I've been with a software consultancy firm for the last 9 years. It is a shitty job, I get that. But me being a "minding my own business" kind of person, things were more than fine.

I did my thing, and when time came for me to be promoted, I avoided the project management stream like the plague it is. I opted to stick to the senior developer designation and declined the more senior technical promotions too. I lost a lot of money, yes. But it kept me out of the rat race - to an extent.

It all worked fine, until now. Till now, at most I was expected to cooperate with my team mates and coworkers and help them along, if I could. Not doing so was looked down upon. But was not part of the job description.

But things are changing. I am still the same senior developer, but now I am appraised based on the performance of my teammates!. They hired a lot of morons for non-mertitious reasons, for virtue signalling. And now they are not performing. It is not just a gap in capability - with experience, we can bridge that. But they aren't even motivated to gain that experience. Builds crash and burn, unattended, when one of these morons are on call!. And with remote work, I am not sure they are even online. If they are onsite, they can be 'educated' like the children they are, but COVID buggered that.

Also suddenly my manager's (not project manager, he manages me in the firm that I work in) goals, like optimization and cost cutting targets, become my targets. To a certain extent, I understand - we do, they claim. But this time the old dinosaur that he is ,is putting things like 6 sigma improvements and process improvement goals in my annual targets expecting to claim them as his team's contribution. But in the agile team that I work in, if I propose an enhancement, it will be implemented immediately or backlogged and visibility is high about who did what. So, if he brings it up as his team's proposal/archivement, people will know who did it and who didn't.

This is another reason I avoided the project management jobs - unless I am actively bringing in money for the company, I'll become expendable. I think this is what is scaring people shitless in the current economic environment. And they are trying to bury their virtue signalling misadventures under layers of fake data (team based performance appraisals - "it isn't just the new hires I made, everyone is having an off year") and making it essentially MY JOB to make other people work. While it is actually HIS/HER (manager's) job.

Anyway, this is the future of all developer jobs. Essentially communism in corporations. But while it is no as prominent, I hope to find another job and surf the commie wave jumping job to job.

Rant over.

While it is not as bad as getting falsely accused by the Karens at work, as the other poster says. Work, in general, is becoming more toxic. So, watch your backs gentlemen.