I regret that I was born before jobs (the "work or starve" kind we have now) are made obsolete, so in that way I regret keeping every job for any length of time.
Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
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Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#72I regret that I was born before jobs (the "work or starve" kind we have now) are made obsolete, so in that way I regret keeping every job for any length of time.
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#73I've been "at the same job" for almost 15 years but the company been sold three times, fully bankrupt once, almost broke many times, grown to over 500 staff, layoffs to less than ten, IPO'd/re-privatized, etc Anyway I haven't interviewed in a while!
That's wild. Are you the founder?
Nope, just a regular IC
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#74[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#75Absofreakinglutely. I mean, my experience isn’t rosy like yours, since you ask: my regret is threefold.
First, I regret being naive. I grew up with the idealistic notion that if you are loyal to a business, they will be loyal to you. Reality: businesses actually ran like this are nearly extinct. Either way, when it comes to money, you can’t really trust people in a business arrangement to look out for you. Also, as I am now over-the-hill, I’m finding that someone with a long tenure and experience at one place is a liability. Bean counters want to replace you with someone cheaper and more expendable. Younger employees think you should retire and get out of their way (buddy, god willing I still have several decades to go and I’m not even sure I will be able to retire). Prospective hires think you have years of baggage and bad habits (which is likely true).
Second, I regret sacrificing the prime of my health and time eating shit at places I didn’t like for extravagant promises of equity. Equity is good and worth working for, but only if it’s worth the price you must pay today. Others may disagree, but I have found it’s not worth living in hell for the next 3-10 years even if that could potentially net me millions. And of course, there are no guarantees. The world could end, I could die any moment, or the company could go tits-up. My first startup experience netted me only $2000 for 12 years and a lifetime of regret… particularly over preferring to keep working rather than spending time with my father who later died.
Third and finally, I regret surrendering to my poor self esteem. I’m a college drop out, a nobody from a nobody town, working at small to mid sized businesses, and I think I’m merely ok at what I do. No one in their right mind could or should hire me. The job I recently left paid a very good salary, full remote, I had 10 years of seniority, I had lots of respect and could throw my weight around, all I had to put up with was incompetence and nightmarish stress. Since I have no self esteem, I felt I deserved that trade. It’s been eight months since I left, and I’m struggling to rebuild my confidence and control my anxiety.
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#76General comments:
I have stayed too long when things were crummy. They didn't start crummy; they became crummy as things changed. (Companies are only good to work for until they're not. Just about nowhere is good forever.) You can tell when things have become crummy, but you can remember that it used to be good, and so you're tempted to ride it out. Do that, but only for a few months. After, say, 3 to 6 months of no improvement, it's time to have your resume hit the street.
On the other hand, if you have good pay, good people, and good working conditions, think hard before you leave that. It's not easy to find a place that will be an improvement. My advice would be to ride that out as long as it keeps being good (but see previous paragraph).
Specific advice:
Are you concerned that you're not growing, or do you feel that you're not growing? That is, is this a head issue, or a heart and gut issue?
If you feel that you're not growing, if you feel that you need to be doing more for your own sense of satisfaction on the job, then go to your boss, and tell him/her/other that you feel that you need more responsibility.
On the other hand, if it's not bothering you at a gut level, if it's more a "should" or expectation that you think other people have for you, then maybe take a look at what you can actually do now. Are you really not better than you were a decade ago? Five years ago? Do you still write the same bugs you did then? Do you still get stumped by the same questions you did then? Can you handle bigger designs than you did then? Are you really not growing, or are you just not seeing that you've grown?
It's really easy (especially on HN!) to see "yeah, I started Facebook at 19" or whatever, and feel that at 30, I should be able to do more than I can. But that's not a realistic standard of comparison, and not a realistic expectation to put on yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#77You are probably correct that you are stagnating. I've been there, and was happy with it for a while. But when it was time to leave, I had to work hard for about a year to skill up and prove that I could do modern tech stacks. It was a pain, but totally worth the effort.
At the same time, that salary is not bad for a lower cost of living area, so if it is stable and low-stress, that doesn't sound too bad.
I'd say that the question is whether or not growing as an engineer is a goal in your life, or if you are happy just working at your decent job, and then living your own life outside of work?
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#78I definitely overstayed my job as a system administrator. When I started, there was 40 hours of work per week, and I hung on too long, because it was something I was good at, the pay was outstanding, but it was unsustainable, as my workload gradually dropped to a few hours a week.
I should have either moved into other roles, or left the company somewhere around 5 years earlier, when I started feeling impending doom.
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#79[dead]
Re: Ask HN: Did you regret staying at a job for too long?
#80Never, when it felt right. I'm in my mid fourties now, still doing web development and I stayed 13 years at a startup and am now celebrating 10 years at my current employer. In between I joined a somewhat well-known (prestigious) company which had a very toxic work culture, so it was a no-brainer to leave after just 1,5 years. Management was clueless, most people were awkward all the time, pay was very good, but I just couldn't stand going to work.
If the company values your work (not just by giving you an appropriate salary, but also acknowledging that you're a valuable asset and not just arbitrarily replaceable), gives you enough freedom and your colleagues are cooperative and nice to work with, why leave? You probably wouldn't leave your partner just because you've been together for a too long time, would you? ;-)