18 ms·

Signs that it's time to leave a company

• doublerabbit 3y ago
  Two years and six months. If you do not get any promotion, perks or increase of benefits during that time, your not going to get any ever. Waiting with the mindset of "maybe I will this year" will only cause you mental anguish, to the point you'll become disgruntled and end up shooting yourself in the foot. Why two years six months? It's takes three months of constant effort just to score an interview/new job and three to properly resign on pleasant terms or negotiate an upgrade. Two years, is an substantial amount sum of time to work for a company and the bare minimum you should work in any company in my honest opinion. Jumping ship will always bring more money. The truth is that businesses don't care much about you as much as they like you to believe. In that your forgotten in seconds flat and were only hired for your talent. So why give it to them if they're not going to return the favour?
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Two years for a company that isn't horrendous to work for. If it is clearly not working out - a no brainer - then just leave. Might be on day 1!
    • scorpioxy 3y ago
      Funny you mention that. Looking back, there's at least one company that I should've left on day 1. The flags now look bright red. But my thinking back then was that I'm probably wrong with my understanding of the situation - maybe this, maybe that. There's an emotional undertaking when you leave your old role and show up at a new place and there's bound to be some struggle. That place was a disaster. I mean the half-the-team-ends-up-leaving kinda disaster. Figuring out when "it's you and not me" takes a lot of introspection and that's usually accompanied by a lot of self doubt. You can't really tell except long after the fact.
      • quickthrower2 3y ago
        I might have been over the top. Unless something illegal is going on, or you are getting harassed, you could say "hey it is day 1, I don't like this, I will set a calendar reminder for 2 weeks to check in again, and assess". Plan continuation bias is hard to overcome though.
  • onion2k 3y ago
    Waiting for "maybe I will this year" will only cause you mental anguish The problem there is the 'waiting' bit. If you expect other people to see your impact and reward it you won't get it. You need to advocate for yourself. Make sure you're talking directly to stakeholders and leaders in your org. Post about things you've worked on in company channels. Update everyone when you hit goals and milestones. Celebrate your wins. If nothing else this makes work more fun.
    • 998244353 3y ago
      It might be good for the career but this sounds like the opposite of fun to me.
  • BeetleB 3y ago
    > If you do not get any promotion, perks or increase of benefits during that time, your not going to get any ever. SV bubble. Getting a promotion every 2.5 years is very rare in traditional engineering companies.
    • serial_dev 3y ago
      A promotion? Sure. But not even a modest raise in 2.5 years, that's not a good sign.
    • ska 3y ago
      It's partially a SV bubble, and partially a early-career bubble (and partially an I've-only-seen-the-good-times bubble, probably) When having these conversations people often forget that it's pretty natural for the time between promotions to increase significantly as your experience and role level increases. FWIW "promotion" i mean a meaningful change int he scope of your role, not a banding exercise to pay you a bit more. That can also be achieved without promotion; companies have different approaches to the 6ish meaningful role buckets in a technical career. This means that advice about "how long is too long" isn't really general.
    • cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
      Yep. All this is telling me ie that there are still a bunch of sheltered HN users that are in for a rude shock when they see what it’s like to work long-term in an environment without free money keeping everything afloat. A lot of you have been living in a make-believe world.
      • MandieD 3y ago
        Good, I'm not the only one reading those comments and thinking, "oh, you sweet summer children who didn't graduate into the Dotcom Bust or Great Recession..."
      • AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
        Nothing exists in a vacuum. Times have been fairly good for companies since the peak of the millennial generation graduated undergrad. As a result it's like you say, easy to get jobs, lots of fast moving work to come by. This is concurrent with the worst housing market and biggest asset bubble anyone alive has ever seen. Even if you're pulling 90th percentile incomes, in most metro areas where those jobs are, you aren't gonna be buying a house ever. Housing is starting to take up the majority of everyone's take home pay and the rat race as it stands for the younger demographics here is building net worth, without a hyper leveraged guaranteed-line-go-up real estate asset, fast enough to outrun enough of the population so the next big disaster doesn't smash them to a paste. Easy money means assets aren't. Regardless of how economics works, you still need food and shelter.
  • serial_dev 3y ago
    Two years six months is also a reasonable time as some companies have salary discussions only once per year.First time around, you might have only been at the company for a short time, after your first full year you might not be able to, want to go for a salary raise or you might not get it, but if you don't get it the second time, it's a sign that is hard to ignore This is, though, with an asterisk that you made a reasonable effort to get your raise. If you didn't, for example you had too much going on in your personal life, and therefore you couldn't put in the quality hours, it might make sense to just be happy with what they give you as in other places you might not be able to tend to your personal stuff as well as in your current company.
    • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
      Salary discussions can happen at any time, though. Restricting it to once per year is just delaying tactic. If you resign and they want or need you, all of sudden everything is possible
      • auspiv 3y ago
        Vast majority of large, publicly traded companies (at least in the US) only do pay determination (and associated raises) once per year. Promotions can definitely happen whenever but there may be a cycle associated with that as well.
        • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
          You truly believe that such rules are written in stone? There's always exceptions if a need arise. Budgets of whole countries can be changed mid year but salary of some employee can't? :)
        • kcb 3y ago
          Until you find a new position and they want to match it. Then you hate the paperwork within the day.
        • internet101010 3y ago
          That's what calibration meetings are for. To determine who is worthy of promotion.
  • teach 3y ago
    Maybe I'm the old man in the room, but I worked for non-tech companies for the first twenty years of my career. No promotions, no perks and no real change in benefits is the norm for the vast majority of American workers. What's wrong with getting paid a reasonable amount of money for a career you enjoy and are good at?
    • hobs 3y ago
      The fact that the ownership is capturing a huge multiple of your effort and you could go somewhere else to capture more of the money you create? Let's invert it - why should I just make my boss more money forever while I get the same cut?
      • JacobThreeThree 3y ago
        >Let's invert it - why should I just make my boss more money forever while I get the same cut? It sounds like you're assuming OP is getting a small cut. What if his salary is generous and there's a profit sharing bonus pool every year? The idea that in every career one needs to be continuously promoted to new positions doesn't make a whole lot of sense in my opinion.
        • teach 3y ago
          Nailed it. In fact, individual contributor salaries were public and constituted ~80% of the company's entire annual budget. Rent, utilities and all management salaries were contained in the remaining 20%.
          • hobs 3y ago
            And how much was... profit? When you say budget that's not directly tied to the revenues of the company, that's just the amount they decide to spend this year.
            • teach 3y ago
              Ha, it was a non-profit, so... zero. We didn't sell anything so we didn't have any revenue.
  • bitwize 3y ago
    Jumping ship stops bringing in more money once you get old, unless you transition to management (which not all of us can or want to do).
    • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
      And once you are in the management jumping ship is even more difficult.
  • geodel 3y ago
    Jumping ship will always bring more money. Thats not true often. I have known so many people ended up in worse place after jumping.
    • Minor49er 3y ago
      Why did they make the jump then? The work environment was worth the trade-off?
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
• velcrovan 3y ago
  Other signs for me personally: * Sales schedules dictate product development timelines rather than the other way around * Leadership thinks about practical operational/logistics issues only when forced to * The importance of "culture" is brought up without fail when talking about working from the office, and never at other times * Leadership is fond of setting goals and deathly allergic to providing incentives
  • iamthirsty 3y ago
    I agree with all but the last, as I think it's debatable. > Leadership is fond of setting goals and deathly allergic to providing incentives Goals are good, in any way, as long as their portioned right. And at the level most people this is targeted to are working at, is the rather large salary supposed to be the incentive?
    • mxkopy 3y ago
      It happens at lower levels too, when the company is too broke to give bonuses
    • velcrovan 3y ago
      I'm talking about repeated, big pushes for extremely short-term departmental achievements that touch everyone including people with five-digit annual earnings.
    • mitthrowaway2 3y ago
      An incentive isn't an incentive if d/dx = 0 for behaviour x. Salary is how you get someone to work for you instead of a competitor, and keep them from spending their time worrying about mortgages, but it's not really an incentive unless someone is at risk of being fired. Performance bonuses, stock options, recognition, raises, promotions, and interesting projects are incentives.
  • polynomial 3y ago
    What are some typical examples of operational/logistics issues that less than great management might otherwise ignore?
• choppaface 3y ago
  Always have an engaging side project or non-work interest (a family even!). A slow-growth company is torture if you have to give it 100% of your attention. But in some cases you can turn corporate disfunction into a means to fund your own interests.
  • cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    Let’s not conflate slow-growth with corporate dysfunction.
    • stvltvs 3y ago
      I'm currently dealing with corporate dysfunction due to fast growth.
• CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Small company, in my first week the owner sent an all-hands email that chewed out some of the staff. I left by the end of the week.
• ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  More discussion previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38827801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38827801
• geocrasher 3y ago
  - Investors are priority over customers - Getting stonewalled at every opportunity to be heard - Drastic change in ownership with nonsensical goals - Family ran company with lots of family infighting and drama - An office full of cokeheads Some of my personal faves.
  • iamthirsty 3y ago
    > - An office full of cokeheads Ah, the 80's. What a time.
    • sleepybrett 3y ago
      ... and the dot com boom. One office I worked at had jager taps and a rotating cast of nose blowers into and out of the single toilet restroom.
• opportune 3y ago
  Definitely 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. With hybrid I feel like I never know how to contact someone and can never expect a quick reply (with remote, sure someone could go AWOL still, but there was less ambiguity on if they were just commuting or doing something in the office). I’ve had skip managers/directors who I’m almost certain are barely working and just milking out huge salaries while hiding behind their remote status. I’ve seen people join and leave teams from random offices all over the world, never onboarding fully and never truly getting it. It’s awful. I want people to have flexibility and I think full-remote culture works just as well as fully-onsite works - everyone is in “one place” whether it’s in collaboration software or in person. But this sucks.
  • gtirloni 3y ago
    Hybrid companies need the full remote AND on-site apparatus at the same time. They can't be half remote or people will be left off of office discussions all the time and they have to maintain expensive real estate. Imagine having to wait for the office day in a hybrid company to discuss something important. Nobody does that.
    • closeparen 3y ago
      It’s easiest to schedule meetings on remote days, since they are not constrained by conference rooms or commute blocks.
  • auspiv 3y ago
    My company does week in-office, then week remote. Quite a bit of flexibility during the in-office weeks too if you have a doctor appt or whatever. I personally really like it. People get stuff done in-office, and then during the remote weeks we bust stuff out that doesn't need to be face-to-face. We are not at all a tech company.
• corytheboyd 3y ago
  The big RSU grant is depleted and you don’t get a new one that is comparable in size. There is zero reason not to leave in this case, because you will absolutely make way more money by leaving. You can even leave and rejoin the same company to get another grant, as dumb as that is. Make sure you actually ask for a new grant before quitting, nobody is going to give you money for free. You also need to be good but that’s a given if you’ve been around for 3-4 years (however your RSU vesting works)
  • tschwimmer 3y ago
    You will have to re-interview to get a new grant, and even for a strong performer with a well-established historical track record at the company can be a very probabilistic event.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • hibikir 3y ago
    Smaller refreshes than the original grant are a clear message from management that they don't necessarily want you around, but you aren't underperforming so much as to want to bother with the hassle of a Pip. In any place that isn't massively dysfunctional, a manager can hand out large enough refreshes to the people they want to keep in the long run.
  • dilyevsky 3y ago
    > because you will absolutely make way more money by leaving That is a pre-2023 advice my friend, unless you’ve been there like 10yrs or an ai researcher or something
    • corytheboyd 3y ago
      Well you’re right in that I haven’t been looking for jobs recently, but I find it extremely hard to believe that large grants and salaries are no longer a thing in the software industry at large. A few friends-of-friends I know very recently got nice grants and salaries, with large Mega Corps, but that’s always where the money was?
• hibikir 3y ago
  Hit the nail in the head. A growing company has plenty of opportunity for learning, promotion, making new things, and retooling old ones to match the growth of business. This means there are very few zero sum games, either at the IC or management level. When growth stops, there's little chances to gain status by solving problems: Someone already has status, and really doesn't want to lose it. Those frustrated with the lack of growth, and who have good skills applicable somewhere else will leave. The people that stay are those that have fewer opportunities to find something better elsewhere. So when you see an architect/principal engineer that has been there for 15 years, you know they know that they'd not be hired at the same level anywhere with more chances of growth: Those people have already left. This is why i understand the middle manager that tries to empire build: If you don't have growth opportunities, your top subordinates will leave you, and with them your group's performance. There are other reasons to leave a company, like if you see good chances that you'll dislike your boss and they will remain your boss for at least another year, but the lack of growth will always be bad.
  • eiskalt 3y ago
    > The people that stay are those that have fewer opportunities to find something better elsewhere. So when you see an architect/principal engineer that has been there for 15 years, you know they know that they'd not be hired at the same level anywhere.. ..or they are simply more enjoying life by maintaining a better life-work balance.
  • imiric 3y ago
    Eh, I don't get this constant growth mentality that pervades tech companies. It seems more related to investors wanting to see an ever growing return on their investments than it being healthy for the company and its products. Can't a company reach an equilibrium where the right people are doing the right things, and everyone is happy with their role and compensation? Sure, people may leave and be replaced, and even a moderate amount of growth could be healthy, but why focus so much on constantly expanding teams, more products, more revenue, more, more, more...? It seems to boil down to basic human greed, at the end of the day. I much prefer working for companies that don't have this growth obsession. IME they place more value and care into their product and customers, rather than chasing the next big thing, which often ruins the good thing they had. So hyper growth is actually a signal for me to leave, not stay. With all these layoffs going on, how can we say that the growth/layoff cycle is a sign of a healthy company? It might not hurt their bottom line, but I sure wouldn't want to work in an environment where I'm worried I might be laid off at any moment.
• kabdib 3y ago
  Signs that I've seen before leaving: * There are more VPs than there are restrooms. * The free coffee and soda is no more. * Engineers are co-opted as salespeople ("... and why is the project late?").
  • gwern 3y ago
    The soda is a classic: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
    • x86x87 3y ago
      Classic. When the free soda goes things are about to go down.
  • nradov 3y ago
    There's nothing wrong with occasionally pulling in engineers to help salespeople with writing proposals or participating in sales calls. Smaller companies can't afford to have sales engineers as dedicated specialist positions.
    • kabdib 3y ago
      Agreed. In fact, the better that engineers understand the customers and end-users the better-off the company probably is. That is a good, healthy practice. But having engineers actually trying to do sales to make up for revenue shortfall . . . not so much :-)
    • magicalhippo 3y ago
      Heck I wish they'd involve us more often at our place. After all, it's us devs who are left with the burden when it's discovered a few days before go-live that sales has sold something we don't have because they missed some nuances in what the customer said or similar.
  • d0gsg0w00f 3y ago
    +1 for removal of snacks and coffee as a reliable canary
• lxe 3y ago
  Amazon's tech innovation died a while ago. It will continue to operate its successful business lines until it runs out of steam and shrivels up, just like IBM & co. It will never catch up to things like AI and will fall behind. And it's not a bad thing for Amazon, at least for now. They are in a better position than Google, where they have a more diverse revenue stream, and can out-compete everyone else. They don't need to innovate.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • chuckadams 3y ago
    > It will never catch up to things like AI and will fall behind Amazon Q is appearing all over the place in the AWS console. The AWS Jetbrains plugin also integrates Q, though I've never actually used it. I can't judge the quality of their AI offering, because as I said, I've not used it, but they're definitely not asleep when it comes to AI.
    • x86x87 3y ago
      Q is shit. Everyone and their dog is doing genAI. We will look back at this in 5 years and have a good laugh about "ai"
      • chuckadams 3y ago
        I finally got around to using Q today. It's more awful than I could have imagined.
        • poundofshrimp 3y ago
          Amazon Q is powered by an LLM that is not very capable (there are no official benchmarks, AFAIK, but the community consensus seems to be that the level is akin to GPT 3.5). I wrote a Chrome extension that allows you to use GPT-4 Turbo from Chrome's side panel. It (optionally) gets context about your data if you choose to share your screen with it. https://github.com/petrgazarov/cumuli-aws-console-chat https://github.com/petrgazarov/cumuli-aws-console-chat
• JohnFen 3y ago
  For 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.
  • geocrasher 3y ago
    And the one time I actually followed my gut and got a new job, I let my boss convince me to stay on (I really loved the company) and then he sold it shortly after to some jackasses that ruined it. And then when I did leave, I left without a good plan and ended up in a family owned company whose infighting left everyone wondering if they'd have a job the next day. Pure hell.
    • FireBeyond 3y ago
      Had a partner who was looking at a vet tech role to provide some income while she planned for veterinary school in the next 12 months or so. She was essentially assured the job, but was concerned about the ad. "We want someone who is committed to us and this, who wants to stay with the clinic and be here for the long haul." She was pre-emptively feeling guilty. "I know that in about a year I'm going to move on, they want commitment..." I simply told her, "What happens if they have a massive business downturn next week, or one of the doctors retires, or COVID lockdowns, etc. How do you think they're going to react? 1 - 'we dont have the revenue or workload to support keeping you on, but, since you made a commitment to us, we are making one to you and will keep you on payroll', or, 2 - 'revenues are down or workload doesn't require the level of staffing we have, so thank you for your service, today will be your last day at the clinic'?" We all know which is going to happen in 99.9%+ of cases.
    • neilv 3y ago
      > I let my boss convince me to stay on That sucks, it happens, it's not just you. One place, I had reason to leave. Coincidentally, a non-startup, who I'd previously chosen the current place over, re-approached me, with an even sweeter deal than before (VP, doubling my TC, and a great team). So I went to an exec of the place where I was, saying what the showstopper org problems were, and that I had urgency to make a decision. They convinced me we'd solve the problems, so I decided to stay, out of general policy of loyalty to whatever team I'm currently on. Tech company battle-hardened veterans can guess correctly how that worked out. :)
• quadog 3y ago
  From the article: "There is a tendency to micromanage and add process overhead…". Yes, the day that leadership invites "Agile coaches" in to start scrumming up the works is another sign to move on.
  • coolThingsFirst 3y ago
    Why though I dont get it?
    • MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
      If your organization isn't accomplishing its goals, it's not due to a lack of nagging the programmers.
• lucidguppy 3y ago
  I don't understand this fascination with central offices. We live in the year 2024. We should be able to look at our workforce, find small offices, and have hub and spoke networks of offices - and work from home as a fallback. Rent a condo, do a communal office, if you want more close collaboration - shuffle your teams to colocate them - not force them into 1hr commutes into a fucking empty office. Our infrastructure is now ephemeral on the cloud - why can't we be more flexible with our work situation?
  • paulddraper 3y ago
    People collaborate easier in person. Travel is a downside.
    • OtomotO 3y ago
      Other downside: way more coffee breaks and private discussions.
      • robertbalent 3y ago
        > way more coffee breaks That’s upside.
      • kamilafsar 3y ago
        That’s not a downside. That’s part of building and being a team. We’re human, not machines. If you hire the right people, they’ll know when to have a laugh and when to work their ass off.
        • thayne 3y ago
          That very much depends on the person. It might be an upside for you but a downside for me.
        • OtomotO 3y ago
          I love humans, just not all of them and I prefer separating my private life from my work life
• iwontberude 3y ago
  "Customers don’t care what the companies buildings are like." They never could, yet their experience is shaped by the buildings employees use. Having been moved to a hybrid office and lost my private office -- my work suffered and so did the work of my colleagues. By not taking real estate seriously, my company is pushing me to look for work elsewhere. I don't want to waste my thirties doing crappy work because I don't have an office to work in.
  • ornornor 3y ago
    > I don't want to waste my thirties doing crappy work because I don't have an office to work in. I personally find this statement presumptuous. Most of us are doing mundane work on boring/useless products and that’s what puts food on the table. People who do meaningful work in their thirties and have a private office are very rare. I think trying to measure your outcomes to this metric is a recipe for feeling like a failure because it’s unachievable for the vast vast majority.
• some-guy 3y ago
  I've been at the same enterprise SaaS company for 10 years. Personally? Staying at the same company for a long time while performing well gave me some options I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Like OP, the culture has shifted drastically with COVID and the post-ZIRP environment we live in. When RTO began, my spouse got a job which would have required me to move away and make it impossible to meet in-office numbers. Thankfully I requested remote and it was approved, now I'm living in a low-COL area while doing the same job. Most people in my position don't get remote approval. Hence I'm basically stuck here--looking around for available remote positions, my TC would be in most cases cut in half.
• mt_ 3y ago
  Is is just me, this post and this [1] one are just people complaining about RTO? If you were hired during COVID lockdown with the promise of your career buing built on remote only, fine but lay yourself off and move on. Else it's not entirely justifiable to be mad at AWS for RTO policies. From an outside perspective AWS looks very healthy and ouputing great innovation. [1]. https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sacking/ https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sa...
  • ShamelessC 3y ago
    > lay yourself off "Straight shooter with upper management written all over him."
  • x86x87 3y ago
    Opinions are maybe somewhat mixed on RTO. What is not mixed is the fact that the reasons given for RTO were pure bullshit. People will never forget the bs they were subjected to. god help amazon when the market recovers and nobody will want to work there anymore - you'll suddenly see more flexibility as a result.
• xwowsersx 3y ago
  Archived: https://archive.ph/dk9vW https://archive.ph/dk9vW
• devwastaken 3y ago
  "the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones" This inevitably leads to your product being owned by a few devs with no one else who has the org knowledge necessary to make meaningful changes. Your org should be making experienced devs. If it isn't, you don't own your product. Junior devs are your future. They have motivation and want to be apart of your mission far more than the experienced devs that are there for a paycheck so they can get their own show running.
  • wolverine876 3y ago
    The full quote: "... the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones, and return managers to individual contributor positions where possible. Experienced employees have been through this before, make better judgement calls under stress, and communicate better." So writes the experienced employee. Adding to the parent comment, experienced employees also may have vested interests and cognitive inertia based on the current situation, the way things have been done until now. If you want new growth, new perspective, new ideas, new energy, new blood can help. They don't know that 'back when Eddie was here, we did it this way ...' and they don't care. The OP also writes, managers start to hoard ... and play politics to preserve their products. That applies to the experienced employees too.
    • AgentOrange1234 3y ago
      “They don't know that 'back when Eddie was here, we did it this way ...' and they don't care.” Per Chesterton’s Fence, that should scare the hell out of you. :)
      • wolverine876 3y ago
        Who is Chesterton? Someone that worked here last century? Seriously, it's a matter of degree and requires judgment. Mature businesses can accumulate many, many fences. Sometimes you need to charge through them - move fast and break things. Sometimes you need to pay more attention.
• RyeCombinator 3y ago
  Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38827801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38827801
• SpaceNoodled 3y ago
  > Jeff Bezos was always focused on keeping the “Day 1” culture at Amazon, and everyone I talk to there is clear that it’s now “Day 2”. I left Amazon around the same time, and was saying the same thing. All of the callouts in this article hit the mark.
• erinaceousjones 3y ago
  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. Like, little software shops which take on a stable number of projects / contracts / clients a year, focused on sustainability instead of pure profit, lose and gain people at a roughly 1:1 ratio, rarely downscale or upscale offices, have a relatively flat heierarchy, everyone is compensated realistically, reasonably and equitably, and the work is done at a rate that is a nice balance between interesting/challenging whilst relaxed enough to not cause burnout, with a sensible work/life balance. That's what I look for, and they're fucking havens. Edit: my idealistic take on "I wish I could do software like a tradesperson" has prompted so many insightful comments looking at all sides of the equation! I will clarify a bit, first paragraph I'm lamenting specifically exponential growth a la shareholder nonsense. Paragraph 2 is "I am so tired, just pay me in line with interest rates to solve funky little code puzzles enough that I can keep the comfy roof over my head and have enough free time to go on my long runs and grow my vegetables" :-)
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Like, little software shops I tried those and TBH they never worked for me. Small shops in my experience have not very good processes, rush to gain new projects and customers at all cost by sales/management always overpromising and burning out engineers in the process who strugle with the unrealistic deadlines, promotions are gained trough favoritism since there's no fixed clear and well documented promotion/career path but you're at the mercy of how your bnoss and his boss/CEO feel about you each day. So no thanks from me, I'm going back to big old crusty established comapanies with established products and customers, established processes. YMMV of course, there' no one sized fits all for everyone and big companies have their own issues but I feel I can more easily manage and deal with those. Pick your poison.
    • codegeek 3y ago
      That's ok. You are just built to work with more structure and processes. Some people like the small company vibe where things are a bit chaotic but also fun and creative. Nothing wrong with either.
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  "Try and get a job at somewhere growing rapidly" Personally I try and get a job at a company whose mission and ethics I believe in so I don't feel like a hapless techno-weenie cog in some generic startup wheel whose driving purpose is to give the founders a nice exit. Sadly for my skillset, the people hiring are generally evil or their net effect on the world is negative. Looking into goat farming.
  • rcbdev 3y ago
    I've found local governments (city or district) to fill this niche nicely for me. They usually need a guy to help with all kinds of IT stuff, value any kind of automation work and are not as bloated as federal. You help your community and the people who keep it running. Only downside is, your pay will be significantly less than as a cog in an evil machine.
    • moffkalast 3y ago
      Agreed, having recently gone from a startup job to a government/university one it's like a large boulder of stress is suddenly gone. Being in that original mindset it's genuinely alien to see a workspace without a slack and kanban board, but also unimaginably freeing. There's more trust and people still get things done on time regardless, emails and impromptu in person chat works just fine. People genuinely living life instead of being on a capitalistic ass grindset. I've lost count the number of times I've seen the startup founder neglect family stuff to make the latest deal or sale or whatever that inevitably fell through anyway lmao, and naturally dragging the rest of the team into the mess at weird hours. As you say the downside is indeed pay, but as long as it's livable it's still an acceptable tradeoff.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • beeboop 3y ago
    > whose driving purpose is to give the founders a nice exit this seems to exist everywhere? no matter the stated the mission, no one is owning a business to not make money off it
• neilv 3y ago
  > the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones, and [...]. Experienced employees have been through this before, make better judgement calls under stress, and communicate better. I think that's probably true, if you are a company of people who are good at what they do, and if what they do is what is now needed. But most tech companies seem to be either bad at what they do, or only good at things that are no longer the needed operating mode (e.g., the very common mode of Potemkin Village startup appearance of "growth", in what's essentially an investment scam). In those situations, it might make sense to wring remaining value of the company, while cutting the highest salaries. If all you need is warm bodies, such as for appearances/obligations, or because you're going to do bad work in any case, then juniors tend cost less.
• lulznews 3y ago
  Always Be Leaving.
  • manual89 3y ago
    Coffee is for deserters?
    • _huayra_ 3y ago
      It takes brass bytes to sling C++.
• swasheck 3y ago
  i've been a remote employee for about 10 years now with a variety of companies. at my current employer, i was hired as a remote employee in the post-COVID, pre-RTO limbo time. from what i understand, pre-COVID this company had a robust corporate culture, even at their satellite offices, and they mentioned i could participate in that, if i chose to do so (i live within 50km of a satellite office). unfortunately, the financial winds also shifted during this limbo time and the company cut a lot of what they did to develop this corporate cultureto accommodate the generous remote/WFH stipends that they gave to their employees as they transitioned from traditional employment arrangements. however, the (former) CEO of my company mandated RTO two days per week. all remote employees were re-categorized as traditional if they lived within 50km of an office, regardless of employment agreements. hr did a great job sorting through this mess and remote-hire employees were re-re-categorized so there was no mandate. unfortunately, there's been no re-investment in the corporate culture-building in the satellite offices (hq has gotten quite a few benefits for RTO restored), so those employees are left with no stipend, and no "corporate culture" incentivisation which was a hallmark by which many of them were hired. attrition has skyrocketed and now it's a bigger problem for the company to manage: employee shortages, physical plant underuse, and general mistrust in leadership. ultimately this all feels like the post-911 airline industry. they instituted baggage fees to compensate for all of their lost revenue and once air travel began booming again, they kept the fees. as i talk with other people (colloquialism, i know) i dont sense that everyone thinks that RTO is bad, per se, but it seems like many companies are looking to mandate an RTO without investing in restoring the previous environmental and cultural agreements that employees came to understand as a "fringe benefit" within their employment agreement.
• swyx 3y ago
  i wrote the startups version of this for anyone interested https://www.swyx.io/startups-going-bad https://www.swyx.io/startups-going-bad
• oneepic 3y ago
  Here'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 this idea of quitting popped up and felt like a crazy, radical, awesome idea -- and I told him I was leaving immediately, fuck 2 weeks notice, etc. I was excited and terrified of him. Well, he told me the processing would still take a few days no matter what, and once we finalized it, my official last day was... June 9. 6/9 Then I worked at Expedia, had a rough experience with a manager there, and wouldn't you know it I had the magic number appear in my dreams again. 3 months in, cya. Call it superstition, or classical conditioning, but I don't really regret it.
  • the_doctah 3y ago
    Sounds like apophenia.
  • emmanueloga_ 3y ago
    Reminds me of the number 23. Critics kind of panned it but I think it’s entertaining :-) https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/
  • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    He lied about 'processing taking a few days no matter what'. Quitting on the spot is the whole point of the at will employment.
• TobyTheDog123 3y ago
  ...the product teams that are left after pruning should try to keep the most experienced employees, lay off the junior ones... I think I know the generation the author belongs to
• dougb5 3y ago
  "Politics and micromanagement have taken over, and HR processes take up far too much of everyone’s time." How is the HR the cause here? From the mismanagement that the author describes in the preceding paragraphs, it sounds like HR involvement was too little, not too much, because the problems are symptomatic of poorly trained managers. Too many engineers are unable to see the contradiction when they complain about people problems, and then in the next breath question the need for any people or processes to help with those problems.
  • seti0Cha 3y ago
    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 don't think good management is that teachable. It's mostly learned through experience.
    • shiroiuma 3y ago
      I think it's not just experience, it's partly about picking the right people, and not picking the wrong people. Some people are just not good managers, and no amount of training is going to make them a likeable person with good people skills needed to lead a team of people. Many places seem to want to pick someone who has the best technical skills, and then assume he'll magically become a great manager somehow. I think sometimes HR gets blamed for stuff that's really upper management's fault. HR can try to patch over the bad decisions and deal with the interpersonal problems caused, but there's really not that much they can do because they have no real power, and the problems are caused by inept management. It's not HR's fault when upper management decides to promote people to management who clearly don't have the right personality for it, and that's not something HR can fix.
      • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        Since when HR has no real power? In most places they can block any hiring decision . That's a lot of power and no accountability
• maxlin 3y ago
  Saying RTO picks the fruits of the trees and leaves the husks is true only in the way that it keeps the best workers which can create more fruit, and those "fruit" that fall off weren't going to be around long in any case. The best, and safest practice is to only allow remote work only as an exception for those that produce results way above the average. Anyway. One sign to actually leave a company though, is the free soda / coffee being cut off and it turning to something the employees have to pay for in the kitchen / cafeteria. Believe me, this is often a sign that the company is losing its way.
  • phyzome 3y ago
    WFH is a benefit, and when you cut benefits, your best (and most mobile) employees evaporate off.
    • maxlin 3y ago
      WFH is a benefit when you and your boss don't care about the company and are just on the mindset of doing the minimum hours to get your salary, and your boss is just trying to cover his own ass. And would prefer to just get the money for doing nothing while sitting home. And care more about benefits than if the thing you're working on even ever ships. It is sad such jobs exist, I would never work in such a job and think that HN readers as an average also would not prefer that over working on something worth their time. When seeking for jobs I always prioritize for companies where most if not all work in-office after seeing how bad remote work can for wasting those hours of your life.
      • phyzome 3y ago
        If the alternative in this artificial dichotomy would be spending more than 40 hours per week to get my salary, I'll take the "WFH and do nothing" option that you're positing. Why on earth would I do extra work for free? However, that's not how this actually works. WFH and in-office and hybrid can all be do-nothing jobs or getting-stuff-done jobs. Depends on the coworkers, on management ability to set direction, and on the industry and product. They can all also be a waste of time or worth the time, again depending on what the company does.
• soneca 3y ago
  > ” As an employee, it’s usually best to leave in the first wave of cuts.” That’s only valid if you can very easily find another job with similar salary and better work environment, right? If I am a regular IC that will have to go through a lot of interviews to find a new job it is best to just wait until I am fired (while looking for a new job without leaving the current one).
  • mech422 3y ago
    Personally, I always think its best to be in first wave simply because there's less people looking... Generally, there's gonna be more then 1 wave of cuts, so the first wave gets first crack at the best openings.
  • cableshaft 3y ago
    Yeah, for sure. No need to put in your two weeks notice or whatever just to get out of there right away. Usually there's a bit of a breather after that first wave of cuts, enough time for you to look and interview elsewhere. I think part of the reason why they said that is it's best to leave at this time (i.e. start whatever process you need to do to leave) because you'll have the most time to look and interview for a good next job before things start to get worse at your current job, or before you might get axed in the possible next wave and possibly need to take whatever crap gets offered to you just to get a paycheck again.
  • debacle 3y ago
    In the first wave of cuts, you're still getting free lunches, you're getting 1 month/year of severance or more, you're getting vesting beyond your departure date, you're getting 12 months of benefits. In the third wave of cuts, you've had 3 managers in 6 months, everyone hates life, you're having all hands meetings biweekly, and when you get let go quietly, your severance is shit.
• jmbwell 3y ago
  Interesting perspective. Through the author's lens, I would have to agree — if growth is the chief measure of a company's health and the main driver of decision-making, and if you're there for stock options, then yes, it's time to leave when that growth stops. A lack of "growth" might not signal time to leave for all companies, though. Other questions to ask might be, is the customer the customer, or is the investor the customer? Are we working toward sustainable relationships with high-value clientele, or are we working toward a profitable exit strategy for the founders? Are we looking for ways to attract and retain good talent over the long term, or are we managing staffing levels according to quarterly goals? Assuming you aren't an owner and the exit strategy doesn't mean a huge windfall payout for you, then jumping ship might always mean more money for a while, but eventually you will take your last job — the one from which you will retire. That might look more like a company that spends less than it takes in, cultivates stable sources of revenue, and prioritizes investing in itself — rather than one that chases relentless "growth" and doesn't think twice about "pruning" non-owners for the sake of preserving margins for owners. But I'm also not a gambler by nature, so I might not count as one who "gets it" in this context.
• nothercastle 3y ago
  If you are in a start up leave as soon as it’s clear your options will be worthless
• globalise83 3y ago
  In tech companies in Munich, Germany the time to leave the company is when the whole team no longer gets an invite to Oktoberfest.
  • dankben 3y ago
    Agreed, that small fact speaks to a variety of issues I think haha
• davidw 3y ago
  I'm thinking of the sea shanty "Leave her Johnny" as a power point: * shipped it green * rotten tub * No grog allowed and rotten grub * we're through * going ashore * voyage is long * winds don't blow * it's time for us to leave her
• givemeethekeys 3y ago
  I'll add a few more signs to the list. - When the person who hired you leaves and you don't get an incentive for sticking around and keeping the lights on. - When the CEO changes and they bring in consultants. - When you haven't received a raise at least match "wage inflation". - If you're hoping for a promotion but haven't received one in two to three years. If you still choose to stay, know that this is a big red flag for executive recruiters. They'll think of you as not ambitious enough. - Your boss hires someone to be in between you and them - someone who you didn't get to interview. Because, nepotism. - Your boss lacks people skills, and just wants people to do what they're told to do.
• thegrim22 3y ago
  I know it was only one piece of the article that talks about RTO, but as an aside, I don't think I've ever once in my life, in person or online, seen someone arguing for remote work that provided even a single piece of data, a single number, to back up their assertions. Their arguments instead just presuppose that RTO is awful and remote work is amazing, as if everyone "just knows" it. And apparently everybody that's involved with RTO is supposedly just a complete idiot that doesn't know anything about their business, or, as hinted at in the article, they're involved in some sort of grand conspiracy to force an "ineffective" RTO on workers for conspiratorial reasons.
  • gverrilla 3y ago
    perhaps common 1-2 hours commute is data enough
    • chasd00 3y ago
      Yeah commute alone is reason enough to go remote. I have no problem with chat and conf calls. I’m routinely working with offshore teams and others spread all over the US anyway. Working remote is no different than in office I just don’t have to drive and fight traffic to get there.
  • kaoD 3y ago
    No-RTO is the workers finally realizing they have actual power over management (thanks COVID!) We don't need to provide any numbers to the business because we don't care about the business when thinking about RTO. It's for us. Our lives. Not for the business. If anything, it's the business who has to provide numbers to convince us to go back. So we just need to refuse RTO. Fire us if your really want to. We'll move to your competitor and the numbers will speak for themselves. We might be wrong and we might be back to the office if you can crush your competitors with the benefits of RTO even with all that talent lost.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• m1117 3y ago
  Because I personally don't like remote work, I'm ok with requiring 100% RTO. But bad management is a problem.
  • sumanthvepa 3y ago
    Out of curiosity, may I ask why?
    • m1117 3y ago
      Mainly because it's not pleasant to work w/ bad management. Bad culture starts from management - pretentiousness, stressed colleagues, micromanagement etc.
• mynameisnoone 3y ago
  When they: - Replaced good snacks with random, shittier ones - Cut wellness benefits - Closed the cool coffee shop - Retreat without a strategy to move forward or grow. Sometimes it's a lack of product strategy with arbitrary cost cutting cannibalizing essential features of core product into a shell of its former self. Other times, it's round-after-round of layoffs uncertainty while making record profits and spending $10's of billions on servers without a clear need or purpose. - No one cool is left because the "party" moved elsewhere - All of the fun stuff is dead - Increasing amounts of time-wasting bullshit
• notShabu 3y ago
  imo "growth" basically means a company is able to profit from mining "reality". their alpha or edge is having the know-how to be at this cutting edge. in such an environment, "truth" matters a lot because it allows more efficient interfacing with reality. without growth, managing perception becomes more important than truth. this leads to zero-sum politics exacerbated by things like mortgage payments and visa status. everyone is trying to get into AI companies these days b/c they seem like the only companies that can still profit off of "playfulness" while all other cultures are becoming very Serious. instead of just doing things or solving problems, every action and message has to jump through a bunch of "what will X think" hoops which is demoralizing.
• amerine 3y ago
  A significant portion of the reasons the author outlines are exactly the environment going on at $PreviousJob, except it started a year or two before the pandemic. It’s amazing to read their flags and notice how much of it aligned with the final few years of the nine I spent there. It’s especially hard when a large company (80-90k employees) can’t see themselves as a conglomerate of smaller businesses that have individual/different cultures, customers and customer needs. The authors list destroyed $PreviousJob (not yet, it’s still there but all the “fruiting trees” that created the magic customers loved are gone. From top to bottom, it’s a shadow of itself in vision, ability and drive. It’s a shame, mostly for the customers.). The biggest flag I can agree with is when sales timelines force corner cutting or outright premature/possible-unworking/unsustainable software get delivered to customers at outrageous prices all while losing focus on the needs of the core customer base. How can a business ignore the source of 60% of their core customers/fans for three-five years and believe they can recover from that? They can’t. I know old peers and colleagues will read this and know what I mean. I hope they do, and I hope that my passion for what we were working on and our entire customer base was very obvious for all my time there. It’s wild that “leaders” are deaf to internal experts who built and grew these smaller orgs into the businesses they are today. I don’t assume me or anyone else has all the answers, or are ever right, it’s the complete objection to suggestions of righting the course towards customers who actually need and want the product that’s wild. I like to think of it like the Unix philosophy of “small sharp tools”, as our founders believed. Chasing extreme growth is a poison and when it infects giant organ from top to bottom… the issues the author highlights and the ones I experienced lead to these outcomes. This is why companies/products die.
• crossroadsguy 3y ago
  When every day it starts feeling like increasingly a bigger struggle to get ready for work (could be the company, team, or specific work - it’s usually the company). That’s one sign that tells me it’s time to leave.
• nomoreusernames 3y ago
  [dead]
• mparnisari 3y ago
  My sign is to leave is when I cannot stop glancing at the clock
• bondolo 3y ago
  I have worked primarily from home for most of the last 25 years at several companies. I joined Apple during the pandemic and worked from home for the first 18 months but left Apple about 15 months ago for Amazon, in part, because of the increasing RTO pressure at Apple. The Apple RTO policy has only gotten stupider since I left. Unfortunately about a year after I joined Amazon chose to adopt an RTO policy as well. It is not going well. Dissatisfaction is high, people are quitting, people are planning to quit, respect for upper management dwindles. There are many heartbreaking stories of productive long term employees being force out by RTO. WFH had also been opening new opportunities to people who were unable to commute either because of disability, location or other reasons. It has been sad to see those people shut out again. The RTO policy has really soured the culture. Adrian highlights the issues very well. Amazon is a global company. We are expected to work with remote teams routinely. Many teams, like mine are also geographically distributed. Going in to the office doesn't make a damn bit of sense for most people.
  • temende 3y ago
    If you're able to share, I'm curious what you mean by "Apple RTO policy has only gotten stupider"? Isn't it still 3 days in-office (or 4 days for some teams)?
    • bondolo 3y ago
      The degree to which it is enforced, managers being required to enforce the policy, and to which compliance is used as a measure in performance reviews have all increased and, as you mention, some teams have gone to 4 days with pressure to exceed the minimum three days. At least one person I've spoken with indicated that their promotion was delayed until they could get their RTO compliance numbers up.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
• tiffanyh 3y ago
  Reality check … working at a company with hyper growth is of course fun, but also extreme rare in business. Most companies in the world are a slow slug. Tech got spoiled this past decade. Now it’s time for reality to settle in.
• kelnos 3y ago
  This is one of my few favorited comments on HN. It's a great rubric on how to regularly give your company a "performance review", and how to decide if the company has failed and it's time to leave. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20609978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20609978 Of course everyone's ability to leave might differ, depending on personal circumstances and job market. But at least it's good to know what you do and don't like about your job, and what you want to try to improve, if leadership is amenable.
  • ornornor 3y ago
    Thanks for the link, it’s a framework I’ll start using.
• marsven_422 3y ago
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• phendrenad2 3y ago
  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
• yafinder 3y ago
  What happens when everything stops growing, though? For decades our industry growed faster than almost any other industry and definitely faster than the economy as a whole. It's mathematically unsustainable. It must come to an end at some point, and that point is near. Is it simply time to retire?
• incomingpain 3y ago
  There was an interesting graph a few years back about amazon and all the warehouses they are building. They had grown from ~100,000 employees in 2013 to 1.5 million in 2021. The growth rate would suggest they'd employ everyone in north america in only a few years. While possible in theory, the government could never allow it. If a corporation were able to grow to that size, they essentially become the government. Bezos could simply tell his people to not send the taxes to the government and the government instantly collapses within months. So unsurprisingly government went in and started restricting amazon. They can basically never grow again, they can't ever threaten the government's existence. Amazon to a large degree is now a US government ngo. Bezos is obviously no longer ceo and amazon laid off a group. And what has amazon done for the last 2 years, not much of anything.
  • beeboop 3y ago
    > the government could never allow it. If a corporation were able to grow to that size, they essentially become the government the US government is already overwhelmingly something that is structured by and for the benefit of corporations
    • incomingpain 3y ago
      >the US government is already overwhelmingly something that is structured by and for the benefit of corporations This is an interesting subject. The majority of tax revenue for the federal government comes from income taxes. Only about 10% comes from corporations. But it's easier to deal with corporations and there is no income tax without corporations. So it makes sense to mostly work with corporations. What's also quite interesting, in the last 50 years, there's no functional change to taxation in the USA. Politicians are afraid to make any major changes in fears of screwing it all up. But worse,during the financial crisis, the USA basically went bankrupt. There is no such thing as bankrupt though. The USA needs to find about 7 trillion $ in the next couple years. That's a pretty big, that's another great depression.
      • beeboop 3y ago
        Politicians are barely paid by income taxes. They're mostly paid by lobbying and special interest groups, i.e. corporations
• Wazzymandias 3y ago
  Some good takes, some bad takes in the post. The analogy of cutting a tree is pretty dehumanizing and doesn't factor in the morale and culture hit laying people off does to a company. Sustainable growth is far better than boom and bust cycles. I guess if you're shutting down entire product verticals you can reduce the blast radius. Doing partial cuts across the board can cause top talent to look elsewhere.
• gr1zzlybe4r 3y ago
  Most of tech was a ZIRP (zero interest rate phenomenon). And yes, that includes people that were higher up as well. Money was basically free for 15 years. It is not free anymore. It will take some time for people to internalize this. Of course it all changes if money becomes free again.
• red-iron-pine 3y ago
  "If you have to ask, it's time to go" I believe there was an XKCD to that effect, too
• redskyluan 3y ago
  [dead]