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Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

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Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#1

Post by thisiswrongggg »

I'm in this line of work for almost 17 years now and having yet one more of these days where I'm measuring how much time I am in my current company to see if I'm ok to start looking.

And I remember that every single time I wanted to run away from a role/company/project the main reason was always the other people in and around it. Personality incompatibilities, to put it gently. Ar$eholes to put it right.

That kind of stuff dissolves teams, burns people out, drives people out, wrecks projects and companies.

I'm curious. What's your view on this? If my view is valid then it seems to me that we have been discussing technology (e.g. which prog language is better for a domain) only because we cannot address the elephant in the room - aka peopleware. And if that's so then in large part a lot of what we do is effectively losing battles.

Thanks

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#2

Post by bkq »

Pinning it all on the people can be disengenious in my opinion. Remember, you are going to be one of those people for somebody else. We cannot forget either, that people are heavily influenced by their environments, even moreso in the workspace. So, I think it's perhaps better to analyse the environment that causes people to behave in these ways.

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#3

Post by [deleted] »

bkq wrote: post #2

Pinning it all on the people can be disengenious in my opinion. Remember, you are going to be one of those people for somebody else. We cannot forget either, that people are heavily influenced by their environments, even moreso in the workspace. So, I think it's perhaps better to analyse the environment that causes people to behave in these ways.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#4

Post by jstx1 »

Not in my experience - any time I've wanted to move it's been because I've felt that I'm underpaid, or that I'm not learning / making any career progress, or because I wanted to work on different kinds of problems. It's never been the people, people have been great, it's mostly [job description / organisational problems / lack of progress / lack of learning / salary].

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#5

Post by CM30 »

Eh, not necessarily. I've definitely left companies because of terrible bosses/managers, and because I didn't get along with the team, but it's just as often been due to other reasons too. Including:

1. I knew I was stagnating, and there wasn't much room for growth. The companies weren't bad places to work, in fact they were opposite. The teams were nice, the offices were nice enough, you could mostly do what you want and life was pleasant in general.

But I realised I wouldn't be happy just working on the same thing for decades on end, and coasting along like so many company lifers. So I left.

2. Pay. Yeah, it's cliched to say that, but every time I switched job I got a pay increase, so I always ended up looking for new opportunities as a result.

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#6

Post by john_the_writer »

Honestly, I've only left one programming job because of the people. Mostly it's that I've hit a wall in the learning I can do. I've got nothing left to build. I mean the company might, but I've accomplished everything I think the company will let me do. Now the only way I can find a new challenge is to move to a different domain.

I've come close one other time, but when I spoke to my recruiter, they said I should wait because they suspected the contentious person was moving on. That person quit a week later and many took a collective sigh.

Re: Ask HN: It's always the people isn't it?

#7

Post by heh »

Not always, no. I'm leaving a role where the people are wonderful and doing their best, and the role is satisfying from a professional aspect. But I am leaving for other reasons - and they aren't people or salary related.
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