Them or me, or, do tech workplaces suck or do I?
I'm currently in the midst of the first time off (not related to Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Years, which we all know is not really time off) that I've gotten to take in a good while.
I'm reflecting on work so far, and thinking about where I want to go next/what I want to do next.
I (think) what I look for in a tech workplace is relatively straighforward:
- Small team, can be in a large organization, but emphasis on the subunit being two pizza.
- I can't overstate this enough – I must be able to buy into the mission of the org. This means both the professed mission and the actual mission.
- Limited supply of assholes, let's say less than 20% of the org. This should be obvious and easily achievable, but....
- As flat an organization as possible. To be clear, I don't believe that it's possible to have a completely flat organization – hierarchies form naturally anyways. But most of the large tech companies have taken their equivalent of the Rent the Runway ladder and created a beaurocratic hell.
A legitimate question I've been asking myself – am I being unreasonable? Many organizations I've been in fit the above on paper, but fall far short in real life.
If you come across this post and have an opinion, please email me about it at: femi@femiagbabiaka.xyz.