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Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

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Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#551

Post by Gravyness »

101008 wrote: post #548

I don't know if someone is going to read this (I doubt it, this post already has 519 comments), but I am in a weird situation. I am Lead Engineer in a startup that works well in technical aspects. I attend the daily, check what my team is doing, and that's most of my days. If my PM asks for some bug fixing, I usually can do it quickly (after running some tests), or someone from my team can do it. I am trying to impro…

Maybe it's time you build something to challenge yourself in your free time, like code a game, a open-source library, learn a new language (programming or not), maybe even start a business, etc

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#552

Post by bluefirebrand »

ericmcer wrote: post #174
xenihn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still too many managers who don't understand one of their primary responsibilities in a market that favors employees: making sure that their best engineers don't leave. The job market won't always be like this, but you'd think that they would have figured it out by now during the current run. It's been nearly a decade at this point, and the pandemic has tipped things even further in the favor of the people…

I have been surprised how emotionally unaware many of my managers are. They are engineers who moved to management and seem to think reading a bunch of books on management will make them adept at the social skills needed to read and adapt to individuals and a teams emotional state. Compensation is huge but good software devs are all making enough to where a 20-30% swing in either direction isn't going to make or break…

Managers can't control whether or not you love what you do, though. They can do their best to build an environment you enjoy being in, but that's about it. If you're bored or not enjoy the software or whatever else, they can't fix that.

They can control your compensation and make sure if they want to keep you you have at least a monetary reason to stay

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#553

Post by bluefirebrand »

ivalm wrote: post #392
citizenpaul wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20-30% ?? What kind of money are you assuming most people make. at anything over 100k a year that is a lot of extra money anything less and it is probably needed. It could simply be used to retire a few years earlier if nothing else. It could pay for vacation. It could pay off a vehicle. It could pay down a mortgage or appraisal gap in this market. A 20% raise is huge at any income level.

Marginal value of money decreases the more money you have as consumption doesn't really scale up. Easily one should take a nice 500k/year job vs a stressful 600k/year job.

Most people aren't in a position where their choice is a nice 500k/year job versus a stressful 600k/year job thought.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#554

Post by jollybean »

daenz wrote: post #54

I'll be departing my job at the end of the month. I had too many roles, affecting too many pieces of engineering, and my title didn't reflect my work. I needed to go down to a 4 day work week and have my title reflect my roles, but my manager attempted to call my bluff and essentially said it's not going to happen. I hinted about what my decision would have to be if these accomodations couldn't be made, but he didn't…

While I can understand your sentiment, I don't think you handled that negotiation very well.

Playing chicken by drawing hard lines in the sand is not negotiating - they were actually willing to budge, you were not.

Again, it's entirely your prerogative, just understand that this is not going to lead to optimal outcomes.

Finally, you mentioned something like '4 day work week' - in most situations today, it's completely off the table. If it's common in your company and you fit the policy, then sure, you can ask.

But if '4 day work week' is not policy at your company, then what you are really asking if for the company to change it's policy and open it up to everyone.

I'm sure you concede that you're not the only one possibly deserving such a flexible opportunity.

So your demand extends much broader than just yourself, and the consequences of giving this flex to one person, would mean an immediate negotiation with large numbers of other employees, which can be disruptive.

Of course, maybe they should have the policy, but it's definitely reasonable that they don't as well.

And finally, this assumes that they didn't have such a policy in place.

Consider what would have happened were you to have contemplated a counter offer from the company. There's probably an outcome in there that's pretty good for both sides, an when that happens it's a broader win for everyone.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#555

Post by Accacin »

Actually I just started a new job, and it's been a nearly two months now and I'm really not sure if I want to continue working their or not.

I've tried to give it a chance and thinking, "Oh, it's just different to my last place".

My new place is very heavy on the time metrics, which I think is the reason for me not feeling it.

I'd worked on smaller tickets for a couple of sprints, and then this sprint was happy that they gave me a bigger ticket to sink my teeth into. However, as soon as they assigned it me, I was told this is 'sprint goal' ticket and it really needed to be finished. I was like, "I would love to take the ticket as I'll get to grips with things a lot faster working on this stuff but it's important to get done then maybe I'm not the best bet".

So I talk to senior, get ideas on implementation and go ahead. Everything takes longer as I like to know what I'm working with. I get it working, but start to hit issues that make it feel like I'm not going about it correctly. Get told to do it another way, so did that but as I just dived into it due to time pressure, got a bit stuck and asked the senior for assistance. He's always busy so didn't get back to me, and when I logged on this morning, he'd linked a branch where he'd basically done all the work for me.

I appreciated his help, thanked him and wrote some more tests for the branch and did the testing. It did make me feel like a complete failure though..

Worst thing is, his code was so obvious that I'm kicking myself for not slowing down and thinking about it but the time pressure was getting to me I guess.

Well, long text but did feel good to write that down :) Focus on improving for the future.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#556

Post by mehphp »

Osiris wrote: post #361
HideousKojima wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree for me. I'm starting a new job in less than two weeks, but the current job I'm leaving has been the best so far in my career. Wasn't perfect by any means but it exceeded most of my expectations by far. My new job is paying 60% more than my current job, that's my reason for switching and not much else.

If you were so happy why did you start looking for another job? People don't leave because someone gave them an offer out of the blue. They have to start looking in the first place and whatever triggered that search is what's important.

That's not true at all. I just switched a few weeks ago for a 50% increase that I did indeed receive "out of the blue". Emailed by a recruiter, I turned them down, they were persistent, and I took it.

I was not actively looking and the thought of leaving hadn't crossed my mind.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#557

Post by jollybean »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #282
daenz wrote: post #54

I'll be departing my job at the end of the month. I had too many roles, affecting too many pieces of engineering, and my title didn't reflect my work. I needed to go down to a 4 day work week and have my title reflect my roles, but my manager attempted to call my bluff and essentially said it's not going to happen. I hinted about what my decision would have to be if these accomodations couldn't be made, but he didn't…

I was playing a board game with my 7-year-old niece recently. She negotiates the same way most companies do. She holds the line firmly until her bluff is called, and then backtracks quickly once it's too late. The biggest différance is my 7-year-old will learn, while companies will continue to make the same mistakes.

It's more likely that those saying 'it's too late' don't have experience negotiating and have misjudged what 'too late' means.

Even in a 'kids board game' with short negotiations, there's literally no such thing as 'too late' - unless the game has already moved on to something else, but before next moves have really been taken, it's not too late.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#558

Post by miscaccount »

DylanBohlender wrote: post #87
diob wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the old generation really bought into this, but the new generation knows it's a load of bull. The poll makes it pretty obvious that compensation is the biggest reason folks leave, and it's the thinking of the old generation who doesn't know how to retain talent (they do, but they keep throwing pizza parties / sending out merch instead). It's a real "it can't be helped" mentality around retention.

I like the notion of breaking job satisfaction into "motivators" and "hygiene factors" (Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory [1]). Motivators actively cause job satisfaction. Things like finding personal fulfillment, meaningful work, and other top-of-Maslow's-hierarchy stuff. Hygiene factors cause dissatisfaction in their absence, but aren't standalone motivators. Salary probably fits in this bucket - if you learn th…

And the executive compensation, is available to every employee. The age where management claim to have no money , internally giving huge bonus to themselves cannot be pulled anymore.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#559

Post by bluefirebrand »

aprdm wrote: post #97
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is compensation #1 though? There is a threshold where you have enough money and it's easier to work with people you know and like. So, what do they need that extra money for? As I mentioned elsewhere housing is currently the #1 issues I see here in Canada that people are focused on. If you are a front line person, making $15 at a restaurant, plus renting where housing costs $1m+, you are probably looking for opti…

Who is making 150/hour and owns a house as a dev in Canada ? Nobody that works for Canadian companies that’s for sure

I work as a dev in Canada, for a Canadian company, and I own a house here.

I'm not making $150 an hour though.

I also don't live in Toronto, Vancouver, or Victoria.

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