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How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

oliverzheng.com

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Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#11

Post by zapita »

throwaway289910 wrote: post #6
minimaxir wrote: post #2

About a year ago, I quit my job at Apple because I wasn't able to apply my technical skills in my role and I was not successful in transferring to another department (full blog post: http://minimaxir.com/2017/05/leaving-apple/ | HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14270897 ) Despite the loss of a salary and frustration in getting another job (Tweetstorm about data science job hunting: https://twitter.…

I'm currently about to quit Microsoft and am going through the exact same set of questions in my head. I joined the company a few months ago and am blown away by how bad the culture is - or how badly I fit into the culture, take your pick. If you don't fit the culture, it's time to leave.

Out of curiosity, which part of Microsoft have you joined? The culture in large companies can vary greatly between divisions.

What aspects of the culture do you not like?

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#13

Post by lhorie »

ashwinaj wrote: post #3

How about just quitting because you don't get good work (whatever that definition might be)? I find it hard to believe that most people in so called "top tier" tech companies do compelling work. Not everyone gets to work on de jour areas, most people work on maintenance and improving old code bases (BTW, there is nothing wrong with this)

> Improving old code bases

From my experience, I think there's a great need in large tech organizations for people that are able to advocate for and drive initiatives that can scale up efforts to improve old codebases.

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#14

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ashwinaj wrote: post #3

How about just quitting because you don't get good work (whatever that definition might be)? I find it hard to believe that most people in so called "top tier" tech companies do compelling work. Not everyone gets to work on de jour areas, most people work on maintenance and improving old code bases (BTW, there is nothing wrong with this)

The problem is, what is your alternative? We don't all get to do compelling work. Tade0 said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16707413 that there's a difference between "hard" and "tedious". Much of tech is tedious, not hard. Quitting because you didn't get "good" work means you go somewhere else, and... what kind of work do you get there? Odds are, not "good".

A better answer (and one that the article seems to recommend) is to not find your identity so much in your work.

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#15

Post by tradedash »

Quitting a top tier tech job isn't the difficult part. The difficult part is figuring out what to do next.

I quit my job as a Head of R&D for a major tech/publishing company and started https://tradedash.io (crypto desktop trading platform) with an old friend of mine who also quit his job as one of the first employees in a major fintech unicorn. For both of us, it was hands down the best decision we've ever made career wise.

For years we were depressed, working jobs that we didnt value only for nothing other than the money and stability. Even though I make a whole lot less today, I haven't had a single night where I don't sleep like a baby. Quitting our jobs was the easy part once we figured out what it is that we wanted to do.

For anyone looking to quit their job: figure out what to do next. Once you know what you want to do, everything else will become much easier.

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#16

Post by escapecharacter »

machbio wrote: post #9

"Your legal status in the country does not depend on your continued employment. If it does, stay away from this train of thought. The destination is a depressing and harsh realization." Its sad - but most of us are out at this point..nothing more to add.

Yep, definitely stayed in a job longer than I wanted to because of VISA issues. No happy thoughts there.

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#17

Post by Stratoscope »

chrisper wrote: post #7
praneshp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How about just quitting" That might be irresponsible, from one point of view. I think TFA takes that stand.

What's TFA

"The Fine Article"

Sometimes another four-letter word is substituted for "fine".

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#18

Post by rmcpherson »

chrisper wrote: post #7
praneshp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How about just quitting" That might be irresponsible, from one point of view. I think TFA takes that stand.

What's TFA

An acronym for The (fucking) article. From RTFM/RTFA. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TFA

Despite the expletive it's not usually used in anger.

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#19

Post by AnimalMuppet »

machbio wrote: post #9

"Your legal status in the country does not depend on your continued employment. If it does, stay away from this train of thought. The destination is a depressing and harsh realization." Its sad - but most of us are out at this point..nothing more to add.

Most of us? I suspect that most of us do have the legal status to remain in our country of residence, even without continued employment. While there are a significant number of expats on HN, I'm pretty sure they are not the majority...

Re: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

#20

Post by AceJohnny2 »

> you have enough savings to last at least two years.

I've always heard it as being 6 months. Especially with his next point assuming you can certainly find employment.

Or maybe that's what I chose to remember, because I'm lucky enough to work in a high-employment sector in a region that can't fill enough positions: i.e. my profile is in high demand.

(... for now. I know)

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