First-paragraph TL;DR: A weird and very specific thing keeps happening to me: I tell a recruiter that I don't do front-end work, I take an interview with an employer, I make it clear during the interview that I don't do front-end work, I hear nothing but "Yes", I take the job...and then I get assigned front-end work. My performance drops off a cliff, I try to communicate, it gets worse, and if I don't quit, I get fired. Once could be a fluke, but it has happened several times. I don't understand and would seriously like to understand so I can avoid it.
Here's the most recent example: I interview in December, it's great, there's a former colleague that remembers a lecture I gave, he's a cool guy, and I make it clear to new boss that I don't do front-end work, but to be sure, I tell them during the last round of interviews not just that I don't do front-end but that I keep getting this bizarre bait and switch. New boss nods, talks about scaling problems, they need someone that's good at Postgres. I sign a job offer and my first week, I get "please move these buttons". I protest, he says it's to get me used to their workflow. So I move the buttons, then go back and forth with QA for a week on spacing issues. I get a bad feeling and remind new boss. Similar weeks go by, I get invited to a meeting, HR CC'd: I'm slow and my work is bad. I tell them I'll do whatever they want to pay me to do, but I do a better job if I'm doing the work I am great at, "I mentioned this during the interview, I would not have taken the job if it was front-end". New boss stares down and does not say anything for while the lead talks about everyone on his team being a full-stack developer so I need to acquire front-end expertise in a hurry. I spend my evenings and weekends learning Vue.js, doesn't go well, another meeting where new boss won't make eye contact and now he's old boss.
I still don't understand why. I've started getting somewhat superstitious: I'm leaving JS/CSS off my resume and LinkedIn, I tell recruiters that I don't know JS. I hear about the difficulty scaling their public-facing APIs, the new customer that requires rewriting the ETL pipeline, I sign up, but I arrive and hear "We'll do those things later, first we need you to make a landing page and help port the front end to the new version of React."
It's gotten maddening: at a previous employer, I started having panic attacks and chain-smoking (both fixed now). I design and build APIs, I write back-end code, I optimize Postgres/MySQL/Redis, I build telemetry and then use it to implement data-driven rate limits to mitigate DDoS attacks, I architect systems, I transform and move massive amounts of data quickly and reliably. I'm very good at those things just not at browser front-ends.
I can't rationalize it as coincidence or a fluke: at least half a dozen employers have told me I'd be doing back-ends and ask me for front-end web development. I've worked at a lot of startups and have done plenty of consulting jobs: I understand wearing several hats (it is one of my favorite things about startups), and I like jumping in to help where it's needed, even on the front-end.
Has this happened to anyone else? No one I have worked with before seems to have this problem. Why would an employer do this? That's important to know: if I don't know why, I don't know what to do to prevent it. Since I am well into the senior/staff level and skilled, I cost way more than a junior front-end dev, so it can't be for economic reasons. It has happened too many times across too many years to be a weird employer or a coincidence. I don't want to come off defensive or combative during an interview, but even being extremely direct has gotten the same result, so it can't be ambiguity. Is there some magic phrase I can use with employers to say "Seriously, we will both be unhappy if you want me to make a web front-end, this will be a catastrophe"? What am I doing wrong?
If you want to play the corporate game, you need to get used to having 5 meetings to move 1 button. And it's not about the button either. It's about asking Alice how her daughter is doing, and asking Bob on how he feels after that surgery, and casually hinting to Carol that you really like her choice of coding style for that new project. You play that game for a few years and you'll be allowed to have some monkeys of your own.
Or if you find the game soul-draining, you need to beef up your sales skills and connections, and become a consultant. One of those guys that gets invited to unwind a particular clusterfuck, gets paid $500/hour and quickly moves on to the next gig. This means less stability, more control, and a totally different skill set. Ultimately, your call.