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Several months ago I gave notice to my startup employer that I had accepted an offer at another company. I was asked if there was anything they could do to kee

Several months ago I gave notice to my startup employer that I had accepted an offer at another company. I was asked if there was anything they could do to keep me. I said unless they doubled my (low) salary I wouldn't have much of an interest in staying. I liked the people I worked with, I liked the work culture, and even liked what the company was building, but at the end of the day it was worth it for me to switch to working on "non-sexy" legacy tech at a large corporation and all the BS that comes with that for financial gain, stability, and benefits.

closeparen 9y ago
Do legacy tech at large corporation jobs actually provide stability? It seems you face a higher risk of outsourcing there than the risk of collapse at a Silicon Valley company with traction.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- viraptor 9y ago
  It depends. If your role is "generic, replaceable developer" then you could risk outsourcing. If you're in a specific kind of project, or in a specialist position, it's less likely. Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. The redundancy pay was sweet though.
  - daxelrod 9y ago
    > Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. Sorry to hear that. As long as it wasn't canceled because they had trouble paying the bills or the teams were dysfunctional, that's usually pretty short-sighted of the corp. Here's a bunch of people that we've already taken the cost of recruiting/training/onboarding who are familiar with our technology and processes. The right answer is to reassign them to other work in the organization.
    - viraptor 9y ago
      It's an interesting situation from the other side as well. I got some resources to try to relocate to another team, but wasn't keen on it. One day you hear your team is important another that the whole project is finished - made me reluctant to try again. OTOH, in a big corpo the recruiting/onboarding costs are probably just ongoing / don't matter that much.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  For sure. Large legacy corporations fire people far less than silicon valley companies fire+go out of business. And usually with larger lay off packages. I knew people who had been working for large legacy corps who made 6 figures for over a decade while having the technical chops of a high schooler after their first AP programming class, and barely speaking English.(didn't know common words like bread, or meat)

closeparen 9y ago

Do legacy tech at large corporation jobs actually provide stability? It seems you face a higher risk of outsourcing there than the risk of collapse at a Silicon Valley company with traction.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
viraptor 9y ago
It depends. If your role is "generic, replaceable developer" then you could risk outsourcing. If you're in a specific kind of project, or in a specialist position, it's less likely. Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. The redundancy pay was sweet though.
- daxelrod 9y ago
  > Then again I lost a position in a corp when the whole project was cancelled. Sorry to hear that. As long as it wasn't canceled because they had trouble paying the bills or the teams were dysfunctional, that's usually pretty short-sighted of the corp. Here's a bunch of people that we've already taken the cost of recruiting/training/onboarding who are familiar with our technology and processes. The right answer is to reassign them to other work in the organization.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    It's an interesting situation from the other side as well. I got some resources to try to relocate to another team, but wasn't keen on it. One day you hear your team is important another that the whole project is finished - made me reluctant to try again. OTOH, in a big corpo the recruiting/onboarding costs are probably just ongoing / don't matter that much.
JamesBarney 9y ago
For sure. Large legacy corporations fire people far less than silicon valley companies fire+go out of business. And usually with larger lay off packages. I knew people who had been working for large legacy corps who made 6 figures for over a decade while having the technical chops of a high schooler after their first AP programming class, and barely speaking English.(didn't know common words like bread, or meat)