I think it’s somewhat self reinforcing. Work life balance got askew during the pandemic. As team members leave, the expectations don’t fully reset, so workload of remaining folks goes up. They leave, furthering the situation. At some point the cycle is complete and the team is almost entirely new.
Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
161–170 of 773 posts
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the tech industry, I'd generally recommend looking around every 3-4 years, unless you have golden handcuffs and you don't think that can be beat elsewhere. Any longer than that and you risk settling into a box of which you may become unable to think outside. Any shorter than that, and you probably aren't maximizing your potential, in terms of promotions and learning those fresh perspectives and new tech that will…
> unless you have golden handcuffs and you don't think that can be beat elsewhere Luckily this is becoming less likely now that more companies are allowing remote work. I live in a relatively small city and have interviewed at every local company that interests me. My previous employer was by far the highest paying of all of them. I was able to find a remote job that broke my golden handcuffs by almost 2x.
The other golden handcuffs are vesting schedules.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#163Working at Apple as a contractor sucks, I am starting my new gig next tuesday that lets me do 100% remote as a fte so I get all the benefits I miss out on at Apple since I don’t live where they want me to.
I'm switching from a FTE to a contractor next week (for a different company) so now I'm curious to know what exactly you didn't like about that arrangement.
I'm personally making the switch to work three days a week and focus on my own project the remaining two.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly right and I think a good example of why we shouldn't generalize. I grew up poor - and judge me however you'd like - but I'd put up with less ideal conditions if the pay was worth it. Reminds me of in college when I was a waiter - I typically didn't mind a table's behavior if I knew they were going to tip well.
> but I'd put up with less ideal conditions if the pay was worth it. They are called golden handcuffs for a reason. I think for the majority of people, they will do this. I know I will.
The thing is, in today's environment you can almost certainly get more cash comp at another company, almost no matter where you are. The stock can hold you back. The new company will probably give you more, but there will be a cliff. Often you can negotiate for something like giving you the stock money you'd get in the next 6 months as a hire on bonus.
If you worked at a company for a few years and they went ipo, that's a different situation.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#165My last job was a dead end: small software group which had survived many mergers and lived inside a mining/valve manufacturer. The only interest upper-level management had in our group was cutting costs. This caused a lot of dysfunction in our group, which lead to stagnation of the product and any learning/challenges. Plus I was underpaid. A buddy had approached me a year or so prior to quitting with an idea and we d…
I've been in that situation twice. The first time I stayed 6 years too long; the second one I stayed 2 years too long. I've never experienced a merger where I worked that the absorbed company to be worth staying.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#166Today was my last day. I moved to the UK for a pretty awesome job. These last few years have led me to re-evaluate my priorities, and I'm moving back home to be closer to family and old friends. Many of my international colleagues (especially European) have made similar decisions.
We've had a few European colleagues move back home since the referendum. It's sad but entirely understandable.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#167My old boss Eric Carlsen used to say, nobody left because of money. They may get more money if they change jobs. But they start looking because they're unhappy. So when somebody asked for more money, he'd start by asking what was bothering them.
People leave some jobs because of money: low paying jobs, generally. But I think this statement is more correct than not.
If people are quitting successive jobs for incremental pay raises, it probably means they hate things other than their salary, but don't believe those things are going to improve.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beautiful. I remember hearing it said that if you're not willing to walk away completely from a negotiation, you have zero actual leverage. Bravo!
Negotiating courses often refer to this as the BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). Considering what that scenario is and having it as your bottom line is the best piece of advice they impart.
Having a BATNA that you're perfectly fine doing takes a huge amount of pressure off in a negotiation.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you pay off your house when you can keep the cash in an investment account making > 5% APR vs. the house loan which presumably is in the low 3s.
What investment can reliably get > 5% APR with low risk?
Over the timespan comparable to a mortgage? Broad-based equity funds.
The worst ever 20-year return for S&P 500 was +6.4% per year for the 240 month period ending in May 1979.
Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?
#170There was a huge disconnect between management at the top and those on the ground. I think some managers never learnt to correctly judge workload and responsibilities. They we're rewarding those with minor responsibilities for achieving goals and harshly punishing those with huge responsibilities for minor misses. This inability to judge workload and responsibilities was previously hidden by people's presence in the…
At least in large enterprise software world, I have noticed in recent years that managers are starting to offload everything to the individual contributors. For example, in the early 2000s when I started my career I remember managers would do project management and interface with other teams, among other things. I've started that at least in my last 3 positions, managers will typically offload this work to engineers, who don't typically have the skillset to do these things and thus causing a suboptimal operating environment.