[wincy]

I had this happen at my last job. Got a new boss who was closer to the situation and ended up bouncing me over the course of a six month pip. I was so bored, and the hard problems always got taken by the same guy who they’d just hand stuff of to.

At my new job I interviewed into a promotion and am a team lead. My focus is always on whatever is the most challenging technical tasks. Once we finish building a product, someone else takes over maintenance and we get a new project. It’s fantastic because I’m always at the edge of what I know and writing brand new stuff, which I exactly what I love. I find this deeply satisfying and it helps rebuff that feeling of being a fraud. I definitely prefer to be a medium sized fish in a small pond (where I’m a pretty smart guy at a place that doesn’t necessarily need world class engineers) vs being a medium sized fish in a large pond.

The more boring my work is the worse I do at my job, and I’m lucky that in my position at this point I basically only focus on the novelties and intricacies of the most challenging tech problems the company has to offer.