I thought that once too and ignored my gut feeling. It was the most toxic work environment that I’ve ever experienced, and it essentially killed my software development career. I was eventually laid off and never recovered. I’m now a mail carrier.
It was because I believed the lie “if you start in Support, you’ll have a chance to move over to Development”. I spent 5 years waiting for them to keep their promise. I did everything they asked me to do, I even wrote code in order to demonstrate that I was able to do it. None of it mattered. And after 5 years of doing everything they wanted, chasing that goal post that kept on moving back on me, they laid me off unceremoniously. I then tried to apply to development jobs but I kept on getting asked the question why I haven’t held a development title in more than 5 years. No answer I gave was apparently good enough. I spent the next five years bouncing from a tech support job that I got laid off from, and then a technical advisor job (which was really just tech support for the development team) that I got laid off from. After that, I decided I either get a development job, or I’m leaving the industry. Tech Support was killing me, and I refused to go back. And now I deliver mail for a living. It’s a lot less stress than I had to deal with before. And I now get a true chance of a six-figure salary.
I thought that once too and ignored my gut feeling. It was the most toxic work environment that I’ve ever experienced, and it essentially killed my software development career. I was eventually laid off and never recovered. I’m now a mail carrier.
why it killed your carrer?, you lose the desire to work in software development?
It was because I believed the lie “if you start in Support, you’ll have a chance to move over to Development”. I spent 5 years waiting for them to keep their promise. I did everything they asked me to do, I even wrote code in order to demonstrate that I was able to do it. None of it mattered. And after 5 years of doing everything they wanted, chasing that goal post that kept on moving back on me, they laid me off unceremoniously. I then tried to apply to development jobs but I kept on getting asked the question why I haven’t held a development title in more than 5 years. No answer I gave was apparently good enough. I spent the next five years bouncing from a tech support job that I got laid off from, and then a technical advisor job (which was really just tech support for the development team) that I got laid off from. After that, I decided I either get a development job, or I’m leaving the industry. Tech Support was killing me, and I refused to go back. And now I deliver mail for a living. It’s a lot less stress than I had to deal with before. And I now get a true chance of a six-figure salary.