I still remember the days when people were posting on Slashdot that software engineering has no future in the US because it's all moving to India. As we know, that turned out not to be the case. Tech companies have been willing to pay literally 10x for engineers to work from their US headquarters. Now folks are again claiming that the era of remote work is upon us. Maybe that's true. But be careful what you wish for.
Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
101–110 of 270 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#102To play devil's advocate, I'm staying where I am. I think long term I'm better off here. Why?
- I just got a promotion from associate systems engineer to systems engineer. There was an associated raise :) - My boss is great. Can't remember names to save his life, but he's great at managing people. - My work life balance is exactly where I want it. We could be going back into offices, but there's no pressure here. I can skip the commute whenever I want to and put that time into going to see friends. - My employer's good about lateral movement within the company, and I want to be a full on software engineer. I got here from my once a week bike repair job with them and a tech support gig elsewhere. This is so doable.
I definitely make less money than I could elsewhere. But I've got good benefits. I've got good people around me. I have the flexibility to have the social life I want. I like what my company does. I like what they're trying to do. If it's up to me, I'll be around a decent while longer in two or three more positions :)
The only things that've changed from covid are: - I work from home most of the time - I have more work in my backlog to automate away the jobs that were cut at the start of covid (I work for a retailer. There were some spectacularly enormous losses for a few months there)
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#103The pay raise has nothing to do with the workers themselves.
Many had frozen hiring and everyone is hiring at once ATM. So you get inflated pay and designations.
Some tech workers are reevaluating their career track.
I am ok to move if I can change my career to pure engineering. I worry that if I do not I might stagnate.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#104Very anecodtic, but I've been working as Dev Lead in a startup before and throughout the pandemic.
The pandemic made me rethink what's important, to stop relying on the perceived stability that a stable job gives, quit my job and go study a Bachelor's degree in music.
I think I'm not alone in this sense... People have difficult or lonely time, which forces them to rethink priorities, understand that there's no guaranteed stability and hop onto the next step in their life. In tech, more often then not, the next step in one's life is a better salaried job.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#105Until recently I was at a small software company of about 30 people. The management pushed for a return to the office, and Covid meant there are many more remote work opportunities in the UK, so I left for a new role at a bigger company. So did another 5 developers (although two of those were recent graduates so I'd have expected them to move on). In total that was about 1/3 of the development team ended up leaving in the space of 3 months.
I have no way to know if that is typical. I doubt it is, but I've certainly seen practically every local dev company I know advertising roles.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#106It's completely to do with work from home. Everyone is fed up after what they had to deal with in 2020, and tech workers (almost 100% of them) got to work from home, many for the first time ever. After everything they've been through in 2020, it makes zero sense to willingly go back to work in an office where you put yourself at risk and have to deal with all those horrible things you had to deal with before 2020. So…
I work at a large company that changed to become remote first in 2020, and we are seeing similar rates of churn. I am not sure this is the whole story.
In my experience, companies don't just become "remote-first" because they allow people to be remote. Support systems for remote communication, development, and career growth are vital. That's the harder part that most companies don't do well, yet still adopt the "remote-first" label. It's actually really hard to transition to remote and often requires a massive culture rework. I've never personally seen that done well, but I've heard success stories exist.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#107I choose my job based on the commute time. One month after starting, covid hit and I worked remote only.
Then I heared from freelancer friends that now almost all their projects became remote only as well.
I quit my job a few months ago and work as a freelancer from home now.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#108I still remember the days when people were posting on Slashdot that software engineering has no future in the US because it's all moving to India. As we know, that turned out not to be the case. Tech companies have been willing to pay literally 10x for engineers to work from their US headquarters. Now folks are again claiming that the era of remote work is upon us. Maybe that's true. But be careful what you wish for.
Tech companies have been willing to pay literally 10x for engineers to work from their US headquarters.
Outsourcing is very different to employing remote workers. When you outsource you're essentially giving up a lot of direct control over how work is done, who is doing it, what quality processes are in place, and what the deliverables look like. Companies like to control those things, and will often pay a premium to maintain control over them. Remote work maintains that control.
Part of this is visible because many remote roles are advertised as only being open to people in the same country, or timezone, or even state. Companies want their employees to be able to talk in real time (which is actually a little annoying..)
I don't think there's much similarity between outsourcing and remote work.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#109It's completely to do with work from home. Everyone is fed up after what they had to deal with in 2020, and tech workers (almost 100% of them) got to work from home, many for the first time ever. After everything they've been through in 2020, it makes zero sense to willingly go back to work in an office where you put yourself at risk and have to deal with all those horrible things you had to deal with before 2020. So…
I work at a large company that changed to become remote first in 2020, and we are seeing similar rates of churn. I am not sure this is the whole story.
Just as many people hate it as love it, so I could see workforces needing to massively realign on that.
Re: Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?
#110In June 2021 I left Google after 6 years. I outlined my motivations here [1]. Long story short it's a conscious bet that time and energy are scarcer commodities for me than money. I'm not sure I'll last a full year but I think I have a few months left in me. [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
Good on you! I took six months off after my last job - might have taken more, but living is expensive and I felt like if I had declined the offer I got as COVID started I might not have other chances soon after.