

“Do significant things.” but I didn't - celadevra_
https://medium.com/@celadevra/but-i-didnt-827c2e2bd090

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throwaway_51876
I can totally, completely relate. (throwaway here for obvious reasons)

I was a PhD student, then decided to join industry (software engineer). Most
of the time I feel like this was a _huge_ mistake. For people who are
thoughtful, creative, like inventing things and thinking deeply... entry-level
in industry _sucks_. You do what you're told. You're stuck with coworkers,
managers, team leads who don't understand what you do or make shitty technical
decisions or just don't _think_ and you have to just deal with it.

I think that there's good and there's bad in every company, and it's sort of
self-reinforcing. People who just... don't "get it"?... see original thinkers
as annoying or argumentative or unnecessarily non-compliant or just full of
crazy (in a bad way) ideas. Just sit down, shut up, and write the damn code
the way I told you. People who come from academia and study Haskell in their
free time or whatever see bad teams and just run away.

For someone stuck on such a team, though, life really sucks because you're
supposed to use each experience as a "ladder" the next, going on
recommendations of people who see you've done a good job. If you get caught
somewhere where you just don't fit... well... recovering from that is tricky.

If you can't already tell, I'm on such a team now, so I can totally relate.
I'm thinking of just quitting and floating on savings for a while, maybe going
back to academia, who knows. I'd like to believe that "don't give up" and
"follow your ideas and passions" still apply.

