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Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#21

Post by bdw5204 »

A good rule to determine whether you should quit a job is to examine how much you think about quitting. If you're thinking about quitting on anything resembling an occasional basis let alone a regular basis, the answer is yes.

If you ever suspect you might get laid off or forced out via an unacceptable change in your working conditions, start looking immediately. As stupid as it sounds to anybody who hasn't accepted it as normal, its an open secret that many companies consciously discriminate against unemployed people so it's easier to find another job if you're currently employed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#22

Post by polalavik »

bawolff wrote: post #17
6510 wrote: post #13

I've often taken vacation days to go work some place else for 1-2 weeks. If its horrible I'm more happy in my old job (as if I've taken a vacation) if its nice there Ill consider staying.

Where are you finding other (tech) jobs that are ok with this arrangement?

The secret is nobody needs to know

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#23

Post by edfletcher_t137 »

You can never know for sure. I only regretted quitting my first major job many years later after life had illustrated why it would've been better to stay. You just have to trust your instincts or take a leap of faith. Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#24

Post by techstrategist »

6510 wrote: post #13

I've often taken vacation days to go work some place else for 1-2 weeks. If its horrible I'm more happy in my old job (as if I've taken a vacation) if its nice there Ill consider staying.

This is an excellent “I didn’t know you could do that… but why couldn’t you?” idea. Surely some people are under work contracts that wouldn’t allow it, but otherwise it’s a super interesting tactic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#26

Post by teeray »

I’ve never regretted quitting, but at the same time I can look back and see times when I moved from better teams to worse teams. I’ve also moved from worse to better.

I think it’s important for your career growth to get experience with different teams, different products, and different verticals. It’s always a gamble, but it’s also one that makes you stronger every time.

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#27

Post by jerzyt »

At one of my previous jobs, I did a project on employee retention. Our goal was to identify valuable employees who were most likely to leave. The results were surprising at first. The top two factors leading to an employee moving to a new job were: high performance review and high increase in compensation (raise and bonus). On reflection, we realized that we just reaffirmed their market value, so they could negotiate their next salary starting from the new base with us.

Bottom line, whether you're happy or not with your job, you should probably move.

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#28

Post by brundolf »

You can't really know. Even other people's anecdotes don't mean much, because everybody has different things that make them happy or unhappy. The only way to really learn how things are is to venture out and see for yourself!

I was miserable at my first software job. I liked the people I worked with, the company was small/casual, I thought I had it pretty good. But underneath I was deeply unhappy. So I saved up some money, quit, and tried freelancing for a few months. Parts of that were great, I learned things, but overall it wasn't for me. So then I went back and looked for a new full-time job. That one ended up being the best job I've had, and really showed me how much I can love my work in the right circumstances.

None of that would have happened if I'd just stayed and gritted my teeth

I would ask yourself: are you really happy? If so, great! But if part of you is unhappy or even just curious, go see what else is out there! There's very little risk if you wait to quit until you've found a job, especially if you're young and without dependents. Don't assume what you've got is the best you can hope for. Take an abundance mindset, and go learn about yourself and your field! You can't predict what will happen, you just have to go out and see

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#29

Post by mettamage »

sarah_eu wrote: post #6

Never regretted quitting either. My first job was pretty stellar too, in engineering R&D, and probably the smartest set of people I've worked with to date. I must have been among the top earning graduates from the CS program at my university (which isn't a great university for CS, to be fair). I quit because I couldn't adjust to being a company employee, working in a bland business park on the edge of a new city, wri…

Sounds like you'd be open for working remote :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

#30

Post by shoo »

verteu wrote: post #10

You should quit. There's a randomized controlled experiment on this exact topic. See column 6 in page 28 of https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22487/w224... On average, people who flip a coin to decide whether to quit are much happier when they quit. To be precise, if we define H as self-scored-1-to-10 happiness six months after the coin toss, then B_wald = (EV[H | heads] - EV[H | tails]) / (Pr[quit |…

Conclusion of the linked paper:

> The results of this paper suggest the presence of a substantial bias against making changes when it comes to important life decisions, as evidenced by that fact that those who do make a change report being no worse off after two months and much better off six months later. The results of this paper are, of course, merely suggestive. If the results are correct, then admonitions such as "winners never quit and quitters never win," while well-meaning, may actually be extremely poor advice.

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