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Quitting a New Job

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Re: Quitting a New Job

#91

Post by jmkd »

pearjuice wrote: post #50

Though I like the sentiment of the post, it's funny and maybe remarkable how software engineers are in such a privileged bubble most probably don't even realize. Quitting jobs after a year at arguably the most innovative fintech company because you didn't feel satisfied, taking a vacation, casually mentioning you can "hack" interviews by focusing on leetcode problems for some weekends, working somewhere for 2 days, t…

I didn't enjoy the sentiment of the post as it came across as far too entitled.

- Disappointed that Stripe wouldn't just give him a job and the same pay back. - Referring to the new job as a downgrade when in fact it was simply a bad fit. - Job hopping every 18 months as if that is perfectly acceptable and sustainable for the employers.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#92

Post by lordnacho »

Nothing wrong with quitting early. I'm a bit surprised at the reasoning, after all he knew how long the commute was, and what the product was. But it's fine, we don't all know how we'll feel, like any relationship that goes from maybe to signed up.

As an employer, I tend to think we dodged a bullet. I've had one or two early quits over the years, and it's fine, we mostly avoided investing too much in them. People come, they sniff around for a week, they leave. Or they come, we find out we don't like them, and they go. Both have happened.

I've also been on the employee side of that. I joined, and then found the place to be a mess. So I left immediately when something else presented itself a few weeks later.

The thing about jobs, as opposed to school, is that the only way a job ends is that someone calls time on it. School ends because you're done. You graduated, passed the viva, whatever. A job you have to decide to end if you don't like it. You can't just slog it out through that course that you don't like, because there's no end.

I wouldn't worry at all about the CV impact. Chances are you can explain what happened if you decide to have it on your CV. Alternatively, I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you omitted or obscured a few weeks of your life. I certainly wouldn't.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#93

Post by microtherion »

Animats wrote: post #34

At Stripe and each of my jobs before that, I had had a short commute to a beautiful office, and got to experience the instant gratification associated with developing purely software-based products. Now, I was stuck taking a crowded train to a dark office littered with hardware parts, working on a product that would take many years to reach mass-market adoption due to pesky little things like manufacturing and road s…

Apart from "webcrap", this seems an entirely apt comment to me. If you join a hardware company, you should expect to get some grease on you.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#94

Post by ABeeSea »

dvt wrote: post #29

I've done this before. Got an offer while I was still interviewing with a few other companies. Accepted the offer then a few weeks later another, significantly better, offer came through. I have absolutely no qualms about it, and I don't put the tiny stint on my resume. My work and expertise speaks for itself. It's sad that job hunting has become rife with Machiavellian machinations in the past three decades, but thi…

It’s not about how much value your labor provides. It’s about how much unique value your labor provides.

Most IBs aren’t making millions in the same way that most engineers are making what a Principal at a FAANG makes.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#95

Post by xapata »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
xapata wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode, Project Euler, etc. may not feel like a programmer's daily tasks, but they may yet be a good proxy for many behaviors that large employers desire. For example, a large employer may want a willingness to do arbitrary, difficult tasks that appear meaningless. These same employers may have a variety of software maintenance tasks that require recognizing a pattern of problem, knowing the appropriate algorithm f…

> These same employers may have a variety of software maintenance tasks that require recognizing a pattern of problem, knowing the appropriate algorithm from Ye Olde Textbook, and quickly applying it. These edge cases might exist, although I argue the more likely problem is that hiring is hard, expectations can be unrealistic, and so it’s easier to fall back on puzzles and call them an objective measure of technical…

I also measure my candidates' ability to fix bugs by learning the details of a language feature they're not familiar with, by finding examples and documentation.

I find that many junior-level candidates scrape by with Stack Overflow, but sadly have little competence when it comes to reading documentation. Candidates for more senior roles have a similar problem regarding systems design. They can find and parrot little statements they've seen on forums, but when you ask them to explain, their understanding turns out to be shallow.

I don't use programming exercises as a sufficient measure, but they are a necessary one.

Now I feel obligated to add that footer: We're hiring! ;-)

Re: Quitting a New Job

#96

Post by jacurtis »

dvt wrote: post #29

I've done this before. Got an offer while I was still interviewing with a few other companies. Accepted the offer then a few weeks later another, significantly better, offer came through. I have absolutely no qualms about it, and I don't put the tiny stint on my resume. My work and expertise speaks for itself. It's sad that job hunting has become rife with Machiavellian machinations in the past three decades, but thi…

I had a friend that did this last year. He job hunted for about 3 months, then took a job at a company he thought he would enjoy for about 6-8 business days (1.5 weeks) and then got a job offer with another company that came through from his earlier job search.

He felt really bad leaving so early but he wasn't particularly happy with the environment after the first week and took the next opportunity that came his way and paid significantly more.

Of course he said that the second job hasn't been much better to his happiness, but his logic was that if you are going to do something you hate, you might as well get paid more to do it. The second job is also more convenient for his commute.

He told me that he doesn't plan on putting the one week job on his resume going forward.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#97

Post by mxuribe »

tayo42 wrote: post #22

I haven't had success switching teams at all. I had a few that wanted to still interview me. I had a vp say he won't let me switch. The only time I ever switched teams, I had that decision made for me, worked out fortunately. Having another internal team still want to do a technical interview was ridiculous to hear though.

This is almost as bad as those folks who have to interview for their own jobs...usually during lay offs, or in the midst of big organizational changes. Maybe on paper some of these ideas seem ok, but it really is either silly or humiliating or both.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm referring here to folks who are already employed at some firm, and that same firm is asking them to interview (again) for their existing job, or a new job that is almost identical to the legacy job...all within the same firm.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#98

Post by toomuchtodo »

xapata wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These same employers may have a variety of software maintenance tasks that require recognizing a pattern of problem, knowing the appropriate algorithm from Ye Olde Textbook, and quickly applying it. These edge cases might exist, although I argue the more likely problem is that hiring is hard, expectations can be unrealistic, and so it’s easier to fall back on puzzles and call them an objective measure of technical…

I also measure my candidates' ability to fix bugs by learning the details of a language feature they're not familiar with, by finding examples and documentation. I find that many junior-level candidates scrape by with Stack Overflow, but sadly have little competence when it comes to reading documentation. Candidates for more senior roles have a similar problem regarding systems design. They can find and parrot little…

I absolutely agree they’re necessary, but should be a realistic problem that needs solving (as you’re doing).

Re: Quitting a New Job

#99

Post by mikestew »

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…

If we expect startups and companies to act ethically...

Oh, I gave up on that a long time ago. So where does that leave me in light of the second half of your sentence?

I know where it leaves me: it leaves me in the place where employers pushed for "at-will" employment in the state legislature, and just like an employer might want me to train my replacement, I'm going to "not quit until something better is lined up". I'll still do the work that I was hired to do, but I'm not quitting until it suits my needs, just like an employer won't keep me around even one minute longer than suits their needs.

Ethics don't come into play, these are the rules that have been foisted upon us while no one asked us our opinion on the subject. To argue ethics in this case makes me suspect manipulation at worst, naivety at best.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#100

Post by twodave »

Oh man. I left a remote job in like, late 2017 because of some problems I had with their ethics. I took a job that paid less and required me to drive (not too far, and I was missing seeing people's faces a bit anyway).

It was a bigger company that had acquired probably 7-8 businesses--my team's job was to integrate them all together to help the business operate more fluidly. It took me about 2 days to realize that a) the project was doomed, b) all the people working here (except Dave, the guy who told me to "abandon all hope" as I sat down on the first day) were just faking it and c) literally every person with decision-making capacity was incompetent.

The SMEs were all siloed into a different (you might even say competing) team. They were actually trying to encode all the business rules into something akin to MuleSoft. They were inaccessible to us.

The architect on the project couldn't write code to save his life. He was in love with some inane microservices architecture for which the example project wouldn't even compile. It was basically a mock of a microservice architecture, but built on top of SOAP. It was a bunch of crazy nonsense. He got fired shortly after I left.

The development manager was a nice enough guy, probably too nice. I'm not sure what he did other than set up interviews for me and a couple of the other senior developers to conduct.

I left after 3 months, for a job that was still a pay-cut from my first job, and was twice as far to commute to. But at least it wasn't a total crapshow.

I still keep up with Dave though. So I guess it wasn't a total waste :)

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