- Mild autism, mild ADHD, undiagnosed until recently. Intersectionality leads to highly bespoke set of strengths, weaknesses, behaviors.
- Mensa-level IQ, smart enough and high enough performing to have done well despite friction (and no degree.)
- High need for autonomy in learning and work practices. Never consciously understood it until recently, but instinctively and awkwardly fought for it.
- Clash highly with scrum, agile, any high-process environment. Don't fit well in larger or more formal companies.
- High achieving, high output, quality output in good conditions, but low ambition for entrepreneurship, management, or advancing in an org's hierarchy.
- Earn trust early on at each company through high achievement but inevitable friction with management grows over time as I use the capital to secure high freedom, independence, optimal conditions for my own productivity and comfort.
- End up quitting jobs at the two year mark due to friction except for one where my accomplishments kept me around much longer.
- I interview well with people who just want to know someone is smart and gets it and is easy to get along with, interview poorly with people looking for a more specific and narrow profile.
- Good natured and likable, but don't form networking relationships. I like interacting with people and working alongside people, but need to be independent and do my work on my own. I'm not antisocial, but a lot of what teamwork and leadership and collaboration mean in engineering today are alien to me.
- Kind of selfish from a team point of view because I'm so individualistic and focused on my own work practice needs, but when I work with business or other end users I'm highly compassionate and driven to understand and solve their needs.
- It feels like I speak a different language as other smart people, other high performing engineers. I find things easy that others find hard, and vice versa. I feel pain points others don't, and vice versa. Ambitious and curious but not in a way that matches other high achievers. I solve problems others have struggled with, especially if they benefit from creative problem solving or a nonstandard solution. It's seen either a strength or a weakness depending on the situation and the people around me.
- My last job was the first one I've had that was defined more by the friction than the success but I still did good work and left on my own terms. It sucked, I haven't bothered with a job search since.
I don't think I want to work in engineering again. What it means to be a successful part of an engineering team has evolved too far away from my preferences and strengths and needs. I'm no longer interested in fighting it or faking it. I'd be happiest in whatever low profile job let me do my own thing. I don't mind dull business work or even rote work if I can do it or automate it my own way. Job descriptions are pretty homogenous and aren't written to expose what I'd really want or need in a job. I'm probably overqualified for the job that would fit me best for the rest of my career. But I have a lot of money saved and low living expenses and don't mind lower comp if it means having a job I'd like.
> End up quitting jobs at the two year mark due to friction
This resonates strongly with me.
I find past the two year mark at a company I wind up starting to burn out and causing friction with my management and teammates
Unfortunately I don't have the savings to retire or anything, and job hopping so frequently is a big challenge for me. I'd really like to find a way off of the treadmill and into less stressful day to day operating
It's cute that you think of Scrum as a "high-process environment". I assume you've never worked in a real high-process environment like avionics or medical devices. But that type of work isn't for everyone.
I worked in a startup where we spent in scrum meetings something like 40% of our time. And the software we wrote was a total disaster :D
The meetings were specifically for scrum/agile shit, so standups, planning, estimating, retrospective. I'm not including the meetings to design new features or so.
