The Act of Corporate Sabotage – From an Engineer’s Perspective
A raw look at how burnout, silencing, and quiet rebellion are shaping tech teams from the inside.
> “You don't sabotage a company you believe in. You sabotage the one that burns you out, blames you for it, and still asks for more.”
Intro
*"This post isn’t written in anger. It’s written in bitter truth."*
There’s something broken in tech and no, it’s not the code. It’s the culture. It’s the gaslighting. It’s the exhaustion masked as loyalty and the praise handed out only after collapse.
This isn’t me venting. This is me documenting. Because too many engineers are quietly burning out in companies that expect them to do the work of five people, then punish them for asking why.
I wrote this from the trenches as someone who’s held the titles of DevOps Engineer, SRE, Solutions Architect, Application Support, Developer and unofficial therapist to stakeholders who can’t define SLAs but demand miracles.
So if you’ve ever felt overworked, unheard, or slowly disengaging from a system that doesn’t value you... this one's for you.
**Read it slowly. Read it honestly. And if it stings a little maybe it’s because it’s true.**
The Hidden Sabotage No One Talks About
You won’t find it in the logs. There’s no red alert. No smoking gun.
But it’s there in the silence during meetings, in the unshipped code, in the dev who used to care... and doesn’t anymore.
This isn’t some grand hack or revenge script. This is **corporate sabotage**, and it’s happening quietly, from within.
Not because engineers are malicious.
Because we’re exhausted.
How It Starts (A True Story)
I was dismissed as someone who “lacked AWS experience” which wasn’t true. At the same time, contractors delivered a complex architecture that ignored our actual stack. They built whatever they wanted, and my bosses signed off without hesitation.
Meanwhile, I wear five hats: SRE, DBA, DevOps, Solutions Architect, App Support all while mentoring interns, firefighting outages, and getting roped into never-ending meetings with zero creative input.
Stakeholders ask for backend engineers? Suddenly I’m full-stack. Why? Because “Oche knows Node and Go.”
No respect for boundaries. No compensation for the overload. Just expectations, and praise reserved for people who *present well*.
We’re told to give feedback, but our senior engineer doesn’t listen. Doesn’t explain. Just nods then does the opposite. Ass-kissing gets prioritized over saying:
> “We are critically understaffed, and this is not sustainable.”
But no one says it. Because speaking up gets you sidelined, not supported.
So What Do Engineers Do?
We adapt.
Not maliciously. But **mechanically**.
- We stop going the extra mile.
- We stop pushing back in meetings.
- We stop thinking creatively because what's the point?
We become **machines** in a machine.
And slowly, the systems we build begin to reflect our disconnection.
Not scalable. Not resilient. Just... done.
This is Sabotage — Engineered by Culture
- Sabotage is shipping “working” code that’s unmaintainable because no one gave you time to refactor.
- Sabotage is letting bad infra through because the white contractor said so.
- Sabotage is the burnout-driven silence in retros.
- Sabotage is the long meetings where nothing gets fixed just reassigned.
This isn’t rebellion. It’s a resignation.
The kind where your body’s still there, but your care left months ago.
How You Kill Sabotage Before It Starts
You build environments where engineers:
- Feel *safe* saying “no”
- Are allowed not to carry 5 job titles
- Can push back on poor architecture without being ignored
- Aren’t punished for honesty
- Are treated as collaborators not vending machines for JIRA tickets
Final Word
You want world-class systems, five-nines uptime, and scalable infra?
Cool. Start by not treating your engineers like disposable batteries.
Because when you ignore their feedback, dump five job titles on one head, and reward silence over truth don’t act surprised when things start to magically fall apart.
This isn’t sabotage by choice.
It’s sabotage by culture.
Built line by line in every ignored warning, every overwritten decision, every time you chose optics over engineers.
You think we’re quiet because we agree?
No.
We’re quiet because we’re done explaining ourselves to people who stopped listening three sprints ago.
And when your stack starts burning, just know:
We saw the smoke.
You just liked the smell of your own PowerPoint too much to notice.
About the Author
Oche is an engineer, writer, and burnout, and corporate chaos with a terminal window open and zero tolerance for fluff.
You probably work with someone like him. Or maybe… you are him.