[matrix_overload]

It's not you, it's the industry. For every non-trivial task there is a long line of people within the company willing to do it for some visibility. But in order to get promoted to the position where they can do it, they need an army of button-moving monkeys working underneath them. So, they will say whatever they need to say in order to get you to sign up. Because that increases the head count and gives them more internal weight.

If you want to play the corporate game, you need to get used to having 5 meetings to move 1 button. And it's not about the button either. It's about asking Alice how her daughter is doing, and asking Bob on how he feels after that surgery, and casually hinting to Carol that you really like her choice of coding style for that new project. You play that game for a few years and you'll be allowed to have some monkeys of your own.

Or if you find the game soul-draining, you need to beef up your sales skills and connections, and become a consultant. One of those guys that gets invited to unwind a particular clusterfuck, gets paid $500/hour and quickly moves on to the next gig. This means less stability, more control, and a totally different skill set. Ultimately, your call.

[throwawaybcknd]

Cynical but kind of accurate.

> One of those guys that gets invited to unwind a particular clusterfuck, gets paid $500/hour and quickly moves on to the next gig.

This is a "plays golf with the CTO" rate; I spent some time consulting because I thought that would mean more flexibility, and it's feast or famine, because of what you said about headcount, which applies all the way down until it's companies funded out of pocket. It took me years of consulting to figure that out: headcount is a costly liability at most businesses, but at a VC-funded startup, if they are trying to spend their competitors into the ground, frugality is discouraged.