[irremediable]

> the reality of working in a competitive, high-stakes engineering environment, where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation, where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate, where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines.

This sounds like an unproductive environment?

Like... a boss shouldn't need to call reports on their vacation, that's why engineers build systems and automate things. Being unable to fill a position in 8-12 months suggests the hiring process is broken.

I'm all for the importance of hard work, but I'd suggest an org like this is working hard but not smart.

[lostcolony]

Yeah...that's not a "high stakes engineering environment", that's a poorly structure engineering environment.

8-12 years is enough time to train an 'unqualified' candidate, or get them the requisite licensing/certificates/etc, assuredly.

On call while on vacation? You're understaffed then; even in the face of catastrophe you should have an on call rotation. If even then you still end up having to contact one person, you have too much knowledge siloed.

Etc.

[0daystock]

It was without a doubt dysfunctional, and I have since left the position, but that role was incredibly rewarding financially and taught me many things about myself, and what I desire out of life. So while I was totally burnt out by the end, the juice was certainly worth the squeeze - and I would probably do it again instead of a quiet job where my supervisor could just lower expectations, though I recognize that's not true for everybody.