How about honesty?

Cause we can all do better on that. Let’s cut the corporate fluff. The tech industry runs on two things: caffeine and lies. And since 2023 on three things, caffeine, lies and OpenAI. Employers and employees are locked in a perpetual toxic spiral of delusion.

So, you took that job for the “innovative culture” and “impactful work”? 🙈 Here’s the reality: “Innovative” means “We have no idea what we’re doing,” and “impactful” translates to “You’ll maintain the same type of CRUD app you've been dealing with for years until your soul evaporates.”

But wait, there’s more! Enjoy perks like:

“Flexible hours” (read: “We’ll Slack you at midnight”)
“Fast-paced environment” (read: "We have no fucking idea how to plan ahead our next move")
“We’re like family” (read: “We’ll guilt-trip you into unpaid overtime”)

And let’s not forget the classic move: promising “cutting-edge tech” while your team duct-tapes legacy systems that predate Y2K.

But we are all grown up men and women here, don't take it on the employers only.

Don’t act innocent—you’re not.

You slapped “blockchain expertise” on your resume after a 30-minute freeCodeCamp tutorial. Sound familiar? I’ve been that guy.

And let’s not forget how you nodded gravely when the PM declared, “Our tool, which competes with a Microsoft product that has been in development for three years, can be done in six months—we’re a startup!” instead of laughing hysterically on their face.

Then, when you broke prod? You vanished like a Tinder match and let the intern (or that clueless new hire) take the blame. Well, I've been that new hire, that's why I know people like you exists.

Let’s be real here. You’re not fooling anyone. Except maybe the junior devs who are still in the honeymoon phase about the industry. They think they’ll be coding in a “collaborative environment” where “ideas are valued.” Spoiler alert: they’re not. The only thing valued is the ability to nod and smile while the PM/Product Owner/Fill-the-blank-cause-name-keeps-mutating throws spaghetti at the wall and calls it “agile.”

Just to be cautious, I’m not referring to any specific company on my resume.

I’m talking about all of them.

Nah... All jokes aside, you shouldn’t include those kinds of companies in your resume anyway. I’m referring to the ones you’d want to hide. You’d better not add them to your resume, because if they’re that kind of start ups, they might not even exist three years from now—no matter how many big-name investors back them. This comes from experience—trust me on this.

But my main point here is that the deception goes both ways. It’s not just employers who are at fault—you know exactly what I’m referring to.

When liars hire liars, what can go wrong right?

I'll tell you:

Projects fail because nobody admitted the deadline was a hallucination. And if you are the one to take that brave step you won't last long in the company. Eat your "valued opinion".
Burnout skyrockets as everyone pretends 80-hour weeks are ~normal~. Ok, maybe not 80, but 60 is the new 40 and you know it 😂😭. The more insecure the developer and the more severe the PM’s mental trip, the easier it is to perpetuate this state. Developers assume the reason they work 40+ hours is their inability to finish tasks in 40 hours… but in most cases, it’s not.
Turnover? It’s a revolving door of devs fleeing to the next company dumb enough to believe their LinkedIn endorsements. Hoping this time will be different, hoping that 40 on the signed contract will actually mean 40. Well, at least it used to be like that, with the current job market they will just become the new interns of the company and pray for the best. In any case, neither companies or engineers are reaching their full potential.

Do I have a solution? Maybe not. But if I can think of something worth trying (from both sides), it’s this:

wait for it...

drum roll please... 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Stop fucking lying. How about that?

How about some honesty? How about cutting the bullshit for once? For a greater cause. For a win-win. Wouldn't that be somehow ironic? That the solution to our hardest technical problems lies in the most basic human value?

Radical, I know. I might be a genius for suggesting it. But seriously, I am not being ambiguous here:

Employers: Admit your SaaS is held together by hope, Stack Overflow and God's grace. Your engineers will realize otherwise as soon as they land their new job, they will feel scammed, lose motivation and immediately un-engage. Most importantly, ensure your engineers genuinely have free time beyond the supposedly 40-hour workweek to learn and grow. Many engineers grow the most when unemployed for this very reason—once rehired, they lose the opportunity to acquire new knowledge. And no, learning on the job is not the same; it lacks the space for deliberate growth, often forcing compromises in quality due to relentless deadlines. Engineers should at least understand the theory behind "the right way" to approach tasks, even if reality later sets in and deadlines prevent perfectionism or full application of that knowledge.
Employees: Stop pretending you care about the company as if it were yours. You’re here for the money; we’re all here for it. You will set insane expectations for yourself and your colleagues. You will all then fail to meet those expectations, and employers will be the ones feeling scammed. You’ll open Pandora’s box of lies flowing both ways and feed back the vicious circle over and over. Also, stop pretending you know more than you actually do. You’re not a senior engineer just because you’ve simply been working for five years. The HR lady might settle for that, but in tech, the truth is—sometimes five years of experience just means repeating five times the shitty code you produce in a year. If anything, you’re accumulating bad habits. Which brings us back to the same truth: having the chance to learn the right way to work matters, and if you can also apply it in your job, consider yourself extra-lucky.
Both: Use previous points to set realistic expectations about each other.

Or keep gaslighting each other. What’s the worst that could happen? (Looks at the 14th missed release this year.)

I don’t know… Right or wrong, I’m just ordering my thoughts on a sunny Sunday here as I sip from my second beer this afternoon… I mean, coffee.