Not software dev, but when I was a land surveyor for a civil engineering firm I got poached internally because I was doing loads of field surveying but I was also the only person at the company who knew anything about GPS and GIS, so they pulled me off the crew I was on and put me on the one doing all the geospatial work.
Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#32Did this as a team member (the poachee) a few times; did it as a manager (the poacher) a couple as well.
As a team member, it wasn't about disliking my current team or workload; it was a way to get an out-of-band salary increase without leaving the company or the benefit stack that I liked.
As a manager? There's a lot of value -- sometimes literally months of lost productivity regained -- in hiring someone who already knows the product, culture, tools and reporting structures.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#33Yes it's happened to me and I have initiated such an internal move to bring people into my team also. It's completely fine to do and in the right circumstances can be beneficial for everyone (old and new teams and the person concerned). In spite of what anyone may think, it's not in your manager's interests to keep you hostage in your current team if you want to leave.
A couple of things I would like to stress for the less experienced folks on here as internal mobility can put people's noses out of joint if not handled well:
1) If you're trying to leave your current team, don't be a problem to your current manager. They will probably need to approve the move and lots of places have a rule where they won't transfer someone who is an underperformer etc because that just shifts a problem around the org. So be a good team member if you want to leave. Do your job and your boss will say "yeah it sucks to lose them, but ....". That's what you're shooting for.
2) If you leave a team, don't be a dick about it. Just like you shouldn't badmouth an ex-partner or ex-company, don't badmouth your ex-team or ex-boss. It's unnecessary, unhelpful, reflects badly on you and doesn't do anything good. Just don't. It wasn't the right place for you? Fine. Your colleagues are still in that team so be nice. If nothing else, you will need to work with these people crossfunctionally in the future.
3) Remember that your boss and the boss of your new prospective team may not have as many options as you think. There are all sorts of BS considerations that go into whether someone can grow or shrink an existing team. Be patient and try to put yourself in their shoes and the process will go smoother.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#34My story is a bit different. I started at a company where the engineers hated the customer support team and refused to do any work for them, because they would ask for quite a lot of help. At some point, I finished all of my work early and they kept asking our team for help. I noticed the other teammates wouldn't give them the time day.
But, all of their requests ultimately helped our customers which was good for the company. And, more importantly, it helped some of our best customers that were keeping the lights on. I decided to go ahead and help them complete several of the surprisingly difficult tasks for quite a variety of customers. Several of those customers had threatened to drop us and scratching those itches were all they really needed to feel comfortable with our products.
I half regretted it later on when I was laid off and I asked for recommendations from my fellow team members and manager. They declined. I turned to ask for recommendations from the support team I had helped. They said, "You didn't accomplish anything. Why would we recommend you?"
I said, "Wait, what are you talking about? I helped you with so many customer issues that were show stoppers, when no one else would." I was a bit offended and depressed by this, because I didn't expect it.
And, then they responded that if you can list us a few of the things you think you did for us we'll think about it. I listed a dozen in fairly extensive detail. They did apologize and agreed to recommended me but it was done so grudgingly. It was a very strong lesson to me that the other engineers there already understood well. But, I was hard working, naïve and socially awkward. And, in the end I almost walked away with nothing to show for it.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#35Your post reads like you think this is scandalous. I’d say it is totally normal in many places even encouraged for people to move between teams and roles in large organizations. What your coworker did was clever in that he demonstrated his skill to the hiring team making it way more likely that they would be open to taking him whether it was he or them that initiated the conversation about moving when the time came. Not dissimilar to how the best way to get a job once you have work experience is through references from past co-workers.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#36I work for an edtech organisation in the UK and I was poached internally by the cloud team. I was in an internal facing role running the team that looked after M365 and the Power Platform stuff, and the customer facing cloud team poached me to be on their team as a solutions consultant. I made leaving my old team as amicable as possible and I'm glad that I did, because now after a reshuffle my old team have all been relocated across to where I am anyway. It's still too early to say if it was a good move on my part or not, but I did end up with a pay rise that my colleagues in my old team aren't getting and I would probably have moved across anyway for the same salary that I was getting before.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#37This is normal, companies want to organize their staff into the best roles they fit in to the projects which are most important. This is important for a healthy company. The manager would have obviously worked with higher management and there was some tradeoff to be made here, so it would have been let through, keeping in mind the persons interests(hopefully).
Google SRE is overinterpreted. they are a big company with lots of resources and exceptional engineers. It's not reasonable to model smaller companies like that.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#38[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#39I’ve been in at least five roles in eleven years at my current company, and projects frequently poach me for weeks or months at a time, sometimes leading to role changes, sometimes not. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoy it.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been “poached” internally? Is this even a thing?
#40Yes, this is common, and good. It helps optimize company, team, and developer hapiness...