General Motors

Week off between Christmas and New Year's. Work with a diverse group. People in other teams are willing to help when needed. Manager was understanding and vouched for us.

These are issues I faced, but it varies on a team/org basis. I felt like I was learning how not to code for the last two years.

There was a disconnect just one level above the manager. Although the manager cared about work/life balance, their manager awarded recognition to employees for working 60+ hours and during vacation during an all-hands call.

There were arbitrary deadlines before work was estimated. Lots of seat warmers who delegate but actually do nothing. A select few are leaned on to do the bulk of the work.

There was bureaucracy where leads are promoted based on tenure, and those who are actually good at coding end up leaving. The team's Level 7 lead was supposed to help remove blockers and deep dive into the codebase to better support the team, but could barely code and never lifted a finger.

Toxic positivity led to an inability to share issues faced and chances for improving. No time for career progression, learning best practices, or formal guidance from leads on pushing code and getting feedback. Leads wouldn’t even look at code before approving, which caused poor quality code and bugs going to prod.

Get organized. Don't be a "yes man." Actually know what's happening on our team and be more critical of your leads, rather than assuming they are doing what they say they are.