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Quitting a New Job

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Re: Quitting a New Job

#71

Post by PopeDotNinja »

whitepaint wrote: post #13
0x445442 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but I'm getting the feeling a developer's best option these days for maximizing pay increases is to spend their free time on Leetcode. Which in my opinion is a problem from an industry perspective.

> Which in my opinion is a problem from an industry perspective. Why? If a person can learn bunch of algorithms and apply them to custom problems they probably can do quite a bit with computers. And it shows that they probably can learn new stuff rapidly as well. I don't get why so many developers hate Leetcode. I love it personally, I think it's great. And also, I think people are just lazy and don't want to learn n…

The toughest parts of my software career have been managing relationships with my peers & working on my own attitude. For too long time I thought I could code my way out of any problem and/or win any argument with the technically more correct solution. I was super wrong. No amount of knowledge about how to write a weight balanced binary tree prepares one for the day to day grind of working with actual people.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#72

Post by kevinpet »

janosett wrote: post #6
nickff wrote: post #2

I realize that HN is very employee-centric, but "exploring new opportunities but don’t quit until something better is lined up" is rather harmful to the team you're working with. If someone's just started, they're generally a net-negative, so the individual is both drawing pay and sucking resources. This is almost 'quitting in-place'. If we expect startups and companies to act ethically (in terms of pay, benefits, op…

This is the risk with at-will employment in CA. The employer could very well decide after two days of you working there that they wanted to let you go -- there's no part of the contract keeping either side from ending things early. I don't think it's unethical to leave after a short amount of time given the employer has no equivalent expectation.

You're equating legal obligations with expectations. Firing someone after two days because you realize you found someone better might be legal, but a company would be rightly criticized for doing that.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#73

Post by ClumsyPilot »

whitepaint wrote: post #13
0x445442 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but I'm getting the feeling a developer's best option these days for maximizing pay increases is to spend their free time on Leetcode. Which in my opinion is a problem from an industry perspective.

> Which in my opinion is a problem from an industry perspective. Why? If a person can learn bunch of algorithms and apply them to custom problems they probably can do quite a bit with computers. And it shows that they probably can learn new stuff rapidly as well. I don't get why so many developers hate Leetcode. I love it personally, I think it's great. And also, I think people are just lazy and don't want to learn n…

Because it's like hiring an industrial petrolium chemist based on how many party tricks he can do with fireworks.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#74

Post by kyrra »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #27

> the upper rungs of Stripe’s engineering individual contributor (IC) ladder put a lot of emphasis on cross-team coordination and other, managerial-like activities that I didn’t enjoy and felt I wasn’t very good at. That's just the reality of senior IC engineering positions. At some point, there's a limit to the amount that you can contribute by sheerly by your own work - to have a bigger impact, you'll need to need…

I'd argue that it's the reality of most senior IC engineering positions. As a Googler (opinions are my own), to get higher ranks, you need to lead larger projects that are cross team (it's even in our engineering ladder description) and do leadership type work.

BUT, I've met a few people where that is not always true. They tend to be people that can come up with unique solutions to difficult problems that are actually useful in the long run. They tend to be people that have PhD's and thrive in that type of work (and are actually good at it, while also being able to work as a team).

Re: Quitting a New Job

#75

Post by bunfunton »

whitepaint wrote: post #30
spectramax wrote: post #14

This statement is just sad "After a few weekends of furiously-paced Leetcoding".

Reply that I posted to another comment: Why? If a person can learn bunch of algorithms and apply them to custom problems they probably can do quite a bit with computers. And it shows that they probably can learn new stuff rapidly as well. I don't get why so many developers hate Leetcode. I love it personally, I think it's great. And also, I think people are just lazy and don't want to learn new stuff so they whine in…

It’s arbitrary and takes loads of personal time. All leetcode does IMO is teach your arbitrary pattern recognition that helps you in leetcode.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#76

Post by deeteecee »

A pretty informative post. I like the mindset and towards the end, yup, the only big mistake that was made was not trying to switch to other teams at Stripe first. But certainly nothing wrong with switching jobs like that.

Live and learn.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#77

Post by gregkerzhner »

"When I started my second job search, I was worried that the short tenure in the job I was trying to leave would be a turn-off to perspective employers. In reality, however, it wasn’t a big deal- people asked about it, but seemed satisfied with my 20 second summary and then moved on to other things."

Alternatively, you can simply leave your new position off your resume and not talk about it in the interviews at all. There is nothing wrong with saying "My last gig was a software engineer at Stripe. I left there to focus on looking for a better fitting opportunity".

There is no need to have your resume be a complete record of your employment. In fact, such resumes are often less desirable because they are long and don't highlight any specific strengths. Instead, make your resume highlight your most relevant and best accomplishments.

I've only been a professional for 10 years, but I am already condensing my resume, removing descriptions from my first few jobs. I imagine that as time goes on, I will even group jobs together like "2010 - 2015 - Software engineer at Companies A, B, C" to keep my resume a nice, neat one pager, and focus on the more important things I have done recently. Like the OP, I've also quit two jobs shortly after I stared them during my career and those are definitely not on the list - its simply not relevant.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#78

Post by crandycodes »

austinl wrote: post #9
pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> As I noted in a previous post, switching teams is a lot easier than switching jobs. I didn’t do this before I left Stripe because there weren’t any other teams that I was super enthusiastic about at the time. But, in retrospect, I probably should have given this a try before quitting. A few years ago, I was looking for a new job after being laid off. I had two competing companies to choose from, and chose the one t…

I can appreciate this — I stayed with my previous company for 5 years, which seems like an eternity to most folks I talk to, but I worked on 3 very different teams during that time period. It felt like joining a brand new company each time with new challenges and things to learn. I'd recommend exploring that route before leaving if it's open to you.

I've done this as well. Been at MSFT for 7 years, been on 5 different teams, and switched between PM and Dev a few times. It's been great from a quality of life perspective, I think. I've got a lot of experience I wouldn't have had if I stayed on the same team and work has stayed pretty interesting. I've also got a pretty large network of folks I know, which is helpful for a variety of reasons.

Biggest downside is economic; can't negotiate new pay when changing teams by policy and you've gotta build a new case for promos/etc. People who have changed companies 2-3 times are likely making significantly more money than I am. I try to keep it in mind that I'm paying for quality of life by staying, so I need to get my money's worth or it's not worth it.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#79

Post by bigiain »

whitepaint wrote: post #45
ashtonkem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because learning a bunch of algorithms doesn’t translate well into day to day programming capability. This is exactly why those dumb whiteboard problems aren’t good for interviews; you’re not measuring what makes someone successful on a day to day basis.

> This is exactly why those dumb whiteboard problems aren’t good for interviews; you’re not measuring what makes someone successful on a day to day basis. If that was the case, you think all of the biggest tech companies that have billions of dollars would continue using it? Did you ever consider that you might be wrong?

Cynical response: Because thats what the people already at the big company had to put up with during hiring, and damned if they’re gonna let any prospective newbies off with an easier recruiting process, no matter how broken and pointless it is...

Re: Quitting a New Job

#80

Post by JoeAltmaier »

filoleg wrote: post #63
whitepaint wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reply that I posted to another comment: Why? If a person can learn bunch of algorithms and apply them to custom problems they probably can do quite a bit with computers. And it shows that they probably can learn new stuff rapidly as well. I don't get why so many developers hate Leetcode. I love it personally, I think it's great. And also, I think people are just lazy and don't want to learn new stuff so they whine in…

>I don't get why so many developers hate Leetcode. Because they think that the employer should recognize their greatness by just looking at their resume and having a simple conversation with them, instead of assessing them on some skill that they have to brush up on. After being on the interviewer side myself recently, I think those people just don't realize how hiring actually works. I've seen some people with impre…

There are more cases that get under your radar: good developers that won't suffer a coding interview. Folks that don't do well with someone looking over their shoulder and talking to them while they're trying to work. Folks interviewing for a job that isn't simple algorithms.

To be honest, most data structure wonks are great at scaling cloud services or massive middleware business logic. But not all programming is like that.

It's easy to fall into "If they won't do a coding interview, they have something to hide!" But it doesn't (only) work like that.

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