Comment by mcv

I've certainly seen that shift in some places. 8 years ago I started on a project as a freelance software engineer, to build something they couldn't really envision yet. I had a ton of freedom, built a prototype, chose my own tech stack, designed every part of it. A team was built around it, and I migrated to a leadership role where I decided the direction, addressed issues I saw, redesigned parts that needed improvement. We had an enormous amount of freedom, and used it to build great things fast.

A bit over a year ago, I joined that same company again, as lead of what's technically the same team, this time as an employee, but everything had changed. It was very hierarchical, very top-down, very little freedom, lots of red tape and office politics, and a tedious, slow pace.