I have found myself in a similar situation. The caveat though is that when hired in I was the replacement for the individual everyone liked. So from day 0, I was disliked. This, put me behind the eight ball with not ever having even the slightest chance to ever get to share my knowledge and experience to anyone. I found myself labeled with having a communication problem, due to my other coworkers gossip and hearsay spread behind my back.

The truth of the matter, is even if you are more technologically ahead, on par or behind you counterparts in a company you are screwed when you are not liked.

There are only a handful of people I have met that are truly honest, with themselves and others. In which leaves everyone else never being capable of accepting new or different ideas, or to the point any type of criticism because they honestly can not do a self reflection.

People are more likely to believe in lies, than the truth.

If you find yourself not being liked, regardless of the reason you became not liked it is time to go. Be it on day one, or day 999+

If you find your suggestions, comments, criticism, are not received, do not argue with idiots and try win your case with a follow up. If they were not receptive with a feel-felt, or pathos,ethos,logos forms of communication then your going through and exercise of futility.

My suggestion for anyone before even thinking of accepting a new position, during the interview ask the following,

1.why is the position open? Growth? Replacement of a but in a seat? If the later; ask was it a resignation or a termination.

2. Ask could I have or see a employee handbook? You can gleam a lot about company culture just by reading. Red flags on things like dress code restrictions (when the position my not ever be public facing). Ie a long exhausting list of can not wear. Unfair things like banning shorts, but not banning skirts. Dress code should be just stated by job role, business professional, business casual, relaxed business casual, casual. Look for phrases/wordings that might lend towards management deciding to not deal flexibly per employee, as that the management/leadership has taken a stance that a past employee ruined it for everyone style. Look for anything that will make you uncomfortable working there.

3. Ask for their SDLC documentation/process/methodology, coding style guidelines, and the technology stack they use? If the can’t produce or speak in detail or are vague on details. another red flag, that they might be cowboy coding, silo building, bus factor of one per process, etc... you want to make sure you are not walking into a environment with a nightmare scenario where it is a one to one of a single dev to a project and only that dev touches/knows anything about it. As that there is typically resource constraints, poor to no time allocation for code revise,testing, documentation. As well a the technical debt/corner cutting that goes along with not having good project/sdlc management practices.

4. What is the process for changing the any of the current sdlc, methodology,practices, guidelines,etc...? Explain that you’ll be the fng (freaking new guy/gal) and that you will be bringing your knowledge in, as well as absorbing the new to you sdlc,process,yadda yadda and you want to understand how new and possibly different ways of doing things (innovation) is incorporated. You are trying to spot what the parent article fell into, by avoiding becoming the unliked team member. You also want to know if the think the word “standard” means etched in stone, never changing. Standards do change, and are revised. I have never seen a standard that does not have a revision number.

5. Blantently ask; what is your stance on open source software? Followed up with what is your take on Microsoft moving to open source and being a Linux foundation member? You want to make sure you know if they are current in the tech news and events. You want to make sure they are not using dead technology stacks, or SSIS for things beyond it’s intention,or have drank the MS kool-aid from 10-20 years ago and missed the memo that they were wrong about Linux being a cancer. Your also trying to spot the I got a tech job mindset, I know only XYZ and have lost the ability to learn and stay up to date with current trends in the industry. IE there is no such job title as database admin, database administration is a hat/role the devOps, software engineers wear when needed. You do not want to find yourself having to use ssis for application development when it is a database management tool, or having to maintain sql stored procedures that on average 5000~ lines long because they only learned t-sql. You are trying to spot if the company is a right tools for the right job, or we spend 200,000 on a hammer so everything is hit with the hammer.

Final thoughts; to avoid the problems I once encountered as well as what the parent post went through. Walk-in to any interview you get with the mindset of “You are interviewing them, they are not interviewing you.” Go in with good questions about the company, culture like I suggested above to see if they are a good fit for you and the working conditions you want to work or work best under. Be honest, be humble, don’t bullshit, and it’s ok to say I don’t know I would have to research and learn. End of the day, If the answer seems like a no, then it’s a no, don’t waste your or their time.