Working at a medium-size government org, 6 years into a reorg, with projects being cancelled after two years because nobody actually needs it, dropping rebuilds because they might overrun, not hiring anybody who actually has a background relevant to the original system so that it can be maintained, not allotting any devs to groups which desperately need a code monkey to automate things, then assigning a senior to be that code monkey, security having all the clout and no thought for just how miserable they make everybody's lives, [omitted for brevity]. Yep, dysfunctional is about right.
> not hiring anybody who actually has a background relevant to the original system so that it can be maintained, not allotting any devs to groups which desperately need a code monkey to automate things, then assigning a senior to be that code monkey
An example of saying one thing and really meaning another, in organizations, is when they bring a tech Expert or Very Senior person in that tech on the grounds of needing a person to shore up their team, but then assigning that Very Senior some code monkey tasks. Of course the organization doesn't want to make any changes the Expert recommends, but by hiring that person they can claim they are addressing issues. Of course, it also gives management someone to blame and fire if (when) things go south.
> An example of saying one thing and really meaning another, in organizations, is when they bring a tech Expert or Very Senior person in that tech on the grounds of needing a person to shore up their team, but then assigning that Very Senior some code monkey tasks.
Happened to me about 2 years ago, and it was my shortest contract ever. Lasted 3 months.
And it was not my imagination, I was complimented and groomed into thinking they are hiring an expert to help them with difficult problems. Immediately after I made one huge PR (120-ish files diff) that helped them resolve a very thorny problem, and after it was approved by the CTO and several other seniors, and after I was complimented of the quality of my work... I got reassigned to a new project where I was ordered to pull tickets and not even formulate tasks, and to just "do what I am told".
I didn't even last two months when put in that position. Me and the CTO very quickly hated each other and he started acting like he never said the things he did during the interviews, and me leaving was a relief for everyone, myself the most.
Exactly what happened to me, but lasted 6 months. If the middle of the contract hadn't fallen over the US holiday season, when everyone kind of went into a holding pattern because some industries are just that way, it's entirely possible the contract would have been just 3 months.
The organization, at some level, clearly never wanted me to solve the issues I was supposedly brought in to address, but give them cover to say they hired help. After some reflection, I'm starting to think the project was never really expected to succeed in any significant way. The company claimed they were trying to build an in-house replacement for a third party system the vendor no longer supported, but it's possible they just wanted a stop-gap while they found another turn-key vendor. The interim system didn't have to be all that good, it just had to have enough structural integrity to carry the organization over the gap.
I thought of that and tried to reflect myself but in the end I couldn't decipher their motivation. It was either (1) I solved a big problem they wanted quicker than they thought and they had no idea what to do with me after, or (2) they lied to me that I did well, concluded I am no good and funneled me to a team where I was managed like an intern.
No clue either way but it was not okay to not communicate. It seems they still needed the manpower so they figured they will not say anything at all and hope that I will stay. Well, it didn't work for them. I was happy to leave, lol.
And sorry it happened to you as well. The motivations of companies when hiring are still foreign to me and I have to catch up there and learn a lot because I hate being blindsided like that.
I can’t imagine the infosec, security department puts a moment of thought into the lived experience of dealing with all the security. And I get it, it is important, but I often think to myself that it seems like they don’t want me to get any work done and that must be why they put all these security hoops in front of me. I must spend an hour+ a day logging in and out of things, and then another hour waiting for security checks on a deploys.
