Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

#21

Post by sloopy543 » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:29 AM UTC

1. Owner didn't pay me. Lots of manipulative BS. Wanted more money.

2. Startup seemed okay with me being remote at the start but weren't actually okay with it.

3. Contract ended amicably with contracting company.

4. Job seemed okay but they sold the client on an impossible deadline. Left when shit hit the fan.

5. On a very longterm contract but grew bored with the tech and suspected the contract would get cut short so I jumped to something that seemed more long term with potential to learn something new.

6. CEO made promises and didn't deliver so I'm fielding offers and will probably leave once I get something that pays more.

Lessons: 1. You make more money every time you jump ship. 2. Don't listen to what people say. Listen to what they do. 3. No boss/company is interested in providing you with opportunities to learn. They all want to exploit an existing skill set and all real learning has to happen on your own time. 4. Employers don't really want remote. They give it begrudgingly because enough of the talented people are demanding it. 5. It's probably better to just let contracts end, then double-dip during the transition. 6. These people aren't your family.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

#22

Post by trumbitta2 » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

Job 1: They waited until after 5 minutes of the end of my last day to tell me the contract was being renewed

Job 2: I had the opportunity to be an early stage employee (#2 actually) at a startup I liked

Job 3: After 9 years, I had given everything I could to that startup I liked

Job 4: I found out I'm not built for corporate bulls*

Job 5: They ran out of money and let us go

Job 6: I had a better offer

Job 7: I have a better offer and will work from a coworking space I fell in love with

Re: Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

#23

Post by burntoutfire » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

fluroblue wrote: post #19

burntoutfire wrote: post #7

I quite often feel like I was not made for full time jobs. I know that it's what lazy people say (and quite likely I'm one lol), but I'm amazed that even in spite of my laziness I managed to acquire FIRE money before I'm 40 (and also, without the help of the mad FAANG salaries). To answer your questions - I quit pretty much all my jobs because of the same reason - namely that I don't like working. The job I did were…

What do you do if you don’t mind answering? I recently quit my job because of my mental health and would love to find a part time job though having trouble finding one in the tech space

I'm mostly working contracts (programming, architecture). I quit them fairly regularly - I've just checked and my median time of stay on a job is 12 months (ranges between 4 and 22). Between the contracts, I take ample amounts of free time to recover and convince myself that I can do it again...

Regarding part time, after proving to be a valuable addition to the team, I was twice able to convince my bosses to let me work part time (60% and 50%). Depends on the local market and how hot you are compared to an average replacement available to your boss, asking for part-time can be very feasible. However, in my case it didn't help much as I, in both cases, still quit a couple months later anyway.

At jobs, I feel like my soul is poisoned by all the crap and idiocy that takes place there and working less does not fundamentally change it that much (the poison is still there). Fundamentally, I feel like I didn't learn the skill of copying with job suckiness that most people seem to have mastered. Hence, my only hope is FI and then doing my own thing (I have some ideas) as a way to stay productive and generate some extra income.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

#24

Post by 3minus1 » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

Job 1: Very old technology. Wanted more money Job 2: Government contracting job and by the end I had no work. Bad culture (there was no work). Told me they were debating between a 2% and 2.5% raise and decided on 2.5% because they really liked me lol. Job 3: Company was in the process of going bankrupt and I wanted to relocate to Silicon Valley. I got laid off before I landed a new job though :) Job 4: FAANG - I'm happy here for now

Re: Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

#25

Post by actionowl » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

dsauerbrun wrote: post #9

actionowl wrote: post #4

Excluding jobs in High School and College... Job 1. Not happy with the work I was doing, management was pushing me to learn ASP.Net and Windows stack, wanted to continue using Linux and open source languages. Job 2. After 5 years I felt like I was stagnating and not learning enough. We started getting projects where I was again spending lots of time in the Windows stack again. Job 3. Job was "Remote" and an awesome l…

What's your opinion on the windows stack now that .net is open source?

I'm totally for the open source bits, we use .Net Core heavily at my current job now. I like the change in Microsoft and windows. Still don't use Windows on the server or desktop but I like .Net core.