Consider an extreme stereotype: the "business school guy." He went to XYZ school of management, where he learned that a business is an organization that takes in raw materials and creates something more valuable than the sum of the unfinished parts. He learned how to raise money by selling his business idea to other people who think like him. He learned about how to manage people, perform marketing, design products, and set priorities for his organization.

I don't mean to suggest this is the type you're working with here, but I offer a relatable character to which you can add traits or from which you can remove them to fit the particulars of your experience.

For him, running a business is as much an exercise in tradeoffs and compromises as building an engineering system probably is for you:

You end up running with an imperfect design because of time constraints and because you're a slave to shipping. He runs with an imperfect business plan because that's what his board thinks is best and because he's a slave to their opinions. You devote time and energy to a technology only to have it fail when you need it most. He pursues partnerships and deals that fall through because of unforeseen differences, despite his best efforts. You end up rewriting your architecture because it didn't meet your requirements as well as you expected. He pivots the business because his original business plan isn't panning out as he anticipated. Et cetera.

The point is that generally people in management can be assumed to be doing their best. Despite what hacker news and TechCrunch try to convince you, running a company is a job just the same as building an engineering system. Incentives aren't always aligned, you have to cut corners, and conflicts are unavoidable. As someone on the inside of engineering divisions of technology giants, I can tell you that you get this sort of conflict and frustration even at these "engineering-first" sorts of places.

Naturally some companies are better than others. You want to find a manager who thinks of himself as your equal rather than your slaver. Instead of asking yourself "does this management know what it's doing?" ask yourself "does this management make me better as a professional?" If you can say "yes" to the second question, the answer to the first question doesn't matter. The company can fail, but if you come out of it better than you came in, you still succeeded.

As someone going to work for a startup, you're in much the same position as an investor. It won't be fun or lucrative to work for one that fails, so you're trying to predict which ones will succeed. In fact, it's even more important for you than for investors, because your portfolio consists of a single company. So I would suggest doing what investors do, and try (a) to learn as much as you can about how to predict which startups will succeed, and (b) analyze any company you're considering working for very thoroughly.

I've written a lot about how to predict which startups will succeed. I'd look for a startup with very determined founders who are working on a problem that grew organically out of their own experiences.

If you've got a few years of development experience in companies like that, I recommend you "find a boss [you] respect" by becoming your own boss. Start with consulting. These engagements are different than employment because often times they're not full-time and you can stagger a couple of contracts together at the same time. This is to your advantage because you now have two "bosses" (clients) instead of one. I know it sounds counterintuitive that more bosses are better, but if things aren't going as you'd like on one contract, you can move on to another contract as it becomes available without the sort of risk you incur when you're switching full-time employment at one company to another.

From there, you can further increase your independence by building a product that has many smaller customers. Again, many "bosses", but you need each one individually much less, so you're actually more in control of your circumstances.

If it doesn't work out, you can be reasonably confident you can just fall back into regular full-time employment. In this scenario, your definition of failure is most people's definition of success.

Boyd was the best fighter pilot in the Air Force. At the Fighter Weapons School, the Air Force's advanced tactics course that the Navy's Top Gun school was later based on, he laid down a challenge to anyone who would take it, in forty seconds, Boyd would maneuver from from having you on his six, to being on your six and winning the battle. It only ever took him twenty seconds and he was never beaten.

Boyd took his immense swagger and put it to work at the Pentagon designing what would become the F-15 and the F-16.

If you think the companies you've worked at had awful management practices, you ain't seen nothing yet. Boyd developed a scientific approach to designing planes based on the laws of thermodynamics. His ideas were constantly ridiculed and attacked, until enough studies were done to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were right.

Using this work, he designs the best fighter plane ever flown by pilots. He almost got that design approved for the F-15 but the bureaucracy, riddled with utterly toxic players, managed to bloat the plane with unnecessary cruft, gold-plating, they called it.

Boyd lost the fight for the F-15, but thinking ahead, he started working clandestinely on his design and, through a combination of back-channel communications with senior leadership under the President, outright neglect of the crap duties the Air Force gave him to marginalize him, he managed to turn his vision of a light-weight fighter into the YF-16, which demolished the competing design that the Air Force insisted have two engines. The YF-17 later became the Navy's F-18.

But the bureaucrats won the day again. After having the F-16 shoved down their throats by Boyd, they again gold-plated the design and the resulting fighter was nothing like the prototype. Boyd gave up in disgust and turned to academics, eventually developing what many consider to be the most important contribution to warfare since Sun Tzu, his OODA loop.

My takeaway from this is that we often limit the scope of our actions unnecessarily. If we focus our energies and efforts on things that management can shut down, then you are bound to be disappointed. I have projects and responsibilities handed down from above that I take seriously and try to do a good job of, but they don't get my passion. That goes into my personal projects and life. You should not sign your passion away for a paycheck. You can't succeed by fighting your opponents, you can only succeed by completely marginalizing them. If management doesn't matter, then they can't hurt you.

He decided to stay late in the cube farm. His original idea was to go around to all the cubes and count to number of Dilbert Cartoons stapled to the oatmeal gray walls. he thought this would be evidence that everyone was cynical and full of shit. Ok, so, her grabs a post-it and goes about tallying it all up. What he saw was not Dilbert and black humor but desperate passion. Most of the cubes were not messy, they were not cynical, they were not reflections of the company. He showed me that ~85% of the cubes were more or less shrines to their families. Pictures of rosy cheeked little girls on swings, little boys with trucks and sticks, graduation photos, school flags and colors, game schedules and rehearsal dates, church functions, pictures of wives on beaches, men dancing the tango, wedding photos with really bad hair-dos, parents with liver spots and tubes in their noses, etc. Most of the cubes were just covered in pictures of family, just every inch. Ok, got it? Most people at this company didn't give a flying turd about the missions or the day to day. They all knew it was some load of horse hockey. It was their families they really cared for. They went in day after day only for those kinky haired girls and those octogenarians. To give their families a better shot at life, to go to college and make a difference. The plant shut down about 5 months ago, leaving all those there in a hell of a lurch.

Honestly, I don't know what the take away is here. That you should work harder, or that families are toxic to a company, or that they weren't dedicated enough to their families. I don't know.

But the people that you work with are just that, people. Forgive them. Love them too.

In 14 years I learned to:

- low my expectancies

- do my job always at 100%, but not 110% (save rare occasions)

- live a life outside work (mine, btw, is a life of wife, side-projects, and mmorpg)

I also found a dangerous situation that comes from commiserating with coworkers. Basically, you can be perfectly happy, chugging along doing your job and one or more of your coworkers is not happy. So you start talking and they start telling you all the things they think are wrong with the company. Next thing you know you are also getting upset with the management, etc. despite them treating you the same as before. You take on your coworkers' misery and adopt their attitude. This has happened to me in the past, sometimes justified, sometimes not. In either case, try to get some perspective on your own situation not just equate it to theirs.

Lastly, is there anything wrong with doing some moving around every once in a while? I don't think so. Or try your hand at freelancing and instead of dealing with a frustrating manager, deal with a whole lot of frustrating customers at once :).

My dad has worked at the same company since he dropped out of college around 40 years ago (he runs it now). I do think our generation's (well, I'm 32, don't know about you) job goals are a lot different and a lot more conducive to short-term jobs, and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. I tend to place maximum value on doing real work and self improvement, and lots of meetings and doing the same work for years aren't the best way to achieve these (fundamentally unachievable) goals.

But even more than that, I think a major problem is that startups are companies that are by definition changing ceaselessly. They're either growing or belt tightening, adding new people who need to be managed even if the team is still functional. The emphasis goes from core product building to scaling and optimizing. Etc.

So, it might be sort of you, but it may also just be the nature of the work. Don't take it too hard.

I have a friend who's... hard to work with? He changes jobs a ton. But his strategy has evolved from 'join a team then get frustrated' to 'join a project, know what you're going to work on, add a ton of value, then maybe find another project at the same company, or not.' It's kind of mercenary but can be really valuable to both parties if you play it right, and keeps him from feeing miserable.

Over time, I watched the passion and integrity of the founders/owners dissolve as they bought expensive real estate and had children.

Decisions that used to be about what would be the most "awesome", became about what would be the most $$$.

Quitting those jobs were two great decisions. After the first one, I was still surprised when it happened again at the second one. Now I'm not surprised anymore. This is just what happens.

Now I stay freelance. Everyone has to be happy all the time or you don't work together anymore. Until I'm in charge, and have the opportunity to sell out my own principles, that's how it's going to be!

Jobs, universities, projects, residence, friends, women... You name it. I can trace that pattern to basically anything I've ever done in my life, to the point that I now count on it.

And that's fine.

No company is perfect, even if you're the sole owner & employee. "Inability to close deals" is extremely vague, so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but deals fall through all the time. It could be a sub-par sales team, it could be market conditions, it could be a million things, but that's just a part of business in general.

Short-sighted decisions are also tricky. What you call short-sighted might be necessary for a longer-term strategy. Long-term strategies are great, but sometimes $10 now is more important than $100 next week. If it's a code thing, sometimes you need to have a feature done immediately for contractual reasons, even if it's going to require more work down the road.

Petty management techniques are a pain in the ass, but if it takes you over a year to find them, there's not a ton you can do before looking at your next job to ensure that doesn't happen.

Overly frequent pivots also can be tricky. If you don't see profit/upswing anytime soon, you might be forced to pivot if you can't raise money on reasonable terms. Unless you're privy to board meetings and whatnot, it's hard to say.

There aren't many perfect jobs out there. Like other posters have said, you might be happiest if you can save enough to do your own thing for awhile. But keep in mind that in one way or another, you're probably going to have to deal with other businesses, even if you're running your own show. Deals will fall through, your business plan might not go according to script, you might be forced to make short-sighted decisions just to keep the lights on / keep a client / what-have-you.

One thing I might caution about is quitting too many jobs. I'm not in the valley, but here in Boston, a reputation can follow you. If you get a name for being a perpetual flight-risk, it can be hard to shake. Granted leaving after a year or two at each one probably isn't the worst, but as your career develops, it might make it more difficult if you want to become a leader within a company.

You're being unrealistic. Try lowering your expectations of other people and if you can't find complete fulfillment in your job, just search for it in something else. A job is just a job at the end of the day, you're primarily doing it for money. Not everyone is lucky to both have money and the ideal job at the same time.

It really isn't worth filling your mind with negativity about aspects that aren't fully under your control, which usually is the case when you're working for other people.

Just do your best, let the higher-ups worry about the rest, continue growing professionally through your side-projects and take good care of your health. It may sound silly, but going to the gym for instance, eating healthier, having a regular sleeping schedule can do a lot to lower your anxiety and in turn make your less than ideal job(s) easier to bare.

Great!

I suppose that's the case for most of us.

I don't suppose that. Others may say that, but they really prefer what's in it for them. You are in the minority. (That's a good thing.)

...the only thing I can see is the bullshit coming out of management's mouth...

That's the unmistakable signal from your inner self that it's time to move on.

Am I 1/ Bad at choosing my jobs

No. It's hard to choose the best jobs because, for the most part, they're already taken. Good bosses don't lose their people nearly as much so those jobs simply aren't as available.

2/ Too demanding towards the companies that hire me

No. Don't lower your standards.

3/ Mentally unstable

Maybe, but I can't tell from anything you've posted yere.

4/ Unrealistic

No. The day you lower your expectations to the mediocrity you've encountered is the day you've sold your soul and forfeited your real potential dreams.

5/ Just a normal bullshit intolerant guy

Probably.

Is there any way I can find a boss I respect beyond a couple of years?

Yes. You already have: yourself.

Tell me about your experiences.

35 years & 88 companies:

WorkingForSomeoneElse = WisdomAccumulation

DoingMyOwnThing = WisdomExpenditure // and much more fun!

I think that everyone needs a little of both. You've just had a little too much of the former and no enough of the latter. That's all.

> Bogus business plans, inability to close deals, short-sighted decisions, petty management techniques, overly frequent pivots, you name it...

This presents a killer opportunity for personal growth: go start your own business. You'll either learn that you are a masterful business planner, only making high-minded long-term decisions & closing deals left and right, and you'll be super successful.

OR you will grow as a person and learn that there are at least two sides to every business decision.

Either way, you'll grow as a person through the experience.

Every business wants you to be fully committed and giving 110%, but most businesses aren't as committed to you as they expect you to be towards them.

At some point you need to find a kind of detachment to your job that allows you to do good work and go home and forget about work, or you need to keep moving on to different things until you land in the right spot.

It's tough because society still sort of makes you feel like switching jobs every few years is a bad thing, but that is just the way it is now. Companies tend not to invest as much in their people and so people aren't investing as much in their companies.

In many ways, it's more capitalistic to be taking advantage of opportunities when they come your way than it is to just sit at one company and "put your time in".

Getting fired repeatedly caused me to re-evaluate my priorities. I decided that, going forward:

(1) I would keep in mind exactly what I wanted to be doing day-to-day and focus on doing that better than anyone else; in other words, I would consider myself strictly as a skilled craftsman. (2) I would keep in mind my "ideal" work environment so that I would always be ready to take the next best opportunity to find it. (3) Every job short of the ideal would be merely temporary. Management missteps, office politics, too-good-to-be-true risks, management changes, cutthroat coworkers, overbearing schedules were all none of my concern.

It worked out for me. After two more "temporary" jobs, I landed a job doing the one thing that I did best. When they had a management split, I took the less risky path, since both sides offered me a higher position. By the time they folded, I had acquired enough experience to be able to freelance part-time. I waited for the best opportunity I could get by personal referrals. One of the things that helped me get the job was my breadth of experience and the fact that they perceived me as "hard to get" (and hard to keep) because of my freelancing work, even though I could never have supported myself freelance. I have been there ten years now and I would say it is my ideal workplace.

First, honeymoon periods seem to be a general thing: romances, friendships, jobs, etc. People are more 'polite' when you first meet them. You are probably more tolerant when you first meet people. You haven't had time to develop negative repertoire's or patterns. You're not bored with anything yet.

Your expectations also shift over time. You feel like you deserve respect or status or money or whatnot once you feel like a full member of that group. Instead of being delighted to get it, you're neutral when you do and angry when you don't.

Also, a lot of negative stuff takes time to see. The pathologies manifesting over and over and reveals ng themselves.

It sounds like you're pretty emotionally involved with the success of the business too (closing deals, pivoting, etc.). That can be emotionally taxing and you're on a shorter fuse when you're tired.

Publicizing this kind of thing is usually bad, especially when you have had the same experience several times. If your account is publicly identifiable as you I'd delete this post

I'd just like to suggest that there might be a sweet spot for you in a small company (10-30 people maybe) that has already figured out a bit of product/market fit. These don't have to be VC-backed startups swinging for the fences. But you'd be able to find management that has to be doing something right in terms of having found a sustainable business. And in a company that small the chances are lower that you get a completely politicized dysfunctional organization (although that's always a possibility with all sizes).

So I guess if you're tired of management bullshit I'd say stop looking at unproven startups and mega companies. There are small businesses that might be a good fit if you can find a founder and management team that has integrity and competency that you really trust.

Even if you don't solve it you could make a lot of money by writing a convincing enough book.

A blog about "today my boss said ..." (With a few ad words ads, and allowing user submissions) would make money. Dilbert has existed for years on management bullshit.

I was watching a programme in England where a consultant was called in to help a company. He spoke to all the shopfloor staff. They started by telling him that it was hopeless and pointless and that management would never listen. He dogeddly worked through that pessimism and got the staff, all of them, keen and motivated. He got some excellent ideas (cheap, legal, easy to implement, would save or generate a lot of cash).

So, then he has to feedback this stuff to management. He starts with one of the great ideas (basically "move this machine to be nearer that other machine" - the programme showed why that had serious advantages).

Management refused. They said that they had already looked at all that stuff and it was as good as it could be. They were so convinced of their rightness that they declined to even look at the suggestion.

That instantly demoralised all the staff, and infuriated the consultant.

It was a great demonstration of why some managers are poor. I wish I Could remember the name of the programme.

I used to work in a factory and I have a bunch of similar stories if you ever want to hear them.

So, put simply, you need to do open source work in your spare tome for the feels and just grind through the workweek to earn enough money for the open source stuff.

Just like any relationship that fizzles out after the initial honeymoon phase when you're learning about each other, it becomes your responsibility to keep things interesting. Take initiative on starting new projects, look for needs and innovate from within the company (being an entrepreneur doesn't always mean you have to start a new company), and most importantly always keep you manager in the loop.

Thats phase 1.

Phase 2 begins when you decide damn it Im going to start my own company, it can't be that hard, look at these clowns Ive been making rich all this time. Customers are clearly accepting of any old rubbish and I know I'm better. How hard can it be?

Phase 3 is when you start your own. Then you see it from the other side. And you were right! But can you do any better now you're in their shoes? Does it matter if you can't? You'll only have to deal with the occasional grumpy developer, hey those guys come and go all the time.

Reality is hard to change. Perspectives, less so.

One common cause is that people who are good at starting companies are usually not very good at managing them internally, and especially bad at managing people. And they don't realize it because they are too busy being entrepreneurs in the hectic early phase of a company.

The good news is that sooner or later this changes, often by hiring experienced managers, because otherwise the company won't survive.

The bad news is that if often takes big incidents, painful confrontations and some of the best and most dedicated people walking out before the founders realize they suck at management.

Companies for whom this growth is a smooth ride are rare. But if you believe in company, believe in the integrity of the people leading it, it can be worth sticking it out.

The issues you bring up are normal for the stage the company is in. The problem is the way they are being managed internally, or rather mismanaged. The "bullshit" is just a misguided attempt at keeping up appearances. The focus of the bosses is on the business, not the company as a living organisation.

The only way to make it easier on yourself (besides completely avoiding start-ups and start working for mature companies) is to take control of the situation. Just put your foot down and tell your bosses "we're going to fix this now, and here's how".

Unless they have an ego the size of a planet or are extremely insecure (the two are often the same btw), your bosses will love you for taking part of the responsibility off their hands. When it comes to internal stuff, if you are confident enough to make them believe you know what you're doing (and hey, unlike them you've at least thought about it, and have some experience of how not to), they will even take orders from you.

Most start-up founders are utterly clueless about managing a company. Bitching about it won't help, and if you're not part of the solution but still want to work for start-ups, you're just as much part of the problem as they are.

1. Isn't a "startup" anymore (by Steven Blank's definition of the term).

2. That's been founded by engineers (you might a better cultural fit).

3. That still has a fairly small workforce (so that your contributions still feel significant enough for you).

4. That's profitable, and self-funded (no pressure from investors who don't understand what the business is trying to do, only understand that they need to see +10x returns)

How carefully have you been choosing your jobs? I don't think you're being too demanding. However, you are being unrealistic if you're not vetting the startups that you're applying to.

That's just two cents from a dev who's been working at startups for the past 10+ years.

Over here, businessmen give you the "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" speech after they screw you. This was their real goal from day 1, it's just they have to sort of believe their lies to make you believe in them. Same old trick from con men and salesmen.

Never take promises from a businessman, always get it on paper. And even so, you might not get it (e.g. bankruptcy protection). The only exception is if you have done business with them for over a decade and they depend on you and their reputation.

I think the best bet if you're the type of person who can't help but care too much is to just keep trying. Eventually you should find a founder who is a better breed - although you'll only ever know once some pressure builds. You can't measure a founder at the start - only when money is low or something isn't going well.

Alternatively, give it a shot and start up your own company. It's hard but at least you'll be the terrible manager doing frequent pivots.

First, it is my experience that for the bulk of people, and many programmers, that their job is all about salary and benefits. Those people wouldn't do well in startup culture, but they are great for 'big business'. I can honestly say I wouldn't be working with any of my current client base if there wasn't some type of monetary compensation built into our contract. For some people, the most important parts of their life happen when they leave work and go home. I have yet to figure out if I envy those people or hate them.

Are you bad at choosing jobs? I would say no! It sounds like you are following your passion and interests. That is awesome, I commend you.

Are you too demanding toward the companies that hire you? I'm not sure. It sounds to me like you may have trouble empathizing with other departments / people about their responsibilities and challenges. I don't think people are capable of understanding the issues around sales or contract negotiations or corporate viewpoint until you do it.

Are you mentally unstable? I am not able to judge; but you may consider seeking help if you are concerned about this.

Are you unrealistic? It sounds to me like during the interview / honeymoon stage you are "eating the dog food" which is slang for believing the hype. It sounds like you going all in. But, hype is just hype; and when reality isn't as rosy as it appears, it is shocking to you.

The hardest thing I find as a business owner is promoting the hype/ideas/ideals while still being aware of the imperfections and problems in what I offer. You, basically, need to be two-faced. Be both positive and negative. Be Idealistic and realistic.

It sounds as if you may be going from one extreme to the other; but may benefit from a more balanced approach to the companies you work for.

Are you a 'normal bullshit intolerant guy'? I'm not sure what normal is. But, don't make the mistake of thinking everything you don't like is bullshit.

Without a well-balanced three-legged stool of motivation, a few years is all you are going to be content. Or, like many of us, you will gradually learn to lower your expectations, eventually settling - tolerating lesser situations - for a longer time.

http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

You jump in a startup that sounds kind of cool on paper but after six months or so realize it's probably going nowhere for the reasons you mention above. And then move on to the next one. That, unfortunately, seems to be the way of the world now. It will continue until the punchbowl (easy money) is taken away and this bubble pops. Lots of developers will once again be out of work. Then slowly, very slowly things will recover to a more sane level like they did in the early 2000's. If history is any guide that will take about 3 to 4 years (the 2001 to 2004 period was pretty awful for tech employment, but by late '04 things were starting to recover).

For now be glad you have other startups to jump to. That may not be the case when the music stops on our current Cambrian Explosion.

Looking at something that doesn't work, and pulling the plug, so that scarce resources can be better focused on other things that show more promise, is one of the hard things that management has to do.

It may be that a six-month investment in an API platform would unlock the possibility of OWNING THE CLOUD in the future. But if the company has to worry about payroll between here and there, a shorter-term project, like a two-week A/B split test on better ways of monetizing existing customers, might be more in everyone's actual interest. (It's been a while since I was in a company that close to the margin, but short-term decisions show up for many reasons that are just as compelling.)

I've found that, at good companies, the thinking and data that goes into these decisions is shared with the company. If there's not an all-hands that talks about this with some frequency, at least the managers that make these calls answer questions, and also actively seek and act upon feedback from anywhere in the company.

Some companies don't have that culture, and management is managing mainly through fiat and "it's my way!" I find it hard to be effective in such an environment, and these environments tend to self-select away in the long run, but there's no dearth of such environments alive today. Screening for this in the interviewing process is important, and also hard.

First, management at a startup is inexperienced. Most of them are just a few years older than you and have never managed people before. They're still figuring out how to balance the realities of building a business with keeping the team happy and effective. It's a difficult balancing act, and I'm not sure you ever get it 100% right.

Second, the startup is probably struggling. Most startups fail, even if they've raised a ton of money or built a huge awesome team. Building a profitable and sustainable business is hard. You're experiencing that as seemingly irrational behavior from your boss. It's far more likely that management is doing that they think is best for the company than it is that they're trying to screw employees.

Third, the world needs good technical managers. It's a hard, often thankless job which eventually requires giving up being hands on with code. The tradeoff is that it multiplies your ability to make change in the world. If you think you could do a better job you should. Find a mentor and steer your career that way.

If that's not your path then work with your boss to keep you engaged. Come to him or her with ideas and solutions, not problems. I think you'll find most managers are receptive and will try to align things to keep you happy and healthy.

Then shit just hits the fan as people leave, sometimes taking others with them, as soon as they realise that things aren't going as well as the company would want them to believe. After all, a company isn't going to outright tell its employees that things are going to hell (until the very end at least). That'll just cause a bigger exodus of talent. So it's not uncommon in a failing startup that management starts BSing - it's all about retaining employees.

In the end I think when you join a startup you have to be realistic about its chances of succeeding. Not every startup's a rocketship. You're going to get bullshit, pivots, short sighted decisions (or indecisions) when things aren't going well.

My advice is to not be too emotionally attached to your job or go in with too high expectations. If you sense bullshit coming out from management, do some due diligence on the state of the company and leave if you must. After all, if you're not happy doing what you're doing, then it's not worth it. There's a ton of startups out there looking for talent, and I'm sure you'll be able to land another job.

The truth is that managing people is hard. Every person is different and you need to understand the personality of each one of your staff and it is not easy. The way you communicate with each person is a reflexion of your understanding of their personality and sometimes you get it wrong.

Suppose that you just realised that despite your best efforts, what you have been working on for the past year will not sell. Your board is maxing pressure on you and you decide to explore a new avenue. You now need to communicate the news to your employees, without making them panic, and to try to get them onboard to your new vision. Well I can tell you it's hard, and it happens! It certainly happened to us more than I wished for. You are going to have to be a politician! You need to minimise the failure while painting a beautiful and bright future ahead, even though you don't know yet whether it will work. This is probably what you refer to as "Bullshit".

And then that's just managing people. Managing a company is so much more than this. You make a ridiculous amount of decisions daily, and some of them will not please everybody. And some of them you will come back on.

Finally, remember that your boss is human too, and if he appears to be an arse at times, it is probably because he learned over time that being the best friend of his staff is a very bad idea. When a staff member is not performing, you are going to have to fix this. And pushing a staff member to improve is a lot easier done if that staff member thinks of you as his boss, and not his mate!

Most managers are in simply supervisory roles, to watch over the team and ensure it's functioning, surviving, and thriving. That is what a supervisor or lead is for. While managers are certainly responsible for nurturing and growing their teams efficiently, they're also highly concerned with managerial duties to the company, which can often be unseen or misunderstood by their direct reports.

Managers often have responsibilities to the management team, the executive team, and other departments entirely. Take an IT department for example. All of the other departments in the company, including operations (where IT often sits to avoid conflict with engineering, and because largely it's an operational focus), are its internal clients, and the management in IT must work with the management of all other departments.

Meanwhile, IT engineers (sysadmins, devops, etc) often under recognize that this intricate dance is going on. The executive team will put pressures on the department, and the manager must delicately balance their needs with what the needs of the team are as well.

Thus, the engineer often looks for a manager that focuses solely on the team. But long term, the manager ends up having to account for the needs of the company. Any manager will need to do this.

It's ultimately important that the staff understands that their manager is superior to them simply because the position requires this of them (not necessarily because of any inherent skill advances). To look for an equal out of your manager is and will continue to be an exercise in futility.

I get much higher signal to indicate whether I will enjoy a job from my coworkers and the culture of the company. If I am working with smart motivated people, I will be happy no matter what I'm working on. If I am in an environment where people are continually innovating and pushing the boundaries of the status quo in the field, I will be happy with my job.

This awareness leads to a very different typo of job search. It's easy to start a job search by thinking of a product you like then trying to see if you can work for that company. It's harder to think of a culture you want to join and then look for that.

I thankfully have not been employed by a company whose product I actively despise; I'm sure that would have a disastrous effect on my job satisfaction.

If I did believe in my team then I would try to do whatever I could within my domain of expertise to help the company succeed. As a developer there are usually lots of things you can do to help. When a deal doesn't close - find out if there are any technical features that might have make a difference. Give the sales department tools to better sell your products. Give the business people tools to analyze stats so they can make better decisions. Maybe these are not sexy things, but they might be necessary to get a company off the ground.

Depending on the organization you may not feel that you have the authority to do certain things. But, if the team is any good then they would recognize when somebody is trying to step up and help with the big picture. I would probably use that as a yardstick to tell me whether it's me or them.

Maybe you need a change of perspective. As some of the others here have suggested, you can become a contractor, but even as an employee you can think like a contractor. You can still be bought into the project and still be a good team member while thinking about it as "you" working for "them," rather than everything being "we" and "us." If they make bad decisions and ask you to do something that doesn't make sense, you can have a less negative outlook than if we make bad decisions.

So my suggestions are: start out as highly skeptical and assume that management decisions are crap from the start because they probably are and don't internalize the team's failures or poor decisions when you had nothing to do with them.

It happened to work out that I chose the job that was better for me personally. But I really had no idea at the time that I got hired. Only after working for some time did it become clear to me that the other job would have been terrible for me.

I don't know what you need to do to find your niche. But you are not the only person that struggles with this.

This is of course different than if the work environment is toxic or the work is dull, or something of that nature. There's no need for you to stick around at a job you hate. But if it's just management you're upset about, heh, I hate to break it to you, but every company's management sucks balls.

As an alternative, either become a team lead/manager/exec, or start your own company.

There are plenty of suggestions online for ways to avoid burnout, but it seems like it's even harder to diagnose than prevent, and usually involves a lot of soul searching. I unfortunately don't have any good recommendations for either diagnosis or prevention, but it might be worth considering as a possibility.

If you're not familiar with the patterns of burnout, I found this article to be a good introduction: http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/

Once he left the company I left afterwards. I was loyal to him not to the company. He was my manager and I respected him and always wanted to do my best to make his life easier. I worked with him not against him. I didn't care about the business decisions as long as I got paid. We did great work but as always bad decisions can make or break a company. When I join a company I don't know what is going to happen 1 or two years but I can try to ask questions to my potential manager to see if we are going to be good fit or not.

    Life is a mess[0]:
        Don't work.
        Avoid telling the truth.
        Be hated.
        Love somebody.

[0]: http://interesting_posts.quora.com/Don%E2%80%99t-Work-Be-Hat...

Most notably, a relationship is different from years [2,4) than it is from year [0,2) and there's no way to make that not true. Maybe you really like the [0, 2) thing -- the excitement, the sense of possibility, the novelty -- and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's an important thing to know about yourself.

Of course, as with romantic relationships, you might find that as you get older it's harder to keep jumping from one [0, 2) gig to another, without facing consequences you might not like: reduced choice in jobs; reduced pay; getting a reputation as someone a company shouldn't invest in, etc.

How long did it take you to find your next startup when you were looking?

Some tips if they're helpful: 1. Find a growth stage series A or B funded startup with a product market fit where focus is now on scaling up. They are beginning to know what they are doing.

2. I give more weight to the team than the project or idea itself. Ideas change all the time. So its more important to work with great people. Find a place where you admire and like the people.

3. Voice your opinions. You're not working for a "manager", you're working for a "company". You should be open about what you think and feel. If that's not welcome, you're in the wrong place.

This isn't unique to technology companies, it's human nature whenever there are high stakes in play. Don't worry about it, just get better at predicting it, and jump ship when necessary.

Sometimes expectations are too high, other times, you're just seeing the truth as it is, but it can be difficult to see the whole picture until you've actually got the responsibility. Next tough decision is whether to try and change the place because you like the project and it's too important to fail, or skip out because life's too short.

5/ Just a normal bullshit intolerant guy

I assume this. The problem with bullshit is that big companies get away with it for years (decades, even) while in a startup, this leads to very short-term consequences.

1) work for a boss who you respect

2) work for a manager who let you be your own boss most of the time

3) be your own boss - either start your own startup, or consulting

And on a side note, most people care about what's in it for themselves. The fact that you see bullshit coming from them means you are not understanding what they think. It's an important life/leadership skill to understand how different people operate, what motivates them, etc.

I don't think you're deficient in any of the ways you list, but perhaps you are looking for a more stable work environment with a proven business model.

Is there any way I can find a boss I respect beyond a couple of years?

Yes, be your own boss. You sound like a smart person, who can be a tech co founder. Or you can find your boss from your pool of friends. Find someone you know for a few years that you think will be great to work with.

It doesn't have to be a YC 1 billion$ company that you build. Even doing freelance will give you more freedom. And you will have less attachment to a specific startup as it will be part of the expectation that you "see other people".

http://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/management/ http://randsinrepose.com/archives/

Maybe your not 100% employee material. How about a more independent career? Consulting is one possibility, starting your own company another, maybe a so-called lifestyle business?

When the company is "average" then it is the management team (importantly your direct manager) that hold the keys to you being happy.

The question is, "Would a really good manager stick around at a company that is limping along?"

Stand together with your co-workers as a team. I think thats more usefull and can balancing out the shity boss stuff.

Maybe one good boss under a million bosses will exist i think. If you can't find it, do it by yourself and be your own boss. But at least, there is no boss like the girlfriend||wife that waits for you at home! :D

Just some thoughts.

Some combination of #1, #4, and #6.

#6 is the one where you don't truly respect the process of management works (in much the same way we all get frustrated at managers who don't understand how the process of software engineering works), and are oblivious to the challenges and concerns involved.

This is an easy trap to fall into and most engineers I know have fallen into it at some point in their careers. Good management is often virtually invisible, but bad management sticks out like a sore thumb -- or so the conventional wisdom goes. Remember:

1. Management is a skill, just like coding. It's deep and complex and multi-faceted and you're only seeing the surface of it. 2. In startups, many entrepreneurs are getting their first taste of a completely different world. It's a learning process even for an experienced manager/executive. Imagine being a career web developer and say, cutting over and doing 3D game development on a console system in C++ for the first time. Only it's not a hobbyist thing, it's your job and people are counting on you. 2. Startups are not like normal environments. Inaction is usually worse than a bad action, because at least with a bad action you've learned something and narrowed the search space a bit.

You should EXPECT that in a startup, seeing management trip up and make "mistakes" will be a common, everyday occurrence. Oftentimes the right decision will look, externally, like the wrong decision. If you want a well-oiled machine in a well-understood problem domain, go work at Cisco.

Startups are about discovery. Product-market fit, paths of least resistance, etc.

I'm personally inclined to this form of myopia myself, so as a rule, I only work within my personal network at this point because I have a group of entrepreneurs, executive-level programmers, and so forth who I trust implicitly. I may not understand a given decision, and any given decision may be a mistake but I'm entirely comfortable leaving their domain in their hands while focusing on doing my best in my domain. I find it's less stressful, and more rewarding whether the venture succeeds or fails.

(1 - Yeah, I looked it up on WolframAlpha. I'm bored, what I can I say.)

On the other end of the spectrum, you could be like me and pick a company that looks good on all these aspects, but adds great stress due to having to catch up on work to meet deadlines due to being understaffed for too long.

The only sane option seems to be: be the boss yourself. Take a leading role somewhere where you can influence the running of the business, better yet start it yourself.

Side note, I wrote a post about this: https://medium.com/maybe-its-fiction/5bac4f20203a

at least you lasted a year, i have quit TWO jobs (well paying i might add) - one in one day, the other in a week.

so, i got a job where i don't have to code shit [network and maintenance]

i stay in the coding scene [which i LOVE] by doing side projects and doing my OWN and OPEN projects [nothing beats the feeling of getting a PR on GitHub]

One of two things will happen, you will either succeed or your patience for the struggles of management will grow and you will be happier at the company you work for next.

Wait, you tell me there are a lot of devs on the market? No, there are a lot of clueless young people on the market with a huge student loan that studied CS but that maybe the worst developer ever but have a strong incentive to get hired (cheat): they have to reimburse their loans before they sleep under the bridge.

So, brute force attack require to hire a lot of expensive broken arms. If I were a recruiter, I would never hire a student with a loan to refund that young I would prefer an autodidact that understand the basic of economy: don't spend money you don't have and don't be a sheep.

Lastly the money for startups even if QE is turning in all worldwide economies is not there! Central banks are printing bank notes like mad men (China, Japan, US, Europe...) but this money is directly used in stock options and the bank never landed that few money (or when they do the compound interests are just mad). And public and private debts are fucking high. The economy is on the brink of a bubble explosion for which new startup are responsible.

So there is no money to turn startup that don't master their costing/pricing in real companies. (no money available on the credit market)

Yes basically startups is a phony ecosystem.

My advice: have balls.

Go for companies that do not label them startups that seems «unsexy», even with lower wages, and accept the job after you accept and understand their mission/business model.

Maybe helping family planning communicate better on their mission can be more satisfying in life than helping a delusive «self made man» have is first million before 25 based on a ponzi scheme (buying tools to startups that buys me tools without generating new products is a little mad, isn't it?).

We operate a bit differently in this field because we are empowered more than most others in the contemporary western workplace. We have refined skills, engineering backgrounds, and are very high in demand. On top of that, there is a very large amount of average to below average talent in this field (ie code bootcamps, php for dummies readers, etc), so having a track record which demonstrates high level of talent makes one even more desirable for any position. Programming is a hot field right now, especially web development, so again, there is a surplus of jobs. Our role is not rocket science, but its not trivial either. Few other employment opportunities have these qualities - there isnt nearly as massive demand for rocket scientists as there is for web developers. There is a demand for accountants, but their specialization and employment opportunities make them less in demand. We are also very empowered when it comes to base salary negotiations. The point im making is, few people in 2014 have the ability to say "f this job, it sucks, im finding another one next week" and actually go out and find 50+ jobs to choose from.

My first company refused to pay me anything reasonable, but it was my first job ever. I left after 3 years of asking for more money to work for one of the biggest media companies in the world. They paid me a decent salary, treated all developers like dirt, and used fear as a motivation to work harder. I found another gig after one year. In this third job, I wasnt utilizing my skills at all (back end dev), I was basically making mundane HTML changes and surfing tumblr out of boredom. A friend offered me a great job with more money, so I quit, and joined him. Two years after that, they completely forgot to enter my tax information (yah thats illegal), and due to a complicated process I wasnt able to access my payroll for that tax year to even know about it. I got screwed heavily on taxes, the company wouldnt do anything for me unless I sued them, so I quit.

The pattern here is reasonable, rational, logical dissatisfaction with a job. Its odd that someone can just say "f it, im finding a new job" and do so very easily, regardless of their career choice. Like the original poster, I dont care about salary and benefits nearly as much as the product Im working on and the balance I get between life and work. Most people, when tremendously unsatisfied with a job, face a paycut, or a big move to a new area, or both. Software Engineers can just surf the web for a few hours, and most likely find something better in their local area.

Add this to traditional corporate culture in America. Its seen as "better" or "stronger" to have a long lasting relationship with a company, even if its entirely superficial and your experience there was miserable. There is absolutely nothing logical or rational about corporate culture in America - its designed to exploit the worker for maximum yield to the employer. Right now, Software Engineers are empowered enough to escape this situation, although we usually just find the same themes resounding in the next business.

Ultimately, NOTHING IS WRONG WITH YOU. Everything is wrong with the jobs themselves. You arent unstable - YOU RESPECT YOURSELF. You actually have the power to do something about it when you feel disrespected, disenfranchised, or disengaged. Other people simply dont have this power, they can only smile and obey.

...and of course if the tech bubble bursts, we all lose this power as well.

I think there is more to that quote but that's the jist of it.

I specifically choose companies whose business I find appealing.

You might try prioritizing the people you work with rather than the business.

You are the minority, so better adjust your attitude and take it like a man.

This took me a while to realize.

I can offer a few pieces of advice. First, be direct but exceedingly rational with your co-workers - especially your superiors. Sometimes it helps to start conversations regarding conflicting ideas under the assumption that you're wrong.

Also, watch your assumptions. Sometimes when people get frustrated about things it's really easy for our assumptions to solidify into fact, and it's just as easy to feel justified launching into a spirited argument fuelled by all this fact.

Finally, if you think you're expressing yourself well, and you don't agree with the direction things are taking, you're 100% totally justified in leaving. I don't care if you're a minimum wage employee, your time is your scarcest resource. Don't invest it in something you don't want to own.

Annnd really long (but hopefully interesting) anecdote time...

I used to work for a very small, now fairly famous start-up non-profit which was cofounded by Edie Widder of Discovery Channel/Giant Squid fame. She wasn't running it because she didn't feel that she had the fundraising or business acumen. She decided to cofound with a former marketing exec, and to make him CEO.

I worked for them indirectly and directly for a combined 5 years. It was the kind of life-consuming work that one only does when they're very passionate. And I was as it was incredibly rewarding.

Our mission was to develop very inexpensive sensors for very broad scale in-situ monitoring of estuarine environments (the mission has broadened since then). When I first came on directly, we made a huge push to win a seven figure grant. Engineering was told by the CEO to push, and to push hard because this would be the money we'd be using to go from prototype to small-scale manufacturing.

Except after we won it, engineering wasn't given a budget. As time went on, our feeling was that we were having to beg for every expenditure. In the mean time lots of money was being spent on marketing, with the justification that it would be bringing in the "real big bucks." Of course, there was also plenty of disagreement over certain expenditures. Was X really marketing-related, or was that a personal expense?

Obviously there was lots of infighting -- mostly by people who typically like to avoid confrontation. People would wait to address something until they were so exasperated that it'd just boil out, and everybody involved would get very defensive very quickly.

I started to wake up to the idea that we were working more on our arguments and less on our mission. I'd spent every second I could over the past five years building a monolithic realtime telemetry system with the idea in mind that this was a step toward literally saving the world. Leaving felt wrong, like I was abandoning my purpose and my friends, but after a while staying felt more wrong.

On my last day there I sat down with Edie for an informal exit interview. For the first time I explained to her my position as directly and rationally as I could. This wasn't out of some new-found maturity, but because I had nothing to lose and nothing to gain.

I stated my observations, listened to her responses, and conceded on the points where my knowledge of the situation was lacking. At the end of the conversation I still felt justified for leaving, but I think she understood my justification. Prior to that, we were always putting her in a situation where she had no other choice but to feel cornered and defensive.

Not long after I left the CEO became the former CEO. For a brief period during this process, there were two separate sets of legal council arguing against each other - I believe with each claiming to represent the company. When the dust settled, relationships were tarnished, names had been dragged through the mud, and most importantly the work had all but stopped.

Fast-forward to today and things are much different. In many ways they've been terribly stunted, but there's better accounting, better employee representation on the board, and most importantly - a unified focus. They have turned into the organization I wanted to be working for back when I left. In the mean time, I've been in a constant struggle to find something anywhere near as rewarding. If I could afford to do so, I'd go back to work for them in a second -- on my own dime.

You'll notice that I spend a lot of time talking about the "evil" CEO here. That's not the point. The point is that a significant part of it was me. Sure, the company had some growing up to do, but I had just as much, if not more.

Although, if anyone reading this happens to be looking to make a very high-impact donation to a great nonprofit - give Edie a call. I promise she won't disappoint.

In my last gig I managed five directors who all had their own teams under them. The juggling to make sure these folks were well taken care of and their teams were happy overall is tough. Things do fall through the cracks. A developer might have a big problem with a product manager. I might not hear about it until the developer has put in notice because my engineering director thought he/she could take care of it without me. That engineer more often than not probably thinks "hey, the CTO is ignorant and has no idea what's going on." I accept that as part of the job and understand I'll never have 100% view into everything that’s happening. I accepted a long time ago that in some cases a member of my team might believe me to be incompetent. Comes with the territory.

On top of those duties, the overall company strategy and operational plan needs oversight and contributions from the executive management team. The amount of time spent talking about ideas and direction is enormous. By the time a pivot or major change has been decided on it’s generally been under discussion for several weeks, sometimes even months. The inputs and process for arriving at these decisions are a complex mix of research, customer conversations, cogs analysis, competitive analysis, M&A discussions, go to market strategy, pricing, technical feasibility, margin, etc. When the decision is finally ready to be communicated to the troops it can often cause confusion and the belief that “these guys don’t know what they are doing.” While that may be true in some cases, I’ve never been involved in one of these types of decisions that didn't have a lot of well thought-out reasons behind it.

This is only the first step. The way the best leaders separate themselves in this situation is their ability to communicate decisions and make everyone BELIEVE it is the right thing to do. In startups there’s never a 100% clearly correct answer. Faith comes in more often than I’d like to admit, and getting everyone to drink the Kool-aid is pretty damned important in terms of morale. The rightness or wrongness in the decision won’t often be known until a year or more passes. If the decision causes the company to be successful the execs are looked at geniuses. If it fails they are incompetent idiots. Many of the factors that determine the outcome are out of the control of the executives. I guess that’s life. My advice is always this: be self-aware about what you want. If you have a passion for a product or space and enjoy your work, try not to let the factors out of your control dictate your job satisfaction. If you are unhappy with decisions being made or company direction, put yourself in a position to have influence. It’s easier than you might think.

Management have to be true believers in whatever management decide. If you disagree with the fundamentals of their decisions, then everything they say will sound like bullshit.

For example, I work at a company that recently decided to change to a 100% in-app-purchase business model. The first try failed, so they decided to do it even more. It seems like cowardly, copycat decision-making to me, so everything the president of the company says sounds like utter bullshit to me. It's like pointlessly rallying troops (and trying to shake out defectors!) for a battle everyone knows we're going to lose.

Also, a lot of managers are just plain bad managers. It isn't quite like hard jobs, say software development, where you could be fired for not having a clue what to do with a compiler.

Those are signs that it's a good idea to move on. Yes, this is common. Sturgeon's Law: 90 Percent of Everything Is Crap.

For me, it tends to happen after 3-6 months. I'm pretty good at detecting bullshit and it's a curse because it's hard to be motivated when you lose faith in the people above.

Am I 1/ Bad at choosing my jobs, 2/ Too demanding towards the companies that hire me, 3/ Mentally unstable, 4/ Unrealistic, 5/ Just a normal bullshit intolerant guy ?

A mix of #1 and #5. Definitely not #3, if you can hold a job for 1-2 years. #2, #4 are what "they" want you to think. (Ever notice how the Boomer whining about Gen-X/Millennial entitlement sounds extremely entitled itself?) Those are subjective calls (over what is "too demanding") but I think that if you can hold your rage well enough to keep a job for 2 years, the problem isn't with you.

You'll get better at choosing jobs as you get older, because you learn the warning signs and get better at finding good people. Then you'll just talk to people you trust to get the true story of what's happening at a company.

Is there any way I can find a boss I respect beyond a couple of years?

Well, there's no 100% reliable way. You have to take risks on people just like they are taking risks on you. However, you get better at this over time.

No, it's not, and this is probably your mistake. As others have pointed out, most people at any company care more about things outside the company such as family, friends, side projects, hobbies, etc. In other words, they're only there for the money. You don't have to care about the money, but if you start caring about things outside the job, you'll realize you're only there for the money too. Find something outside of work and work won't matter so much. It's much easier said than done, but I can relate to having work as the only or main passion and it's a terrible condition. Also, if you're staying a year or two, it maybe just natural after that much time to lose interest or want to move on. Around three to five years, it's almost be expected in the software industry, especially if you don't want to move into management.