| Something for you to ponder: Maybe you are not the type that should be working for other people but should have other people working for you... Design patterns are nice but choosing the right one can have a long term positive or negative effect on the project, I would recommend learning them more in detail and when a conversation comes up about them you provide constructive criticism if needed if you have found better use of another design pattern. Sometimes it is best to sit back and see things through the eyes of other members of the team to get a better view of why they have chosen what they have suggested. If something comes up don't treat them as pointless but possible improvements to the project. It is similar to using algorithms to solve problems, one that is chosen may work fine now but as your data set grows you may need to choose or create a new one to meet your needs and improve efficiency of your algorithm (Big example are the regular changes in the Google Search Algorithms). If you are seeing the teams get worse start making a log of what you have noticed going down in quality in the teams you have been on. This will help you pinpoint anything that keeps happening. Somethings could be skill gaps, problems too advanced for the current teams, no senior developers on the team only juniors or intermediate developers, no out of the box type thinkers, etc. Make a log of it and analyze the reoccurring points to come up with a few hypothesis on resolving the reoccurring issues. Meetings at the last minute should be rare but you should be prepared for them as they are a way of business life either internally at the company or externally with clients. Until you rise the ladder or start your own company there will be nothing you can do to change this as it would be the standard unfortunately. Yes, these unannounced required meeting do pull us out of the Matrix at critical points while fighting the agents and building our neural network but the secret to these is to learn to start back up and get going without taking it too personally. Use the meetings as mental time to solve the problem mentally that you were working on while taking notes of the meeting. If you want to stop doing front end work apply for backend jobs but insure you meet the the desired qualifications for doing them and have some system administration qualifications. If you do not have any work experience doing backend work start created web applications and putting up code on GitHub. If you do but are not getting any bites back when applying for the backend jobs make your projects more advanced and solve real world problems. Eventually someone will reach out to you to help them solve their problems after seeing your methods of solving problems. Main thing to remember is don't give up looking for the job you want, keep pushing forward and don't give up. Work on being more positive in team environments when at work, and when your at home work on strengthening your weaknesses and fine-tuning your strengths. |
I have never seriously considered working for myself. Because I live in Silicon Valley, the thought has crossed my mind, but never for more than a few moments.
From what I can tell, this all sounds like very good advice. I'll be bookmarking your answer so I can return to it frequently. :)