Can You See The Red Flags Of A Toxic Tech Company?

If you're about to get a new tech job, sometimes the red flags are obvious. But what happens when you want the gig anyway? The temptation to take a job when the pay is high, there's prestige, or it's a promotion are strong.
In this video I share some things I've learned about spotting these red flags, and resisting the temptations that come with the allure of tech company offers. I hope they help you take a more healthy job, and not get sucked into working for a company that drains your soul.
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CHAPTER MARKERS
0:00 Introduction
1:16 A Story of Deceit
6:32 1. Red Flags of a Toxic Tech Company
6:52 1.1 Vague Answers About Work/Life Balance
8:18 1.2 Long Hours Are a Bade of Honor
10:02 1.3 Suspiciously High Salary of Title
11:34 2. Why Do We Ignore Red Flags?
11:40 2.1 Justifying Stress With Money
13:27 2.2 "It's a Stepping Stone"
15:54 2.3 Need to "Prove Our Worth"
18:03 3. How Can You Overcome The Temptation?
18:12 3.1 Make a Relational Impact List
20:13 3.2 Ask Brave Questions
22:51 3.3 Avoid Companies That Resist Transparency
24:22 3.4 Listen to Your Gut!
26:20 3.5 Write a Catastrophic Story
28:31 Episode Groove
#programming #techjobs #toxicculture

[@HealthyDev]

Have you ever been tempted to walk into a job you KNEW was probably toxic? How did you resist it? If you gave him, what went wrong? ►► Know your options! Access my FREE data hub for the top 25 software industry roles, TechRolepedia → jaymeedwards.com/access-techrolepedia/

[@monterreymxisfun3627]

I took a job at a toxic company to increase my skillset. I achieved that objective and ignored their criticism before getting fired. I took what I needed; no regrets.

[@sadboisibit]

I worked with a dev for 4 years who was a massive jerk. He got a management position at a nearby company that was 10x the size of our company within our niche manufacturing vertical. He instantly offered me a position. I knew I would hate working under him but I accepted because the scale of the company interested me. Nothing specifically went wrong. He was a jerk. I knew he would be a jerk. After a year he got fired.

[@madcatandrew]

I have a final round interview tomorrow for a remote job, really glad you made this video as I've got some strange feelings about this one. They work in completely "flexible" hours and don't care when people work as long as the work gets done. I already felt like this had the potential to be extremely toxic, but now I'm feeling quite a bit more strongly about that sort of scheduling. I wrote down quite a few questions for them, inspired by this.

[@HealthyDev]

@@madcatandrewbest of luck. It still could be a good gig, definitely go with your gut!

[@willembeltman]

I told them exactly how I handle toxic people / situations. They got so scared they pulled the plug.

[@ricko13]

"we are like a family here"

[@synfiguring]

LOL😂🎉

[@rafael.aloizio1769]

This one never fails

[@CORE409]

I always reply on this saying: "IDK, my dad was dead cheap..."

[@PaulSebastianM]

Omg first thing I fell for in my career. 11 years.

[@Ssalamanderr]

massive red flag anytime I hear this

[@AntonioPetrelli]

In one of my interviews, the interviewer asked me a strange question. "Suppose that you are a manager and the customer asks the team to always work on Saturdays from now on, how do you say it to your team?" I was honest and said that simply I cannot say it, it's beyond ridiculous. If this is not a red flag, tell me what it is. Obviously I have not been chosen for the job, but later this company went bankrupt. Oh the joy 😂

[@HealthyDev]

Good job staying out of that fiasco! Yikes.

[@disgruntledtoons]

It is absolutely none of the customer's business to dictate these things.

[@InconspicuousChap]

Tell them you have to respect Shabbat, and their very request insults you so deeply that you have to say goodbye right away.

[@AntonioPetrelli]

@@InconspicuousChap too late, they do not exist anymore.

[@Distagon76]

​@@InconspicuousChap, yeah, on Saturdays we are cooking pork pie🤪

[@docopoper]

Regarding thinking of a toxic job as a stepping stone. My friend recently gave me some really good advice by pointing out that a toxic job is often a stepping stone to more toxic jobs. You'll get known in the industry as somebody who is willing to work those kinds of jobs and will get offered more. You'll also be meeting and connecting with people who are in the mindset that has them engaging in toxic working cultures.

[@HealthyDev]

Gold! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[@DiogoMudo]

Yeah, I can relate to that one also.

[@KT-ey3lh]

Oh, I kinda see that now in my current job. When I was just applying for that job, I asked the interviewer if I will be expected to wear multiple hats in the role I'm applying for, the interviewer said, that won't be the case. But when I got accepted and deployed into projects, I wore multiple hats. Btw, I started my IT career in a company that expects its employees to wear multiple hats.

[@ab5441]

I some what broke this orbit. I started in the industry with a toxic mess. Now i only work with meses as ive become an expert on doing a little bit of everything and reverse engineering other peoples code. I'll add that it is the same case with your skill set be mindful of what you are developing.

[@nickvledder]

@@ab5441 Absolutely!

[@donparkison4617]

I went to a new company and was asked to be a Dev Lead. So I started doing Dev Lead things, like doing in depth code reviews with the team and finding out things like how estimates are done. In order to try to make a plan for setting up developers for success with better estimations, better processes and whatnot. Then it quickly became clear that they thought being a Dev Lead was just about doing timesheets and smacking devs over the head when their project manager gets upset. But that is not what a dev lead does, so I figured I would show them what a Dev Lead does and after six months or so, we will have the improved performance of the teams to show how this stuff works. This company literally freaked out and let me go after two months. They didnt want me looking at the developer's code and the Really didnt want me asking questions about how their projects were run. Before that, I had been baited and switched a few times so there are some pretty short times in my recent resume and now that is hurting me as well. I am pretty tired of these firms honestly. They have leadership filled with people who have no idea how software is made, and they are perfectly fine lying to your face about what they expect from you, until you are stuck.

[@yashpatel261]

The idiots are in power

[@JayDoge]

Remove short XPs. Keep the last one you stayed at for longer and add a bit to it.

[@johnsmith-ro2tw]

The press always talks about "disruption" in tech. In reality, as an employee, if you come in with a disruptive mindset, no matter how good your intentions are, you will be seen as a troublemaker, as a threat to them and to the business. Management does not like people who question things, suggest new ideas to make things better. Management like employees who just get the can rolling, go on with the daily routine, etc...

[@joanvallve7647]

I think you're the one that doesn't have a clue what a Dev Lead has to do, dude. 😅

[@donparkison4617]

@@joanvallve7647 So educate me then. Making sure developers have what they need to succeed in their tasks seems to be what I believe it to be.

[@ckehoe86]

I had a red flag with the interviewer in some of their behaviour during the later stages and I ignored it because of the money. Paid for it in the long term. Lesson learnt! Another good one is when I was at a toxic company interviewing this guy with other devs, and he asks “What’s fun about working here?”. Everyone looked at each other in bemusement. Definitely one way to trip them up! Weirdly the guy who asked it joined a few weeks later…didn’t see the warning sign right in front of him 😂😂😂

[@hak0nnn]

From my experience, it is hard to figure which questions you should ask to detect a toxic job, until you have had one. And then you have only experienced one type of toxicity, but there are so many ways a job can screw you up. I would appreciate more concrete stories of what actually happened on the job, and how the thinking went before taking it.

[@John__K]

This is so true, one may think he is aware of all the red flags but somehow there is always a new flag you simply havent encountered in your previous jobs!

[@KickAssAndChewBubblegum]

Jesus, you've made me realize Ive only worked for toxic shops. Last job, we had one of those guys who woukd make sure to be the first in and last out and send emails at 10pm at night with useless updates that didn't need to go out to all employees. Management always talked him up yet the guy really didnt produce much. So glad I'm done working for people.

[@user-cl1ts4cs6u]

Toxic Tech companies will hate you for that,great content!

[@Don_Giovanni]

Nice clickbait reference! 😂

[@elenagavrilova3109]

These companies will not even detect the case, bc all employers / emloyees are sure someone else is toixc, but namely they are perfect. This topic is too 'relative' for 'fixed' discussion.

[@Coufu]

Physically writing things has been game changing. Been doing it since last year. It makes you slow down and process emotions while you write down your thoughts. If you’re a fast typer, then typing your thoughts will just make you go from thought to thought too fast without time to process them emotionally.

[@ChrisTbilisi]

The best thing that happened to me when courting companies and meeting with the CEOs and CTOs, where it probably would have been toxic, was THEY read the room, saw my nature and value system, and identified that they wouldn't fit, and thus turned me down. I would have fallen for it, and been damaged, if they hadn't. Through mentoring with Jayme, I saw the light and had the courage to build my own solution and enterprise with the right people, and it really paid off to respect myself and find the right place for me to thrive.

[@ant-dev]

protect this man from the corporate matrix 🙏

[@HealthyDev]

He's already been chewed up and spit out, lol ;)

[@sealsharp]

I think unpayed overtime is a very strong indicator because it's a sign of misalignment of goals. Unpayed overtime from an economic PoV is someting the employer wants to maximize for economic benefit while the employee wants to minimize it. Employment should be set up in a way that both employer and employee benefit from planning towards the same goal, like creating projects that meet deadlines and delivering a good product. A situation where an employer would financially benefit from mismanaging you is a red flag for sure.

[@user-gj6vh6jb9y]

I work for a company that had a couple of the red flags you mentioned. -no expected work hours -unlimited vacation days -we will be vary happy if you answer messages after hours It worked out great, I work 20-35 hours a week, in my first year I took 24days off, in the second 44days. Usually I answer 2 mails per week after hours. I was scared before I signed with them but my job before was really awful, my boss was a total control freak. So I just tried it, I am now in my 4th year there and as happy as I can be. I work there as a cloud solution engineer.

[@InconspicuousChap]

Clouds are a growing market. May be that's the reason.

[@shardator]

There are always exceptions. But the rule is the opposite usually. Happy for you to have this.

[@JD96893]

you are so lucky man! I hope you never have to change jobs!

[@iolss]

Man, the "take the stressed job to prove my own worth" part relates so much with myself in the past (thankfully not so much today!), I remember while already being employed I'd feel bad when seeing some colleagues working on more stressful things and thinking that I wasn't worth enough for not having the stress burden, one example of this was in one of the companies I worked for there was a simple division of "project devs" and "production support devs", in theory the ones in project were more relaxed due to not having the pressure to fix immediate production issues, and I was one of them and caught myself a lot of times thinking about moving to production support due to that. I still face this sometimes, thinking I'm not worth it both for not having the stress and also by not having achieved "greater things" in the career, I know those are not exactly the same problems but I try day by day learn how to surpass it.

[@akshayde]

I remember doing a job that I didn't need to do only because it was offered to me when I was "lost". It paid practically nothing and I would slog all day not to mention that the travel time was almost 2 hours one way. I think i did it because subconsciously i was punishing myself for being lost

[@przemyslawc297]

There is no such thing as a production support programmer. There is only completely poorly written code ("acceptance tests? - this will be done using a production environment"), huge technological debt ("documentation? - the code documents itself") and a disorganized first line of the production support ("let's reduce costs and hire people there as long as they can read"). To achieve such a state requires many years of neglect in work organization and management zone. It is no longer a company, but a cesspool - only a large corporation will survive, all other companies will go bankrupt. After a few months of working in such a team, you are guaranteed burnout. Such a team should work in a separate room marked: NO GO ZONE.

[@janszalke3620]

11:40 That's on point. I did this in the past, convincing myself that earning 8x median wage is worth it, but in the end I regret it so much. I would much rather have less money and be happier.

[@nathandowney9434]

I was interviewing with a startup and I made it through multiple interview rounds until I finally got interviewed by the CEO. He was very condecending during the interview and said that because I didn’t have the backend skills needed for the job that I would have to do unpaid training outside of work hours to get caught up. I am all for putting in time to build my skillset outside of work, but when it’s required by my boss and unpaid that’s a different story. At the end of the interview he said I could have the job if I wanted it, but they weren’t going to tell me what the salary was until I accepted. I was tempted to take the job because I like working in startups but there were just too many red flags here for me to feel comfortable accepting the role.

[@ZealotOfSteal]

Haha, what? Who expects someone to accept a job without knowing what pay is? That's like signing a contract without reading it. Bizarre expectations.

[@katec9893]

​@@ZealotOfStealIt's crazy. People need to know that the salary will cover their rent/mortgage and bills. Companies should legally be made to state the salary when they advertise it.

[@The.Harsh.Truths]

@@ZealotOfStealyeah that part was hilarious lol. Imagine you take the offer, then they’re like “drumroll….. your salary is $1/yr!!! See you on your first day sucker!”

[@wolfman5740]

Tip to avoid a toxic workplace: don’t apply to finance industry employers. They will wave some decent money at you and then throw you to the wolves.

[@mecanuktutorials6476]

Is that true? I’ve seen all over Reddit that banks tend to have great WLB. Video games is definitely the worst deal.

[@michaelnurse9089]

The finance industry is a big place. Plenty of narcissistic monsters crawling the corridors but also plenty of decent people. Try to speak to other people who have worked for the same department or group of people.

[@TheClintonio]

Fintech is one of my favourite industries. I get along well with the kinds of people who work in (London's) fintech industry, enjoy the intensity of the workplaces and the money is fine, I've done better but in terms of daily grind it's my favourite. The worst kind of workplace to me are the places that copy Silicon Valley giants and try to make the office into an adult playground. Those kinds of firms are also the ones recruiters will tell you are best too because they get rave reviews from recently graduated engineers and people with no other experience than those types of firms. My experience with them is that you work 10am-8pm+ and nobody really complains? I never understood it.

[@InconspicuousChap]

Poor wolves. How could they do this to them. I was actually working in such an environment in a global investment bank. Found that it was not a big deal to handle arrogant idiots (there were so many of them that I always wondered why would the upper management not buy some decent people for that money - until I realized that the upper management just can't distinguish them because of their own arrogance and idiotism, so they play it like gambling, and massive firings interleave with massive hirings as a sort of natural selection environment). After all, idiots don't produce anything, that's why they become really dependent on people who do, and most of them can't conceal it efficiently. The biggest problem was not to turn into another arrogant idiot there.

[@nathanbutcher7720]

Preach brother

[@CORE409]

This is one of the best videos. Two years ago, I faced a dilemma between two great job opportunities. I asked to visit both offices, but it was during covid, so one of the offices was deserted and the other one was lively. I talked with different people from different teams and received a warm welcome. However, I chose the company with the empty office, and it turned out to be a mistake on many levels (toxic vibes on daily basis, lack of a functional team leader during my onboarding process, ambigious task description and lack of accountability). I made this decision because I was driven by fear (the second job required me to start a project from scratch on my own, and I thought that was too much for me). In the end, my relationship with the current company ended after 2 years with frustration, tears, and gray hair. One of the returned sentences of the team leader was "[The Company Name] paying us a lot of money so it's our responsability to work hard", only now I get how twisted this saying was.

[@EzBz982]

Watching your video as I begin my last day at a company that is exactly as you described, and I rationalized exactly as you told. Headed back to my previous employer with a solid raise over what I left at. It was a life lesson I needed to learn, and fortunately the ending to my story was a happy one.

[@HealthyDev]

Oh man, I'm happy for you. Hope the return is everything you need it to be.

[@KA-wf6rg]

Man the comments you gave there about stress, racing thoughts, and family presence is huge. Sometimes we can do that to ourselves. But sometimes the workplace can heavily influence those sorts of things without us even realizing it. I think the past two years I've been at a job like that, where my energy has been sucked out of me where I've felt less energy to devote to my family. But the weird thing is I'm not sure I realized it until recently.

[@theadventuresofred19]

Work hard, play hard... TOTAL red flag. One project the PM told me on day 1. "Remember that you're only a contractor, don't make any decisions, don't make anybody look good, don't lead!"

[@sergiocarmona7238]

i did that i rush to be a engineering manager at 29..30 , i acomplish but my health was hurted. i know developers who made more money with two jobs.. my dad pushed me to be a manager he wanted the best for me but times changes and what worked in the past wont work anymore.

[@MS-wy4sb]

Man, the one about a toxic job being a stepping stone to more toxic jobs threw me for a loop. That's been my whole career! It makes a lot of sense now. My resume shows it too as I've developed a lot of skills to good degrees. An expert in some areas but generally pretty good at several things. The irony here is that I had to develop these skills to survive because of the chaos, disorganization, and dysfunction ubiquitous to these toxic work environments. It's not necessarily what I wanted to learn, more what I had to learn to solve the problems that didn't need to be there had processes and healthy people been in place. Now, the best kind of places I'm suited for are toxic and I don't want to continue working in these environments. It seriously affects your mental and physical health. Central problem is how to escape this loop. I've seen these people in old age. They rarely make it to 80 and start displaying health problems starting in their 50s to 60s. I want a different kind of life.

[@BittermanAndy]

Yes, realising that you are extremely well adapted to an environment that you don't want to live in any more can be extremely difficult. The good news is, it's never too late to adapt, but that's not to say it will be easy.

[@Distagon76]

Your words resonate deeply, Jamie. Your simple yet profound insights are weaving into the fabric of my being, reviving feelings of self-care and self-respect. It's not therapy, but the shifts I feel while listening to your channel are akin to it. Thanks for that. A couple of litmus questions from my side: 1. Story Points for estimation are cool. But what about time mapping? Joe does 4 SP/day, Ellie gives 5 SP/week. Do you equalize by paying per SP/day or go with traditional man-days? 2. Co-working with neurodeviants - those brilliant but sometimes clumsy folks. Any experiences dealing with their quirks disrupting plans? 3. Mistakes happen. If, say, a QA engineer accidentally drops a table in production due to cloud misconfiguration, what's the punishment? Instant firing or a chance for redemption? 4. How do you maintain competition spirit among colleagues? In fact, there is a lot of useful questions. But entering an interview room feels like my head turns into a djembe drum - pretty much empty! 😁

[@zbychoo]

It's 8 pm here in Poland. And it's great way to end the day listening to your thoughts!

[@nickvledder]

... and guitar-playing as well.

[@TheClintonio]

Okay I'm just here to rant; I took a job in Tokyo two years ago, I did this not as a career move but a life change. Before the move I owned my own consultancy, and before that I was a head of engineering of a department of 40 people, before that I was various levels of tech lead, principles and engineering manager or smaller department head, so to say I had experience as an SE would be an understatement. (17 years now I believe?) Anyway, I took this job as a "stepping stone" to get into Japan like an idiot. I took a regular role, mediocre pay, for a big B2C firm in Japan. None of it matched my usual SME/tech lead/fin tech/B2E profile but like an idiot I decided it was best for my _lifestyle_ than my career. They told me the job was cutting edge, that they used my preferred tech stack and followed the same principles I care about (CD, TDD, EDD, FP, etc). I'm used to getting lied to in interviews but I assume one or two things will remain true and that they're at least STRIVING for the values they espouse even if they're not anywhere close. I take the job, I get to Tokyo, I start the role. First task? Update a batch job. Now, I hadn't seen a batch job in years by this point, I'd seen similar things, but the idea of running a batch process rather than have everything event driven was like taking a 5 year step backwards. I mentioned this to my manager, I didn't say anything controvertial just "so we don't use event driven engineering here?" he replies "That's not how we do things here, and there's no way you can change that". I was taken aback, I asked very diplomatically about the state of the company and got a pointed and honestly harsh response. EVERY SINGLE QUESTION in the last two years has been answered that way by him. "That's not how things are done here" and "You can't change that". I just have to implement shitty little tasks that even a shred of proper engineering of the system would basically make redundant and that's it. Oh and a LOT Of writing shit up on wikis, more than when I was a department head of 40 people. Literally I do MORE writing now than when I was in charge of 4 teams, 5 if you include the fact I was also head of the data science team despite being woefully underqualified for that position. So I'm still working there, currently just wasting my now extremely burnt out demotivated time on KZbin abusing my WFH privileges because I hate my job so passionately I'd rather be fired than do any work. I used to be so ambitious I'd harm personal relationships over it, now I don't even care enough to complete a task to add a metric to some boring fucking service I don't care about. I will quit soon, the issue is the market in Tokyo isn't so large I can just quit and be okay.

[@TheClintonio]

It's funny how I fell so hard into the "stepping stone" section from this video.

[@VickieEB]

🤕

[@SlowAside5]

I once took a job even though I saw the red flags in the interview. I didn’t do it for more money or a better title or anything. Rather, I did it out of desperation to get out of the job I was already in. I’ve since learned that even though it might be hard, you really need to wait for the right job to come up. Don’t swap one bad job for another bad job.

[@nickiogr]

Well said, you are so right on your insights. I hope these will help people down the road.

[@monterreymxisfun3627]

A good manager can neutralize the effects of a bad company. My experience is that you don't see the dysfunction until you have been at the company for a couple of months. Don't shut down your interview pipeline after you start a new job. Being willing to get fired is key.

[@Asto508]

I disagree. A good manager may hide it for longer, but eventually, he can't fix fundamental dysfunctions in a company that stems from a much higher level than he is at. Eventually, it will trickle down to you, it's just a matter of time.

[@genechristiansomoza4931]

It's nothing if you really don't give it an f and just work within 8hrs and go home. You work they pay. Don't stay over time if not needed.

[@steveoc64]

That's not a "good manager", that's a professional liar with a hidden agenda I agree though with pushing through the interview. It pays to trust people and assume good intentions all round. People are generally good, and honest, and are out to do good things for everyone involved. But when people show their dishonesty, its time to say bye All of which is well and good, unless you have bills to pay and no way to pay them, then you don't really get a choice I suppose. Unfortunately, that situation describes 99% of all junior devs who want to break into the industry. So the whole corrupt system is rife for exploitation, and is full of predators. The best advice I can give to any junior developer asking "what language should I learn ? Should I learn Python, should I learn Rust ? what about AI ?" ... is simply - get your finances in order and give yourself some options. THEN .. you can use whatever tools tickle your fancy. Until then, you are a nobody, and will do whatever you are told to make it through to next pay day.

[@michaelfrankel8082]

@@genechristiansomoza4931 But overtime is *always* needed.

[@user-db5ti9cb8k]

I agree with @Asto508, I willadd that managers protecting devs from toxic culture will only work for the short term, eventually stakeholders will find a workaround and devs would burnout

[@dstrmberg]

Thank you for uploading this!

[@nii-san5485]

during a big product launch we were all hands on deck and in the office late 2021... right after a 12 hour day the CEO (micromanager) sits everyone down to lay out the next 6 months of work for each of the 3 most senior programmers, long story short they've all left since then. I'm hoping to join another company that one of those guys went to sometime this year 🤞

[@dsbau]

Absolutely, I also think overdoing it is a red flag. I took a job at an Australian University in Sydney and in the interview they gushed about their commitment to work life balance and what a great place to work it was. Seemed ideal as I had young children and an elderly parent. A week in I was told that leaving on time was unacceptable and that I should be working "at home" and on the weekends. When I asked about the work life balance thing, the woman looked at me like I was crazy. Fortunately, we're not dependent on work for health insurance and there's a lot of work so I just resigned. The so called manager looked stunned. She even said "I need a minute to process that." Weird thing was it wasn't a particularly busy space, they had a lot of really big projects moving at glacial pace, the busy thing was just a act and it could have been a great place to work.

[@kenocontreras]

Solid advice as always! thanks.

[@volodymyrleskiv5006]

brilliant video! Thank you!

[@codelinx]

Such good info! Thanks for making this. I am about you start applying.

[@comgamilwebranger]

Very correct ..we ignore red flags for the reasons you have mentioned . We need to respect out gut feelings and act on them. Check with people working at the company you interview for and get their input

[@davet4051]

Thanks! Great advice for everyone, not just SW developers.

[@CosasCotidianas]

Thanks for sharing your learnings and insights with the community Jayme. Your videos are really valuable for me.

[@HealthyDev]

Glad to hear it helps!

[@hottroddinn]

The biggest problem of producing these quality videos exposing all the truth is, most of the companies have really caught up and are learning to dish out quality lies. They are training their interview panel to blabber text book nonsense when you ask the tough questions. You'll have to research the companies quite well and have to pick up a lot of cues during the interview itself and let them paint themselves into a corner. The best part of this video is "ignoring the red flags" section. It has truly opened my eyes to all the BS things I tell myself and also reminded me about a recent interview where the interviewer BS'd me. I'll be confirming that I won't be moving forward with them. Please keep doing these quality vids!

[@rikkarth_]

This video was really valuable to me. Thank you.

[@lucycanly9738]

Thank you for this.

[@foreverskeptical1]

Beautiful video, I think another thing is waiting it out, even during hard job market/economy times, and not settling for any toxic job. It can be really tempting but future you would appreciate it that much more if you stick to your principles, and i feel like the universe makes it easier for you once you showcase how principled you are by fighting those temptations, and not give into desperation.

[@shawn576]

Interesting video. Thanks man!

[@ishimoto9762]

Great points sir. I’m learning a lot from you. I would be glad if you can make a video compiling some of the critical questions a developer would have to ask during an interview 🙏🏾

[@parkourninja21]

I agree, that's what I'm scrolling the comments for :) A video compilation, please!

[@I_am_who_I_am_who_I_am]

I've been in the industry for more than 20 years. Your video was much appreciated.

[@adaptivedeveloper]

I wonder how crazy it would sound for you, but the best way for estimating I found is to not estimate. Instead chop anything in as small an experiment as possible. It freaks many people during the hiring process, yet it helped us avoid many blame wars and gridlocks.

[@HealthyDev]

Absolutely! This is what story points were supposed to do. Help us break stuff down to pick small things. Not then convert them to hours for measuring progress.

[@sndgamingchannel9279]

Love your channel, can relate with most of your stories.

[@HealthyDev]

Glad to have you here, and glad to hear it!

[@nreed7718]

Regarding 2.,1 (Justifying Stress with Money) just go on to a forum like the Blind. It's all about flexing total comp and nearly every thread is "Why did I sign up for this? I'm stressed out and don't know if I can continue. Should I stay or leave? If I leave, I'll never be able to retire early or find another tech job that pays like this one."

[@nathann4291]

So glad you started this channel.

[@HealthyDev]

Glad to have you here!

[@MathieuTechMoto]

Thank you for the video, i am considering myself as a very lucky person to live completely dept free, so if i ever go to a job and they don't respect their engagement i can just leave the same day without looking back

[@coltoncollins4387]

This is not just for programmers, but for skilled professionals who offer services to a company(not a contractor). I learned alot. Fantastic thank you much

[@zaldabus]

I have experienced every single thing you mentioned in this video, including the project underestimated by a factor of 4

[@HealthyDev]

This is way more common than people realize. They just don't like to look at the history of the project with honest, clear eyes.

[@gabromanato]

Another potential red flag is the kind of questions that they might ask you during the initial interview(s). If they look much like a psychological trial, thus involving even the analysis of your non-verbal communication, this usually means that they have an high turnover rate and an employee recently quit his/her job because of the way they treat "human resources".

[@nickvledder]

Brilliant! 😄 (But the same story you told happened to me couple of years ago. They pulled me into the organisation is a good way to phrase it. Little did I know... and it cost me dearly.)

[@jefferymuter4659]

Some great advice! My company talks like they're family. We have a conference room called 'The Family Room', but I think what makes this such a great job is my manager. There are several big decision makers who have made decisions about the tech and how I can contribute, that are so painful that I really maybe should leave because I don't see a future here. But, my manager is so amazing that he buffers almost all of it. Letting me develop tools that do almost nothing but adjust my job to my personal preferences so that this job is tolerable. This gives me a lot to consider when I do start looking again.

[@michaelnurse9089]

If your manager is able to buffer then the place is not nearly as toxic as you think. Properly toxic places don't let managers buffer - everyone has to work until burnout kicks in.

[@go_better]

Thanks. And special thanks for the smooth tunes at the end. You're doing good! Lots of valid points, especially one about estimation question. I completely missed it out. My personal problem is - I see a couple of toxic imo companies and most of the time I reject joining them. But I also borrowing money now. I'm not eating well, because I lack money. And to get to at peast an intro call, there is a ton of effort and rejections. Let alone to the stage where I could ask team-related questions. So, in my personal situation it is a shitty toxic job or no job at all. But job market is another topic. Detection of toxic companies is, like, totally nailed by you.

[@HealthyDev]

We all gotta eat, and I've taken a toxic job when I've had to. At the same time, the more of us refuse to take them (when life circumstances allow) - the less power toxic employers have.

[@YourNickIsTaken]

I had job that is fun and in can evolve and learn, and builds friendships, pays 4 amount. My current pays 12 amount. What else do I have to say? I needed shelter and food, I took the current one. I need it for 8 more month. Then I will took 6 month unpaid vacation with intensive therapy and careful workout routines to get back. To straight. Money is is a great motivator. "It is unbearable - we say and we bear it."

[@johnsmith-ro2tw]

Seriously, treat the job interview as an opportunity to interview them too. Pick various hints to get a feel of how it's like at that company. The employer is there to show you how great the management is, how great the projects are, as much as you're there to sell yourself. Resist the temptation to take that job if it feels it will be bad, even if it pays +20%. Because if the place is toxic, if you are treated as a code monkey fixing bugs and spaghetti code all day, what happens next is burn out, and depression, and it's really hard to recover. Not worth the extra money.

[@666luster666]

You are a treasure. I feel less crazy in all this mess. Cant wait to procrastinate with all your videos .. during work😁

[@HealthyDev]

LOL please don't haha!

[@Hyacsho]

It's amazing how similar dev and marketing sectors are. Thanks for this 🙏

[@HealthyDev]

Definitely, a lot of the things I share aren't specific to software developers. I just find we need them explained a little differently to understand how they apply to us.

[@Hyacsho]

Agreed, so many of your points resonate; and honestly, life is too short and important to sacrifice to the level some toxic companies some how expect. @@HealthyDev

[@2SHARP4UIQ150]

@HealthyDev I wish I had watched this video before. Your experience mirrors my exact situation.

[@parkourninja21]

I'm an attorney interviewing for law firms and this tips are applicable and helpful. Thank you!

[@svilen12345]

First time viewer here. Love the personal insights and the guitar.

[@Marva123]

I very much agree with setting boundaries on work-life balance.

[@bmanpura]

I have a testimony just like this in.. the church. I got out of that church. This is an insanely pervasive issue that needs attention, and thank you for bringing it to the surface.

[@trafficface]

Day one, if it doesn’t go right it’s time to go. I got 2 months and I ignored a lot to. Just don’t do it, they might seem really nice and narcissistic at the same time.

[@jojogogo740]

First, love the guitar to calm the emotions! Second I skipped accepting a job because I had a gut feeling the work life balance was going to be all wrong with a 50% increase in pay.

[@nunoalexandre6408]

Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@TwelveTwelveEightTwo]

Bunq, I interviewed with them and (thankfully) thought to read their Glassdoor reviews during the process. I've never seen one company exhibit so many red flags.

[@NoahNobody]

I've gone to one of these companies because I needed that first job experience. I lasted 6 months and I hated every minute, but it got me the experience I needed to get me my second and current job, which I like.

[@cristiansxxx]

Such a great video! I wish I had more likes to give. I hope a lot of other developers will see this and understand that money is not everything and the culture is what matter the most in the long run. I despise these companies who pervert this fine craft of writing good quality software and make it unbereable to do it. And almost everytime the problem is in the management structures and the managers themselves. And almost everytime the problematic managers are those who never been on the technical side. Is like in the long run there is a natural selection between companies and those with good management will survive, and those with bad will perish no matter how good are the engineers.

[@HealthyDev]

Great point about natural selection. Thanks for mentioning that!

[@YourNickIsTaken]

Managers coming from tech are the eager-beavers who are working 16 hours even on the weekends and expect you to achieve at least the same amount... I had amazing managers coming outside tech industry. I think the problem is independent of the field knowledge.

[@cristiansxxx]

@@YourNickIsTaken I guess we had very different experiences. In my 15 years+ carrier I had plenty of managers and I think maybe just a single one without technical background was decent, but he had very deep technical knowledge after many many years in the field. All the other ones were ranging from complete incompetents, to actively harmful, to just benign useless bodies. However, almost all the managers coming from a software engineering background I had were good and brought actual value in the projects managed by them. And I never had that impression you mentioned that they were overworking and asking the impossible. Quite the opposite for the other ones who do not understand the tech.

[@YourNickIsTaken]

@@cristiansxxx Interesting. Totally the opposite experience. What are the tech background managers benefits in your existence? (My English has room to improve...) I had worked for 7 companies in the last 15 years. Some of it was just a 3 month project, but it was few 3.5 years jobs. I have worked with 26 managers. All different. It is not that simple at all to find singularity in managers. What makes a good managers? And I'm living in Eastern Europe. My country is great in learned pessimism and Stockholm syndrome and impostor syndrome. My country focuses only on negatives during the education which sticks with the leaders a lot! USA on the other hand teaches very practical people (as I see from a great distance). Culture has a great impact on this as well. We could get together the good / negatív traits of a tech background manager and a non-tech background manager. My experience tells me that managers which with non-tech backgrounds are better at: - trust the knowledge of your team - people skills - project management with agile estimation - standing up for the team against invalid expectations - respect the workhour boundaries - recognition - mentoring Neutrals: - blaming game Vs learning opportunities - listen to individuals and showing them opportunities to grow and letting them decide on these. - providing resources for work - Playing the duck Tech background does it better: - Find help when someone is stuck - Deal with customers requests considering what can be implemented. - sense of humour! - willing to experience with different workflows What else? There are courses on the tech university where they mix managers with tech skills. They learn basics of tech, but they learn a lot from management. The goal for these studies is to have people who handle the differences better, the three different thinking: the tech thinking, the business thinking and the customer thinking. They can understand tech, can talk with tech guys on their own language, yet they are able to speak with customers and leaders. I had two managers like this. It is not that much, but - they were really bad at executing tech developments - they had excellent eyes to see what customer wants and how it can be done by tech guys, so they gave us great plans and showed the customers what are the options behind their requests. - really good at time saving solutions by using tanks management - dealing with people in the workplace, noticing and preventing burnouts, stress situations I guess it also depends on the field. I worked for electric companies, web developers, telco testing, telco site engineering, dev ops. My DevOps managers were slave drivers :D I had more than 12 managers in 2.5 years during that time. That was a chaos.

[@cristiansxxx]

@@YourNickIsTaken very nice answer. I will try a little bit later to read it careful and come back with some answers from my perspective as I need some time to think. Funny that I am also from Eastern Europe (Ro to be more precise).

[@laurentjacques5109]

Love your videos ! Would it be completely out of topic to ask the tab of what you’re playing here this sounds so nice! I use guitar as stress relief mechanism 😅

[@bigneiltoo]

I've been programming 30 years. I usually have more experience than the project manager/founder. In my last 10 jobs or so I told them exactly, precisely what would probably go wrong, and was always right. But they don't give you credit for that. It's like telling your wife "See? I KNEW you'd cheat on me!"

[@bigneiltoo]

What usually goes wrong: 1) They vastly underestimate how hard it is to set up a new developer from scratch on a new machine. 2) They have some hardware device that has never actually been tested. 3) They force you to be a hardcore Linux programmer when you're a Windows programmer. 4) Gatekeepers want you to fail.

[@da39vinci]

@@bigneiltoo I get point 1 and 2. But could you elaborate more on point 3 and 4? I mean I kinda get point 3 in regard to the difference environment between linux and windows especially in the shell experience.

[@Darth_Bateman]

@@bigneiltoo So they have unrealistic expectations of how fast a newbie can learn to use the machine. They use wild hardware that hasn't been tested. They want you to be a hardcore linux user for no reason. They want you to fail, which goes back to reason 1. . . . . This sounds like a cycle of insanity with two extra steps. The two extra steps being they want you to use linux , step 1. step 2. They want to use wild tech without testing.

[@bigneiltoo]

@@Darth_Bateman At least they don't usually want you to use Macs (Windows for girls). Bad interview question: "Do you program the Mac?" Worse interview answer: "No, I'm heterosexual".

[@munzutai]

​@@bigneiltooYou sound like a fun person to talk to, immediately bringing gender and sexuality into a completely unrelated discussion.

[@tatlock29]

"for the time being you're going to have to wear multiple hats"

[@adkocol]

Job interview, where I supposed to meet with the manager. I call in to the meeting and there are 5 other people joining. HR lady explains those are the team members who will intervew me, because manager don't know much about the role and subject of the job I applied. They asked me to turn on the camera but from their side nobody did it. During interview those team members didn't know what kind of questions to ask, so they were making them up on fly. After 10 minutes manager joined (finally). He introduced himself (with camera off), and he said he has no questions and he will just listen. Job supposed to be hybrid - part of time from the office. Last thing they wanted to check with me at the end of the interview was "in fact job will be in different country than you applied to, but that shouldn't be a problem, right?" Job was from big pharma company. After this interview I thought it was a scam, but I checked them and it wasn't. Red flag on how they are organized and what respect they have to you and your time.

[@Krdlaoia]

I’ve been hired for one role and on the first day I was told that this other product area is mine as well and they closing this other hiring role to give me more space and “not pigeon hold me” - like it was a favour 😂

[@HealthyDev]

Wow, yeah that's a pretty sad attempt at spin. Glad you were able to see through it.

[@istovall2624]

you sir get my like at the intro lmao

[@TheEamonKeane]

Great channel, keep it up

[@HealthyDev]

Thank you! Your encouragement means more than you know...

[@TheEamonKeane]

@@HealthyDev to me it's like having a very senior dev give sage advice!

[@gislo]

You know what you are talking about, thats for sure. I keep checking all the boxes.

[@CDGbyGraziaCosta]

At my previous job, I noticed multiple warning signs, but I decided to overlook them. After only a month, the situation deteriorated rapidly, and I could only tolerate it for three months.

[@HealthyDev]

Happens to the best of us. I've been in the same situation, where I couldn't bail immediately. I try to be realistic and put up with a reasonable human level of dysfunction. When it gets next level, is when I don't have an environment I can be successful in!

[@JeremyAndersonBoise]

This shit hit me hard, man. This reflects my experience.

[@mr_noodler]

This advice applies to all engineering jobs, even outside of software development. I'm a mechanical engineer and I can relate, and so many things this guy says, ring home so hard

[@rafaelzeffa]

I had a very similar experience in my Career. Because of this short experience in my CV, recruiters always asked my why did you stay only 5 months in this company? I ended up removing this experience from my Resume.

[@jaanireel]

00:02 How to recognize red flags in a tech company 02:22 Narrowly shared information revealed by a recruiter 06:14 Red flags of a toxic tech company 08:06 Red flags of toxic tech companies 12:25 Don't ignore red flags in toxic work environments 14:30 Don't justify taking a toxic job as a stepping stone 18:33 Recognize the red flags of a toxic job 20:17 Ask tough questions during interviews 23:44 Listen to your gut and trust your instincts. 25:30 Trust your instincts and pay attention

[@nikolaybilov9539]

My new job is developer in a bank. It is a department of hell on earth. Nasty and completely insane security, plenty of damn passwords. In my opinion architects of this system are psychopaths their main aim to break a will of an employee, and the security is only a perfect excuse for it. They set company site , an awful one with jumping bright pictures and even dialogue forms sometimes as default page of a browser and it is forbidden to change it

[@itshsilva]

I had a job interview once, for a Berlin based company, where the interviewers were literally saying for me to not join and how problematic the company was... it was a crazy experience, but I'm very grateful for their honesty. The recruiter of the role harassed me for a couple of days after I rejected... lol

[@ChiefOblivion123]

I like the "badge of honor" thing. It drives me nuts that there are devs out there bragging about working 60+ hour weeks just because a feature was released or something. That's not something to be proud of, you should be proud that you are delivering quality work and working no more than 40 hours. Late nights happen but make up for them later when things aren't so bad.

[@stanivasyuk]

Great approach that completely aligns with my professional life experience and Niccolo Machiavelli's principles.

[@HealthyDev]

I don't consider myself Machiavellian, but man do we work in an environment of it.

[@stanivasyuk]

@@HealthyDev Of course, we do. If and when we, the human race, fly out to space in search of new inhabitation, we will still follow the basic human behavior described and summarized by him. 🙂

[@redryan20000]

"as though our careers could die at any moment" I guess working in tech (with everything changing so fast) that happens.

[@viniciusfreitas2935]

Regarding growth opportunities... Some people just don't expect staying long enough at a company for long enough to see career growth anymore. And tbh, companies are to blame. Nowadays you are, on average, promoted much faster if you just hop jobs every 2 or 3 years. Nonetheless, if you are seeking stability, and the company is not planning to churn you in 2 years, they'll likely be glad to present some sort of career plan.

[@dinesee1984]

Having interview on friday! My company is literally showing carrot to me as in the thumbnail. I already had 1 interview with company with too many red flags, didnt even want to finish interview. Company is in top 3 of specific IT industry. I hope next one will be better

[@CarolineMouton1]

Omg I had EXACTLY that bait and switch hiring experience! I was flattered into taking the role, thought it was going to push my dev skills then ended up stepping back into the stone age to support a badly designed app that no one else wanted to touch.

[@shardator]

The same happened to me in Amsterdam. Fucked up stuff. I got out after 3 months. One of the worst 3 months of my professional carrier. Have you had nightmares on a job?

[@willembeltman]

That intro :) Have a like.

[@pvtcit9711]

recently took a job that my gut told me was a bad move and yeah my gut was right, so it is wise to trust it, or really search for why you have that feeling. I wasted 6 months professionally, suffered a lot of stress since I left my home country to take it and sold all my things, signed a lease for an expensive apartment to be near the office. I still might've done it since my home country has big issues but I did have another offer at home that paid as much with cost of living there being half so yeah, but I took the risk and I'm fine with the choice and can live with it

On working overtime: I have to admit that often there is some fire where it needs somebody to do extra work. Often urgency is artificial but sometimes its not. Especially as project founder often its hard to stick to working hours. Sometimes shit just happens..

[@antonfinenko6238]

I am not a programmer but i really appreciate your content

[@nmnml5602]

Everything you said applied to my last job at a big car mfg company. I told myself I would put up with it long enough to vest in the stocks but it’s not worth it.

[@JamesJansson]

The bait and switch is the worst. I haven't had it that bad but going to any job and having the expectations change (when they shouldn't have changed so quickly between interview and start date) makes you question everything. If that were to happen to me in the future, I think I'd just walk out.

[@InconspicuousChap]

The problem with the red signs that there are literally so many of them that it's easy to check a subset and left the rest unchecked. It's like a minefield, one wrong step, and it blows up in your face, but fortunately, unlike the real sapper, you have got a few tries.