Wayfair

Personally, I set work-life balance boundaries early on (literally 7-hour workdays), made competent software engineering decisions, and stayed engaged while in the office. I learned from those around me, and it pays off. I've received, on average, a 9% annual raise. I am not advancing as quickly as some around me. There is still growth and a need for people to step up, and individual contributors can be greatly rewarded for growing and contributing. There is so much room for improvement and ideas, too.

Also, moms and dads both get great, fully paid maternity and paternity leave.

I like the PTO system, which includes unlimited unpaid time off if you accidentally go over. That is, if you feel like you don't have enough time off or holidays and book a little too much time off, you won't get fired for not coming to work; you just won't get paid for a couple of days. That is fair to those who work more.

You have to be receptive to change and adaptation as teams split, grow, move desks, tools change, we adopt better frameworks and libraries, and coding practices.

It depends on what software team you are working on as to what the specific culture, work, and tech stack is like. But I see that all teams are heading in the right direction, some more slowly than others.

Don't stop being afraid. Stay ahead of the world innovating. Your next step is toward bringing all of the world buying all things home from Wayfair. Only you can do this.