Curious if you worked with smaller companies since your time at Google and how does you experience compare?
My personal experience says most mid-sized startups don't do any better on most fronts either. Contrast the process you described "writing the design docs and getting the comments, presenting my work to other people" to "the SVP engineering feels we should do X by Friday even though it isn't urgent to business" and the former doesn't sound as bad. In fact, you have way more agency in former.
The promo game sucks, no doubt. But there are games at play in companies of all sizes. Promo games in some, authority games in others.
Not since, not yet. And for sure I can imagine things going like you say. There's always drama. Small company drama can be even worse sometimes. So far in my search I've been trying to target companies under 100 people, aiming for more a more lead / principal type role. But we'll see how it nets out. I have a few months left of, uh, RSU runway.
My personal experience says most mid-sized startups don't do any better on most fronts either. Contrast the process you described "writing the design docs and getting the comments, presenting my work to other people" to "the SVP engineering feels we should do X by Friday even though it isn't urgent to business" and the former doesn't sound as bad. In fact, you have way more agency in former.
The promo game sucks, no doubt. But there are games at play in companies of all sizes. Promo games in some, authority games in others.