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The fog of war over all that happened with my change of team is starting to dissipate.
3 people were involved and there were 4 different versions of the whole situtations, but from what I've been able to collect it looks like the company is expanding and one of the mail KPI for the current team leaders is how good they are at creating a NEW generation of team leaders, to take care of the new entries.
My previous team leader told me about all these new growth perspectives and the junior entries I could manage, knowing very well of the desire I have previously expressed of being a senior dev with my small group of juniors to teach.

I declined the offer, stating that this whole year has been exhausting. Every single time I've tried anything (using modules for new components on our old web client, tsdoc to document our types, suggesting technologies like ANYTHING BUT ANGULAR AND MONGO, telling how removing down migrations was a retarded move) my suggestions were either shrugged off or flat out refused. Let alone how every time I was proven right, except for angular but give it time and that will bite their tail as well.
Don't get me wrong: they are well withing their right when they take all those decisions, and more. But I DO NOT PLAN on selling a plethora of bad decisions to a new stack of devs as if they were the gold standard.
"I understand your reasons; you, as a company, need a well coordinated team all running towards a goal; loose cannons are harmful.
But now I need you to understand me: I do not agree with your technical direction. I never lied before and I will not start now. Promotions don't matter nearly as much as my integrity, and integrity in my world means speaking up about problems. Your position is perfectly valid, but mine is as well and they can't be reconciled. If I were you I'd make myself a favor and make sure IHateForALiving doesn't become a team leader; given your direction, I'm not the man you want right now".

As mentioned, one of the KPI for team leaders is how succesfull they are in finding new team leaders, and trying to turn me into one didn't end well; I love sharing knowledge, but being honest to myself is far more important to me. So this meant my previous team leader failed in a very big task, and thus was demoted? At the same time, I've been there for 2 years now so they're not really eager to replace me, but I'm under strict examination too as of now.

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    ADDENDUM: I'm moderately vocal when it comes to speaking about problems because I'm very much aware that half of the problems we've been facing for years would never have existed in the first place if any individual developer in the past during a meeting just raised their hands and asked a manager "thank you sir, would you be willing to discuss the topic again AFTER you stopped snorting glue for a couple hours?
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    I don't quite agree with this.

    You can have your opinions on stacks, and your take on "best practices" (I've seen so many of them be overturned and shamed years later it's not even funny).

    But they lose weight when you are another cog in a machine.

    That's not saying you are in the wrong. But companies love processes. And sticking to them. For a reason.

    My old company used Unity pretty much exclusively. Unreal is better, yes, but even if I wanted to push for it, it'd be nonsense since the workforce was comprised entirely of unity devs. It didn't make sense in a level that is above development.

    Thus, I don't see this as a valid reason to reject being a team lead, particularly if you have expressed interest in it before.

    The fact that you are expected to keep the machine running *does not preclude* you from teaching your mentees what you *think* should be done, while doing what they are expected to do.
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    Also, you might be in for a surprise if you get one of the actual rockstar juniors who then challenges your concepts (and chances are they are not wrong). What would you do then?
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    @CoreFusionX I steal art from everyone around me all the time. A junior brings something decent to the table, chances are I'll join the ride.
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    Never heard "fog of war" outside of an RTS game.
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