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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

#241

Post by neilv »

geocrasher wrote: post #63
JohnFen wrote: post #31

For me, the main sign that it's time to leave a company is when I start fantasizing regularly about leaving the company. My gut seems to be wiser than my head on this stuff. Nearly every time that I've moved on, it's turned out to be the right call in hindsight.

And the one time I actually followed my gut and got a new job, I let my boss convince me to stay on (I really loved the company) and then he sold it shortly after to some jackasses that ruined it. And then when I did leave, I left without a good plan and ended up in a family owned company whose infighting left everyone wondering if they'd have a job the next day. Pure hell.

> I let my boss convince me to stay on

That sucks, it happens, it's not just you.

One place, I had reason to leave. Coincidentally, a non-startup, who I'd previously chosen the current place over, re-approached me, with an even sweeter deal than before (VP, doubling my TC, and a great team). So I went to an exec of the place where I was, saying what the showstopper org problems were, and that I had urgency to make a decision. They convinced me we'd solve the problems, so I decided to stay, out of general policy of loyalty to whatever team I'm currently on. Tech company battle-hardened veterans can guess correctly how that worked out. :)

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

#242

Post by x86x87 »

gwern wrote: post #79
kabdib wrote: post #21

Signs that I've seen before leaving: * There are more VPs than there are restrooms. * The free coffee and soda is no more. * Engineers are co-opted as salespeople ("... and why is the project late?").

The soda is a classic: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

Classic. When the free soda goes things are about to go down.

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

#244

Post by x86x87 »

chuckadams wrote: post #184
lxe wrote: post #28

Amazon's tech innovation died a while ago. It will continue to operate its successful business lines until it runs out of steam and shrivels up, just like IBM & co. It will never catch up to things like AI and will fall behind. And it's not a bad thing for Amazon, at least for now. They are in a better position than Google, where they have a more diverse revenue stream, and can out-compete everyone else. They don't n…

> It will never catch up to things like AI and will fall behind Amazon Q is appearing all over the place in the AWS console. The AWS Jetbrains plugin also integrates Q, though I've never actually used it. I can't judge the quality of their AI offering, because as I said, I've not used it, but they're definitely not asleep when it comes to AI.

Q is shit. Everyone and their dog is doing genAI. We will look back at this in 5 years and have a good laugh about "ai"

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

#245

Post by chasd00 »

gverrilla wrote: post #204
thegrim22 wrote: post #173

I know it was only one piece of the article that talks about RTO, but as an aside, I don't think I've ever once in my life, in person or online, seen someone arguing for remote work that provided even a single piece of data, a single number, to back up their assertions. Their arguments instead just presuppose that RTO is awful and remote work is amazing, as if everyone "just knows" it. And apparently everybody that's…

perhaps common 1-2 hours commute is data enough

Yeah commute alone is reason enough to go remote. I have no problem with chat and conf calls. I’m routinely working with offshore teams and others spread all over the US anyway. Working remote is no different than in office I just don’t have to drive and fight traffic to get there.

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

#246

Post by seti0Cha »

dougb5 wrote: post #114

"Politics and micromanagement have taken over, and HR processes take up far too much of everyone’s time." How is the HR the cause here? From the mismanagement that the author describes in the preceding paragraphs, it sounds like HR involvement was too little, not too much, because the problems are symptomatic of poorly trained managers. Too many engineers are unable to see the contradiction when they complain about p…

Hmm. I don't want to sound harsh, but I've been in the industry for nearly 3 decades and I've never been in a place where HR has been effective in helping train managers. I'm not saying it never happens, just that I haven't seen it. In fact, I wouldn't generally characterize HR departments as paragons of good management, so I'm not sure they are usually in a position to teach such things. Not their fault really, I don't think good management is that teachable. It's mostly learned through experience.

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

#247

Post by AgentOrange1234 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #78
devwastaken wrote: post #53

"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 ap…

The full quote: "... the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones, and return managers to individual contributor positions where possible. Experienced employees have been through this before, make better judgement calls under stress, and communicate better." So writes the experienced employee. Adding to the parent comment, experienced employe…

“They don't know that 'back when Eddie was here, we did it this way ...' and they don't care.”

Per Chesterton’s Fence, that should scare the hell out of you. :)

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

#248

Post by x86x87 »

mt_ wrote: post #42

Is is just me, this post and this [1] one are just people complaining about RTO? If you were hired during COVID lockdown with the promise of your career buing built on remote only, fine but lay yourself off and move on. Else it's not entirely justifiable to be mad at AWS for RTO policies. From an outside perspective AWS looks very healthy and ouputing great innovation. [1]. https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-…

Opinions are maybe somewhat mixed on RTO. What is not mixed is the fact that the reasons given for RTO were pure bullshit.

People will never forget the bs they were subjected to. god help amazon when the market recovers and nobody will want to work there anymore - you'll suddenly see more flexibility as a result.

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

#249

Post by 29athrowaway »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #216
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're summing up a pretty wide spectrum of things as "distrust". If a junior engineer says they understand what I'm asking for and will deliver it in 2 weeks, but actually they don't fully understand and will deliver half of it in 3 weeks, I wouldn't typically characterize that as them lying or being untrustworthy. But it's a problem that's a lot easier to detect and solve in person. (It's also, not coincidentally,…

2 week deadlines is way to long for a junior. I would be reading and discussing a juniors code every day. Even mid level programmers should be reporting progress every day. 10 working days of code is a hell of a lot of code.

The expectation of producing high volumes of code in short cycles is a red flag.

Programming is not data entry. Programmers are not typists. Programmers make progress by creating building blocks that can be reused later. In 2024, many of those building blocks already exist in the form of libraries.

If there's no reusability, everything is a special case, there's duplicate code, your program maps 1:1 to your data... there is a good chance you have a problem creating abstractions. In that case, the junior is you, and you are not the right fit to be a mentor.

If you see a constant need to micromanage people, that is a symptom a highly insecure personality that is unsuitable for management, or trust issues, or poor recruiting skills, or poor delegation skills (matching the tasks to the wrong skills). All of those are signs that you may not be ready to be a manager. Micromanaging will just stress and demoralize your workforce.

If someone is unreliable enough to need a conversation every day, either you or that person should not work there. And if this is the case for every junior engineer in the team, and the situation persists for long periods of time, the likely reason is that the problem is you.

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

#250

Post by coldpie »

irrational wrote: post #101
paulddraper wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People collaborate easier in person. Travel is a downside.

Except, some jobs really really don't require much if any collaboration. We've been having to come back into the office since last September. In all that time, I've only spoken to another person a single time. Literally one hour in one day in the past 5 months. All meetings are still over zoom and when I'm not in a meeting, I just find some place in the building to sit and work. Except many people still weren't comin…

Buddy, why on Earth are you still working there?
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