got to break it to you, but these people aren't particularly intelligent. They're just narcissistic and likely convince themselves to be a lot better at manipulation then they're.

More often then not, the "manipulated" person just went along with it because they just cba to deal with people that're convinced of their own superiority. They're tiresome to interact with and most people just don't care to bother. There was even a term for it a decade ago, they were called "madonnas" I believe. It was back when "brogrammers" thought of themselves as rockstars

As the old quote goes: You can't reason a person out of a perspective they haven't reasoned themselves into. And as such, most people just let them live in their fantasy world while moving on with their life