I got dinged on my latest review for not participating enough in the team channels, and I feel like I’m back in middle school. Apparently, shipping clean, bug-free code ahead of schedule takes a backseat to not dropping enough memes in the #random channel. My manager literally told me that social presence is a core metric for our remote culture this year. Is this normal? I’m so grumpy about it.

The work culture on my team is pretty bad. There is high burn out, lots of fighting, finger pointing, working 24/7. When I bring this up, the leaders mention that this is just how tech culture is. It is worse at other companies. I haven’t worked at another company so I feel like I can’t counter. What should I say?

I feel like the tech industry has completely warped my perception of money. I find myself getting jealous of people making $250k on Reddit, while completely forgetting that my current salary puts me in the top percentage of earners in my own zip code. My non-tech friends are struggling with groceries, and here I am complaining that my RSU refresher wasn't high enough this quarter. How do you ground yourself?

We need to stop the AI initiative. This is becoming a wrecking ball, and I only foresee getting worse. How can we make noise to put these types of software to its end?

I had two interviews this week and one screening call but I still don't feel confident that i will reach the next round. I have 20 years experience working with infrastructure (physical hardware) but have a AWS cloud practitioner Certification. The jobs seem more based on Workflow, process, new technologies. Yes, I can do those things but i fear my experience in those areas are not as prominent than another person. I feel stuck in a place I want to transition out of. How do i break out?