What is it like to work for respected software companies? Most of my career I've been doing bullshi@ work I started to hate the entire field. Is there hope out there?

Yes.

Respected by who ?
Corporate job is corporate job no matter what company image is.

Work is pretty much the same except of wage and perks.

Responsibilities and enjoyment is only dependent on coworkers, management and company culture.

Looking for a job is like looking for long term relationship. Maybe you didn’t find the people you like.

@vane I meant by respected what you defined; having nice people to work with, structured management, actual software process, following a work plan, following good software standards. All I have seen so far from management and co-workers is complete chaos.

The type of work also is stupid and follows no standard. We do whatever pops in the mind of the manager; no requirements/design/UI/UX/market research/QA, nothing.

@rantsauce I understand. I think there are very few companies that do what you described.
It’s probably because lots of managers are parachuted from non IT companies so they don’t understand what they’re doing and as long as everything works nobody cares.

You should look for companies that have managers appointed from technical staff.
Those companies probably inform about it a lot during hiring process.

@rantsauce I went from software company that was run like a used car lot to software company that was a sub contractor punching bag to actual software company. It is way nicer here.