I think everyone in our industry should make a habit of leaving jobs that don’t make them happy. I know this is very privileged, and I’m really sorry for anyone whom it doesn’t apply to, but if you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in a buyers market, you should make use of it. You don’t have to put up with things, and I know this gets a lot easier once you become more senior in your roles, but you don’t. Impostor syndrome is rampant in our industry, many IT professionals leave productivity jobs because of stress and burn out, and it’s often down to “pseudo-jobbers” taking up too much space in our industry. At least in my anecdotal experience. The only way to improve it though, is to leave the teams where they have more process people than people who actually add value, that, and say no to meetings.

I know it’s very easy for me to say this as someone with a lot of options and more experience. I certainly remember having too many fucks, and too many worries in my early years. But I promise you, that once you know that everyone writes shit code on a Thursday afternoon after 3 days of no sleep because your twins kept you up, then a lot of your fucks will slowly disappear. I also promise you that there is nothing more hilarious than to tell a PO, PM or whatever, a blank “no thanks, I’m good” when they try to dupe you into a useless meetings with whatever communication they learned in their too short “MBA” course. The look on their faces when you say “no” to their “that wasn’t meant to be an option” question is just too hilarious, and what are they going to do? If they pressure you, you’re just going to take a job somewhere else and then they’ll have no one to do actual work. Don’t be an asshole about it though, you can be perfectly friendly and charming while you say no.

Anyway, to get back to the topic. I also think that once you start having too few fucks (or too much stress/depression/burnout) then it’s probably time to look elsewhere. Obviously it’s very individual, but in my anecdotal experience you can move past this sort of phase, but it’s also very “easy” to find yourself having mentally quit, and then it’s not healthy for you to stay and it’s not fair to your team either.