8 ms·

6 months is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to judge a job and leave it. The important thing is to be able to defend it in future interviews, and do so i

6 months is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to judge a job and leave it. The important thing is to be able to defend it in future interviews, and do so in a reasoned way rather than an emotional one. For example instead of "the team were incredibly frustrating to work with and ignored all my suggestions", instead "the culture made it very hard to do quality engineering, which over time was demoralising". Sweeping statements about crap organisations sometimes come off as petty on the part of the person making the comments - individual specific examples work better (e.g. a specific, obviously wrong, architecture problem with one framework, rather than talkinga bout them all as a group).

zamalek 5y ago
Or, "we had differing opinions on how to develop and maintain quality software." You can then answer almost any question (even, "what was the disagreement?") with your ideals, how you've put those ideals into practice in the past, and nothing more. You can indirectly explain the problem while keeping the conversation focused on the purpose of an interview: you and your prospective employer.
- rkangel 5y ago
  The danger is coming across as someone who is too fixed in their approach. I'm sure we've all worked in the past with people who thought they knew everything and walked around saying 'why won't everyone just do it in the way that I'm saying'. Focusing on specific issues and ways you worked with the organisation to improve things avoids that potential categorisation.
  - atoav 5y ago
    I think a good way of framing it, would be to say that your reasonable expectations in the organisational structure and culture have not been met.
jrumbut 5y ago
I think this is great. One thing I would emphasize more heavily is that your objection was not to the problems, your objection was to the insurmountable barriers to fixing them. Every organization has problems, that's why they hired a new senior developer. If someone read the OP to me in an interview, I'd be sympathetic but I would also be thinking "what if our CICD setup doesn't resemble the seminal book? We've reinvented the wheel once or twice too. Will they help us improve or leave in disgust?" So I would include specific examples of what you tried to do: "I sent a polite email to headquarters, I created a demo using open source libraries, I tried to work within the meetings culture and scheduled one of my own to talk about the situation."
rjzzleep 5y ago
While they do come across as petty in our societies it's downright employee hostile. Why do organizations have so much power on the future of someones work? So many organizations do legally questionable things and mouth gag you from doing the right thing and reporting their scammy behaviour because somewhere down the line you want to make sure that when the next organization calls for a reference they don't destroy your job prospects. A simple example related to this point is that this is precisely why it took a whistleblower to expose the shit that Facebook is doing. If all the previous researchers felt like they could walk away and get a new job, while highlighting their great work AND calling out Facebook for what it does they would have. I just saw an example of a sequoia funded startup firing someone during mat leave and then having the audacity to propose a onesided non disparagement clause. The person in question was close to accepting it, because she feared a potential backlash in her future career. It's completely insane that in most societies corporations can abuse employees to the extent that they are and then employees bend over and accept it, because they might have a bad reference. Usually the only way to actually free yourself from those companies is litigation with mutual non-disparagement. That really shouldn't be the case.
- ballenf 5y ago
  You're talking about a niche within a niche employment-wise. I've worked dozens of jobs with great pay and benefits and I've never signed a single NDA. When I hear people sounding trapped like you, it makes me want to tell them about this amazing world outside VC-land Bay Area insanity.
  - rjzzleep 5y ago
    I'm not trapped at all, I don't work with these kind of people. Most normal humans do though. Good job getting personal and showing contempt towards a significant portion of your fellow humans. And wilfully closing your eyes towards what normal HR policies look like around the globe.
windexh8er 5y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. I've run into this in interviews after short stints and most places will allow you to explain without being accusatory up front. If they are, that's generally a red flag for me. I will often explain to recruiters/interviewers that an interview is mutually beneficial and if what is told to me in an interview is not true, or intentionally hidden from me, and the reality of the work situation does not align with my beliefs/expectations/morals/etc after asking a number of people about those things then why should there be any expectation for me stay to meet some hypothetical minimum on amount of time in a role? If I couldn't perform my role within 90 days they'd let me go. Why is the double standard OK? I've been in trainwrecks where the market really wanted things the company wasn't delivering on as paid for product. And it could have been really great. Great brand recognition, great people - yet a CEO that had in their mind they could do no wrong. I left, and received a lot of flack for it, yet within one year that company divested because they couldn't sell anything then magically I was looked at differently. It's often hard to get a good read on a tech company in a few short interviews. Especially those on the smaller side or startups. But I don't think anyone should stay somewhere that was not as advertised and have to deal with a penalty for a "short run". Being candid about the situation without disparaging the company (as the parent comment stated) seems to go a long way and most good recruiters/interviews will be understanding.
whiddershins 5y ago
This … isn’t the advice I would give. I would personally never say negative things about a previous employer regardless of how carefully worded.
- rkangel 5y ago
  At the very least, you should be able to provide reasons for leaving your previous employer. They might be as benign as "I wanted to grow in X direction and there wasn't the opportunity for that" but no-one has 100% rosy feelings about a company that they're leaving. I would be fairly distrustful of anyone who pretended that was the case. What is your worry about saying negative things?
- sidr 5y ago
  "Everything was going perfect. I loved my job and the people I worked with, I just left because I am prone to doing that when there are no issues whatsoever."
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    If I remember it correctly, the recommended spin is: "I wanted a greater challenge". The other side probably realizes that this is bullshit, but will appreciate your discretion.
richrichardsson 5y ago
> 6 months is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to judge a job and leave it. Most jobs I've ever had in the UK came with a "probation" period of 6 months, where the employer could terminate the position with a one week notice (or even shorter if I was the cause of some particularly nasty problem), and after 6 months a review would be conducted to decide if the position was going to be offered on a more permanent basis. I think it's only fair that employees can have the same option to walk away if they find they don't really fit in the culture of the organisation.
- redsparrow 5y ago
  This is similar to what I've seen in Germany. Probation is six months long and during this time either party can terminate with two weeks notice without any cause. This is a time for both the employer and employee to be evaluating each other for a good fit.
- bpiche 5y ago
  The US is going this way, with the normalization of contract work for very technical roles. I think it bled over from software-adjacent roles like graphic design and IT support. Regardless, you're going to see more 6 month 'try before you buy' contracts for PhDs with 10 years of engineering experience, than full time roles today. It makes sense for less mission critical roles I suppose, but I don't understand why organizations are willing to put so much at stake by offering a shit sandwich for mission critical roles. And they wonder why there is a hiring issue today.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Going this way? It's been this way for decades. Every job I've ever had began with a probationary period, generally 30 - 90 days, maybe one or two were longer.
    - nikau 5y ago
      I've had managers not want to terminate during probation period because it makes them look bad as they hired the wrong person, so they prefer contracts that they can just not renew.

zamalek 5y ago

Or, "we had differing opinions on how to develop and maintain quality software." You can then answer almost any question (even, "what was the disagreement?") with your ideals, how you've put those ideals into practice in the past, and nothing more. You can indirectly explain the problem while keeping the conversation focused on the purpose of an interview: you and your prospective employer.

rkangel 5y ago
The danger is coming across as someone who is too fixed in their approach. I'm sure we've all worked in the past with people who thought they knew everything and walked around saying 'why won't everyone just do it in the way that I'm saying'. Focusing on specific issues and ways you worked with the organisation to improve things avoids that potential categorisation.
- atoav 5y ago
  I think a good way of framing it, would be to say that your reasonable expectations in the organisational structure and culture have not been met.

jrumbut 5y ago

I think this is great. One thing I would emphasize more heavily is that your objection was not to the problems, your objection was to the insurmountable barriers to fixing them. Every organization has problems, that's why they hired a new senior developer. If someone read the OP to me in an interview, I'd be sympathetic but I would also be thinking "what if our CICD setup doesn't resemble the seminal book? We've reinvented the wheel once or twice too. Will they help us improve or leave in disgust?" So I would include specific examples of what you tried to do: "I sent a polite email to headquarters, I created a demo using open source libraries, I tried to work within the meetings culture and scheduled one of my own to talk about the situation."

rjzzleep 5y ago

While they do come across as petty in our societies it's downright employee hostile. Why do organizations have so much power on the future of someones work? So many organizations do legally questionable things and mouth gag you from doing the right thing and reporting their scammy behaviour because somewhere down the line you want to make sure that when the next organization calls for a reference they don't destroy your job prospects. A simple example related to this point is that this is precisely why it took a whistleblower to expose the shit that Facebook is doing. If all the previous researchers felt like they could walk away and get a new job, while highlighting their great work AND calling out Facebook for what it does they would have. I just saw an example of a sequoia funded startup firing someone during mat leave and then having the audacity to propose a onesided non disparagement clause. The person in question was close to accepting it, because she feared a potential backlash in her future career. It's completely insane that in most societies corporations can abuse employees to the extent that they are and then employees bend over and accept it, because they might have a bad reference. Usually the only way to actually free yourself from those companies is litigation with mutual non-disparagement. That really shouldn't be the case.

ballenf 5y ago
You're talking about a niche within a niche employment-wise. I've worked dozens of jobs with great pay and benefits and I've never signed a single NDA. When I hear people sounding trapped like you, it makes me want to tell them about this amazing world outside VC-land Bay Area insanity.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  I'm not trapped at all, I don't work with these kind of people. Most normal humans do though. Good job getting personal and showing contempt towards a significant portion of your fellow humans. And wilfully closing your eyes towards what normal HR policies look like around the globe.

windexh8er 5y ago

I agree wholeheartedly. I've run into this in interviews after short stints and most places will allow you to explain without being accusatory up front. If they are, that's generally a red flag for me. I will often explain to recruiters/interviewers that an interview is mutually beneficial and if what is told to me in an interview is not true, or intentionally hidden from me, and the reality of the work situation does not align with my beliefs/expectations/morals/etc after asking a number of people about those things then why should there be any expectation for me stay to meet some hypothetical minimum on amount of time in a role? If I couldn't perform my role within 90 days they'd let me go. Why is the double standard OK? I've been in trainwrecks where the market really wanted things the company wasn't delivering on as paid for product. And it could have been really great. Great brand recognition, great people - yet a CEO that had in their mind they could do no wrong. I left, and received a lot of flack for it, yet within one year that company divested because they couldn't sell anything then magically I was looked at differently. It's often hard to get a good read on a tech company in a few short interviews. Especially those on the smaller side or startups. But I don't think anyone should stay somewhere that was not as advertised and have to deal with a penalty for a "short run". Being candid about the situation without disparaging the company (as the parent comment stated) seems to go a long way and most good recruiters/interviews will be understanding.

whiddershins 5y ago

This … isn’t the advice I would give. I would personally never say negative things about a previous employer regardless of how carefully worded.

rkangel 5y ago
At the very least, you should be able to provide reasons for leaving your previous employer. They might be as benign as "I wanted to grow in X direction and there wasn't the opportunity for that" but no-one has 100% rosy feelings about a company that they're leaving. I would be fairly distrustful of anyone who pretended that was the case. What is your worry about saying negative things?
sidr 5y ago
"Everything was going perfect. I loved my job and the people I worked with, I just left because I am prone to doing that when there are no issues whatsoever."
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  If I remember it correctly, the recommended spin is: "I wanted a greater challenge". The other side probably realizes that this is bullshit, but will appreciate your discretion.

richrichardsson 5y ago

> 6 months is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to judge a job and leave it. Most jobs I've ever had in the UK came with a "probation" period of 6 months, where the employer could terminate the position with a one week notice (or even shorter if I was the cause of some particularly nasty problem), and after 6 months a review would be conducted to decide if the position was going to be offered on a more permanent basis. I think it's only fair that employees can have the same option to walk away if they find they don't really fit in the culture of the organisation.

redsparrow 5y ago
This is similar to what I've seen in Germany. Probation is six months long and during this time either party can terminate with two weeks notice without any cause. This is a time for both the employer and employee to be evaluating each other for a good fit.
bpiche 5y ago
The US is going this way, with the normalization of contract work for very technical roles. I think it bled over from software-adjacent roles like graphic design and IT support. Regardless, you're going to see more 6 month 'try before you buy' contracts for PhDs with 10 years of engineering experience, than full time roles today. It makes sense for less mission critical roles I suppose, but I don't understand why organizations are willing to put so much at stake by offering a shit sandwich for mission critical roles. And they wonder why there is a hiring issue today.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Going this way? It's been this way for decades. Every job I've ever had began with a probationary period, generally 30 - 90 days, maybe one or two were longer.
  - nikau 5y ago
    I've had managers not want to terminate during probation period because it makes them look bad as they hired the wrong person, so they prefer contracts that they can just not renew.