College is not where you find a career. College is where you have fun and drink beer

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

In my current and past situations I haven't had the power to force the right thing to happen. That's the core of what I want to change about my career. Move up to a lead or CTO spot, join a team where engineering is part of the culture, or just start my own company where that shit won't fly.

You can fight the good fight with swords held high. But I'd bet you still won't win. Mainly because you are fighting corporate culture, not department culture.

What's much easier is to find a company with the right corporate culture.

And the easiest way to do that is to find a company where software is a profit center, not a cost center. When the software you work on makes the company money. It is much easier to push them to do the right thing.

I also personally believe that life is much better at a midsize privately owned company. You won't get stock options. But you also won't get whipsawed by quarterly reports.

You might also want to look at the Spolsky Employer test. Spolsky is full of himself. But he is really introspective about the software development process and practices what he preaches. He doesn't post often these days. But if you haven't read them. Go back and read his articles that sound interesting.