I’ve worked at the same company for 20 years. For the first 17 years another developer and myself were embedded in a business unit. I’d say we spent 90% of our time coding. Then they decided we should be integrated into IT. We since been made to adopt agile practices and all the meetings that go along with it. I’d say I spend about 5% of my work week coding now. The rest of the time is in meetings. I’m absolutely astonished at how many meetings the IT organization manages to create. I still don’t see the purpose. All these agile practices haven’t made our code any better. We are just writing far far far less of it. I’m kind of astonished anyone ever manages to get anything done.
So how's the job hunt going?
Eh, I'm not looking. The benefits are way too good and I live only 2 miles from campus (I can bike there in 15 minutes, though, I haven't been there since March 2020). If they want to waste my time with meetings, that's on them. They pay me way too much for me to complain.
Planning to retire soon?
No, I still have kids in school. No point in retiring until all the kids are done with college (to make sure I can help pay for their college).
I guess that is the downside of being 20 years at the same company.
I just started my first SWE job and I'm having a similar realization. So much decision making needs to happen before anything is even considered worth working on. As a junior, I sit silently in a ton of meetings about things that I don't even know about, haha. When my direct superior assigns me something, I get it done, ask her questions if necessary, and move on to the next task.
This is why I like remote. I have no input on these meetings, so I can work instead of being a mushroom.
I like remote because I can work on my mushrooms during work hours