I interviewed during COViD and I believe at the time, the remote interview process did not give either party a good chance to evaluate the other. So I over-estimated certain things and they under-estimated certain things. Not to mention that after I accepted the offer, I realized that I had to report to a different hiring manager than the one I spoke to during the interview process. There is a certain level of office politics involved during the planning of the tasks for each project, and people with less qualifications can be involved in the more interesting and advanced work, and people with more qualifications can get stuck with the trivial work. I worked for 8 months, but honestly after my 4th month, things started to get very repetitive and boring, and at the 8th month marker and after increasingly being consumed with entry-level work, I realized that I could have used this time working somewhere else and build on my skill and my career rather than working backwards. The compensation was significantly lower than the market, and their excuse is the low housing market. But honestly Cedar Rapids, IA is not a cheap place. AC is blasting all summer, and heater is blasting all winter, and the state tax is higher than the average.
