Last night's #DevDiscuss Twitter discussion on healthy company culture reminded me of one thing that has been unhealthy at some places I've worked: the feeling that you're competing with your coworkers.

Some things that have added to this feeling in the past:

• Numerical levels added to job titles (e.g. Senior Software Engineer, Level III).
• Being a lead developer and individual contributor on the same project
• Being judged on number of tickets closed (as opposed to depth, difficulty, or importance of the tickets).
• Having to interview people for positions higher than one's numerical level
• Having people you see as more junior promoted to the same level

On the one hand, it's important to recognize experience and accomplishment. On the other, it's probably hard to do in a way that everybody will feel is fair.

How often do you feel you're competing with your coworkers? What contributes to this feeling? What can you do, or what can an employer do, to make things more cooperative and supportive?