I have worked as a software engineer for over a decade. I would describe myself as someone who cares but not all the time. For example, I can provide a high quality solution for a task that requires it… but I cannot do it for every single task in our board.

I used to work in places in which I was giving myself 100%, let’s say, one sprint (2 week’s duration) every 3. It worked great. The other 2 sprints I was doing a good enough job.

I now work for a so-called “high performing” team, and I hate it. Everything must be done with a high quality standard and it must be done “on time” (there are no deadlines, but the moment your task is taking more time than it was estimated, you need to provide evidence of why that’s the case).

Not sure if that’s how things should be, or perhaps I am too picky or if simply I don’t fit the company culture. I like to do great things, but I cannot be a “high-performant” engineer all the time.