What's the key to a happy and productive work life? THE PEOPLE.
Pros
First team I joined was great. Team was nice and helpful and my manager was very empathetic and understanding.
Cons
Second team I joined was terrible and gave me lasting work trauma. Team lead didn't know how to manage people and was set in his ways (i.e. stuck with processes he was comfortable with, even though they were unproductive). Senior SWE I worked with was a toxic micromanager (even though he wasn't even a manager lol) that did whatever he could to kiss up to the team lead, even if that meant throwing us younger SWEs under the bus. Unfortunately leadership didn't take this problem seriously and when a fellow SWE and the senior SWE got into a conflict, leadership simply decided to move fellow SWE to a new team instead of resolving the root of the problem, which was the senior SWE. Other fellow SWEs eventually left the team (I'm sure you can probably guess why) and I was left alone with all the work and the ever-toxic senior SWE. Eventually found out that turnover rate on this team was extremely high, go figure, and I quit the job. I come to work to do my job and get paid, not play office politics and deal with toxic people. We all have other things going on in our lives and the last thing we should have to worry about is toxicity in the workplace.
