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Signs that it's time to leave a company

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Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#51

Post by eiskalt »

hibikir wrote: post #18

Hit the nail in the head. A growing company has plenty of opportunity for learning, promotion, making new things, and retooling old ones to match the growth of business. This means there are very few zero sum games, either at the IC or management level. When growth stops, there's little chances to gain status by solving problems: Someone already has status, and really doesn't want to lose it. Those frustrated with th…

> The people that stay are those that have fewer opportunities to find something better elsewhere. So when you see an architect/principal engineer that has been there for 15 years, you know they know that they'd not be hired at the same level anywhere..

..or they are simply more enjoying life by maintaining a better life-work balance.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#52

Post by voidee »

iwontberude wrote: post #46
lucidguppy wrote: post #34

I don't understand this fascination with central offices. We live in the year 2024. We should be able to look at our workforce, find small offices, and have hub and spoke networks of offices - and work from home as a fallback. Rent a condo, do a communal office, if you want more close collaboration - shuffle your teams to colocate them - not force them into 1hr commutes into a fucking empty office. Our infrastructure…

I wish they would stop trying to force us into shared working spaces. They can make me work from home, a close office, a far office... I don't care. Just give me a private office and I will do my best work. At home, I don't have room for a private office, so they would need to relocate me and cover a portion of the rent for their office. I am not a contractor. I am an employee. I don't control any of my working condi…

But I love distracting people and making them unproductive!

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#53

Post by devwastaken »

"the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones"

This inevitably leads to your product being owned by a few devs with no one else who has the org knowledge necessary to make meaningful changes. Your org should be making experienced devs. If it isn't, you don't own your product.

Junior devs are your future. They have motivation and want to be apart of your mission far more than the experienced devs that are there for a paycheck so they can get their own show running.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#54

Post by paulddraper »

lucidguppy wrote: post #34

I don't understand this fascination with central offices. We live in the year 2024. We should be able to look at our workforce, find small offices, and have hub and spoke networks of offices - and work from home as a fallback. Rent a condo, do a communal office, if you want more close collaboration - shuffle your teams to colocate them - not force them into 1hr commutes into a fucking empty office. Our infrastructure…

People collaborate easier in person.

Travel is a downside.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#55

Post by opportune »

jimbob45 wrote: post #36
opportune wrote: post #13

Definitely feeling this at another FAANG I think there’s something about post-pandemic work in software that just isn’t working. I don’t think it’s just interest rates or a hiring downturn, nor immediate causes like founders leaving (because I see this sickness at most big tech companies these days). Personally, I believe that hybrid work is not going well. Fully remote teams are good, fully onsite teams are good. Wi…

Do you mark a difference between hybrid where not everyone goes in on the same days and hybrid where everyone goes in on the same days and stays away on the same days?

Yeah. My company is in principle set 2, in practice set 1. But even so, I’m on a team where almost half of us are fully remote or working out of other offices and so don’t go in on our “dedicated in office days”. I stopped going in on those days too because it felt pointless.

I think part of what’s so insanely demotivating about all this is how hard it makes leadership/management. Or rather, how it allows poor leadership/management to get away with doing poorly and how much worse the impact of poor management becomes in this setting. Because right now, even though I’m a TL I have absolutely no idea what the people controlling the purse strings want or care about, or what their goals are. I just wait for things to filter down through the org chart to me. There is no osmosis of knowledge or thought or strategy, and I feel like lazy/inattentive/unknowledgable management kicks up politics and siloing to the next level - when we were fully remote this didn’t seem to happen as much.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#56

Post by ryandrake »

corytheboyd wrote: post #15

The big RSU grant is depleted and you don’t get a new one that is comparable in size. There is zero reason not to leave in this case, because you will absolutely make way more money by leaving. You can even leave and rejoin the same company to get another grant, as dumb as that is. Make sure you actually ask for a new grant before quitting, nobody is going to give you money for free. You also need to be good but that…

Yea, I just recently fell off my four-year "cliff" at my company and it's humbling to see your total comp suddenly reset back three or four years. This is often a very good discontinuity that justifies looking around, and it's no surprise that people tend to leave close to their whole number anniversaries.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#57

Post by JacobThreeThree »

hobs wrote: post #16
teach wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm the old man in the room, but I worked for non-tech companies for the first twenty years of my career. No promotions, no perks and no real change in benefits is the norm for the vast majority of American workers. What's wrong with getting paid a reasonable amount of money for a career you enjoy and are good at?

The fact that the ownership is capturing a huge multiple of your effort and you could go somewhere else to capture more of the money you create? Let's invert it - why should I just make my boss more money forever while I get the same cut?

>Let's invert it - why should I just make my boss more money forever while I get the same cut?

It sounds like you're assuming OP is getting a small cut. What if his salary is generous and there's a profit sharing bonus pool every year?

The idea that in every career one needs to be continuously promoted to new positions doesn't make a whole lot of sense in my opinion.

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#58

Post by 972811 »

opportune wrote: post #13

Definitely feeling this at another FAANG I think there’s something about post-pandemic work in software that just isn’t working. I don’t think it’s just interest rates or a hiring downturn, nor immediate causes like founders leaving (because I see this sickness at most big tech companies these days). Personally, I believe that hybrid work is not going well. Fully remote teams are good, fully onsite teams are good. Wi…

i agree with all of what you said, but i think the main change is just that these companies aren't growing the same way they were pre-pandemic. everything feels resource constrained in a way it didn't in the mid-2010s and this makes everything inherently political and negative

edit: to give an example, you probably don't think at all about an exec's value when you see him once a quarter in an all-hands explaining the great growth and complimenting teams, your paycheck is high and growing, and your team has happy hours, lavish team all hands, and tons of autonomy. when the same exec is announcing layoffs, no growth, and reduced benefits, you start to look at the deal a little differently

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#59

Post by corytheboyd »

dilyevsky wrote: post #43
corytheboyd wrote: post #15

The big RSU grant is depleted and you don’t get a new one that is comparable in size. There is zero reason not to leave in this case, because you will absolutely make way more money by leaving. You can even leave and rejoin the same company to get another grant, as dumb as that is. Make sure you actually ask for a new grant before quitting, nobody is going to give you money for free. You also need to be good but that…

> because you will absolutely make way more money by leaving That is a pre-2023 advice my friend, unless you’ve been there like 10yrs or an ai researcher or something

Well you’re right in that I haven’t been looking for jobs recently, but I find it extremely hard to believe that large grants and salaries are no longer a thing in the software industry at large. A few friends-of-friends I know very recently got nice grants and salaries, with large Mega Corps, but that’s always where the money was?

Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company

#60

Post by pi-e-sigma »

auspiv wrote: post #39
pi-e-sigma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary discussions can happen at any time, though. Restricting it to once per year is just delaying tactic. If you resign and they want or need you, all of sudden everything is possible

Vast majority of large, publicly traded companies (at least in the US) only do pay determination (and associated raises) once per year. Promotions can definitely happen whenever but there may be a cycle associated with that as well.

You truly believe that such rules are written in stone? There's always exceptions if a need arise. Budgets of whole countries can be changed mid year but salary of some employee can't? :)
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