For me it's when I get assigned to a project where we're rewriting a perfectly-good app for any of the following reasons: (1) in order to use the latest buzzword (kafka... fsck me) (2) as a PR stunt to get the company name back in the press (new! and improved!) (3) because some micromanaging activist investor said so (4) as a hail-mary attempt to erase technical debt (5) as a sneaky attempt to erase institutional knowledge so that they can offshore the whole operation (6) so the tech lead has another badge on his resume
Signs that it's time to leave a company
291–300 of 354 posts
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's quite rare to have the degree of control you're envisioning over a project. Most software teams are building products to sell to customers, and most customers aren't going to accept "IDK whenever we're done" as an expected delivery date. Companies can and should provide some degree of wiggle room, but it's not realistic to expect that you can avoid ever thinking about how long a task is going to take.
That sounds like you are totally winning! If everything is urgent, that is a strong symptom that you completely lost control and you should not be running a project. The value you add as a decision maker is making decisions that mitigate the risk of being in a scenario where everything is urgent, that is, a crisis . If you are constantly in crisis mode running for your life because you failed catastrophically.
I’m not sure why you’re being so hostile here. I agree everything can’t be a crisis, and if there were a way to have people in the office only when something important is happening, I think quite a lot of companies would go for it. But you can’t set remote work as the standard and then announce that there’s crunch time in July so everyone has to come in 5 days a week.
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone on HN knows someone's brother's nephew's wife's cousin's former roommate who makes $600K at MegaCorp FAANG but those kinds of opportunities aren't (and have never been) common. Especially now during our first tech bear market in what, 13 years?
What’s the unemployment rate for software developers? Still basically zero. It’s never moved, but for some reason people seem to think it has. That’s weird.
You will find work but a lot of those jobs got pushed downmarket, to early stage firms, as late stage and public companies are short of cash now. And those early stage companies dont pay you as much or at least not in cash
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That so many people are so focused on things "having" to be in a constant state of exponential growth makes me feel uneasy. It's like so many people can't see the forest for the trees - we can't have infinite exponential growth forever. From first hand experience, let me explain why I need this. It's because when the growth stagnates, management starts to attack their own reports. This is an effort to squeeze produ…
> From first hand experience, let me explain why I need this. It's because when the growth stagnates, management starts to attack their own reports. from my looong experience (I'm retired), perhaps more second hand than first depending on your definitions, of all the people I have known, who got rich rich are primarily people who stayed at one company a long time, and their career/responsibilities grew through promot…
>of all the people I have known, who got rich rich are primarily people who stayed at one company a long time, and their career/responsibilities grew through promotions, eventually c-suite.
Yeah, that kind of career advice worked fine (great, even) many decades ago at stable companies like Boeing. It doesn't work now, including at companies like Boeing. because companies just aren't run that way any more.
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#295Definitely 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…
> skip managers/directors who I’m almost certain are barely working and just milking out huge salaries while hiding behind their remote status Sounds like you're describing Amazon, at least it's very clear this was the case when I worked there, and it contrasted with several happy healthy years engineering in a core group at Apple, which was exactly the opposite description, partly because of keeping hierarchies very…
The levelling system is a joke everywhere. HR needs to be totally annihilated
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
As an anecdote, my neighbor is a crazy asshole who started blasting music and having parties at random hours; it can be problematic for sleep and productivity. Police in California are inept at stopping this. Will the company pay to send lawyers or do I have to waste my own time and money to pick up and move my whole life for something worse to be waiting at the next rental?
What's the theory under which the company would get involved in your housing dispute?
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 do…
> 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 Exactly. HR is there to comply with certain regulations and otherwise minimize the number of lawsuits that the company is a party to. Maybe if they're really good they might have a robust professional development program but that's certainly not a given!
"HR is not your friend."
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#298For 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.
Wow, that's really accurate. At my last job, I didn't think anything was wrong but I fantasized about leaving almost every day. When I actually left, I realized how burned out I actually was.
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't want to work in a company with strong "us" and "them" culture. If I don't feel everybody is working towards the same goals and is receiving a fair piece of the pie I would go somewhere else. Running your own company for a while really helps see both sides of the equation.
> I wouldn't want to work in a company with strong "us" and "them" culture. That seems like a pipe dream to me. Money and power often to change people for the worse.
I don't even understand how somebody can seriously think that there is no "us" vs "them" divide in a company. This culture is everywhere, just some places are better at hiding it.
Re: Signs that it's time to leave a company
#300Here's a bizarre story about quitting. When I was at Microsoft, I had a manager who, despite good intentions, led through fear and paranoia. I had gotten yelled at for causing a production incident, which was not the first time, but that week I started having some very strange dreams involving seeing the number "69" in different places. Just some juvenile humor maybe, I just dismissed it. In the meantime, gradually t…
He lied about 'processing taking a few days no matter what'. Quitting on the spot is the whole point of the at will employment.