I see, I'm sorry that's happening :/ I was lucky enough to transition from college dropout waiter to tech startup on the back of the iPad, 6 years in, sold it and ended up at still-good 2016 Google. Left in 2023 because of some absolutely mindnumbingly banal-ly evil middle management. I'm honestly worried about myself because I cannot. stand. that. crap., Google was relatively okay, and doubt I could ever work for someone else again. it was s t u n n i n g to see how easily people slip into confirmation bias when it involves pay / looking good.
fwiw if someone's really into Google minutae: I'm not so sure it is relatively okay anymore, it's kinda freaky how many posts there are on Blind along the lines of "wow I left X for here, assumed i'd at least be okay, but I am deeply unhappy. its much worse than average-white-collar job I left"
No, my way of dealing with it is to whine on HN/twitter occasionally and otherwise don't say anything publicly. Feel free to reach out at jpohhhh@gmail, excuse the overly familiar invitation, paying it forward because I would have found talking about that sort of thing f a s c i n a t i n g.
in general id recommend Ian Hickson's blog post on leaving. I can't remember the exact quote that hit hard, something like decisions moved from being X to Y to Z to being for peoples own benefit.
I'd also add there was some odd corrupting effects from CS turning into something an aimless Ivy Leaguer would do if they didn't feel like finance.
fwiw if someone's really into Google minutae: I'm not so sure it is relatively okay anymore, it's kinda freaky how many posts there are on Blind along the lines of "wow I left X for here, assumed i'd at least be okay, but I am deeply unhappy. its much worse than average-white-collar job I left"