The Laughing MuseJul 3, 2023
No, recruiters.

I do not want to be part of a "challenging" team.

I'm in my mid-50s. I want to be part of a "mature" team, a "powerful" team with a large and well-managed "throughput", a "structured" team that knows how to use processes to quickly and accurately handle the Same Stuff Happens Every Week so that when someone else comes screaming in with their ass on fire babbling about something someone else broke and We Need To Document This Thing NOW NOW NOW, one or two of us can calmly turn from our current tasks, neatly and quickly handle La Emergencia, and calm the panicked person's heartrate without raising our own.

I'm old. Fuck "ambition". I just want a good paycheck and no dumbass "this REALLY could have been avoided" hasslepanic.
Show threadDave Howell

@thelaughingmuse Another perspective on this, particularly for engineering roles. Good engineers like solving interesting, challenging puzzles. We like doing something that nobody has accomplished before, and figuring out little design nuances to delight users.

Puzzle solving is challenging, and is attractive to a good candidate. But I agree that recruiters more often use the term as a euphemism for long hours and overwork. You want the work, not the workplace, to be challenging.

Jul 5, 2023 at 3:41pmWeb