A year as part of a team abroad: my reflection

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Why did I choose to work for a company abroad? No, it’s not because no more companies are available in my country.

In May 2018, I made what I can now call the most erroneous pivot in my career. Led by false positive feedback, I accepted a job offer from a local company that was currently branching off from a German corporation. Without getting into too much detail, there were a few things fundamentally wrong in my new team:

• Zero autonomy: our teamwork was almost always re-worked by the tech lead, reasoned by it “not meeting quality standards”. Then why was the team hired?
• Zero psychological safety: Not even in team retrospectives could the entire team freely express how they feel about the processes. They were just “set”, and there’s that — if you don’t like them, you’re wrong!
• Contrast: We were co-working with some external teammates from Germany. They were highly skilled, professional, and balanced. Because of the contrast in their soft skills compared to our local team, I grew more attached to them and even built a more solid trust foundation with them than with my local teammates.

Naturally, I started questioning whether this was the right environment for me. The externals were about to leave, and I was about to remain in the most horrific team culture I’ve…