Ask HN: Why did you resign from your last job?
32 comments
Engineer CEO was fired and replaced by a marketing guy. Marketing guy starts pushing aggressive deadlines on projects that he doesn't understand, because he's trying to look successful for the board. When the results blow (I told you it wasn't ready for deployment), I am blamed. If only I were "senior enough" this wouldn't have happened. The company now employs no developers, they're on the foreign-contractor pain train, and I'm working on an awesome team with a great company, making more money, with less responsibility. And nobody ever tells me I'm not good enough.
Name and shame.
could you drop hints as to which company (the one where you're at currently) ?
I'm at a medium-sized cloud services provider with offices in Washington.
Got recruited to a job by the CEO…CEO was then pushed out by the board. Manager made it clear there was no ongoing role for me, but could I stay until end of quarter. Two days before the end of the quarter, he pulls me aside and tells me he's having difficulty finding a replacement for me, and could I stay on on a week–to–week basis until he does. By then I'd already lined up new work, and he'd poisoned my reputation across the company. So I resigned the next day, agreeing to work an additional couple of weeks. From hire to Schroedinger's termination was under six months.
I worked for a university.
I worked remotely half of one day without asking permission and was essentially scolded for not sending an arbitrary email request that would have been approved.
During that scolding I stated that if I really couldn't do what I thought was best for my productivity, for the good of the organization, that I would have to have a think about the environment.
My boss couldn't hold back sneering laughter when I said that.
... I had been working part time 1099 for a company for a few weeks and formed a great working relationship with the guy who hired me. The same day as the scolding I asked if there was enough work for me to come on full-time, naturally there was, and I put in my two weeks the next day.
I started out as a remote Clojure engineer and never looked back. The only other interesting part of this story is that I was a PeopleSoft developer at the university for the fun of it, my heart was obviously with more modern technology the entire time.
I worked remotely half of one day without asking permission and was essentially scolded for not sending an arbitrary email request that would have been approved.
During that scolding I stated that if I really couldn't do what I thought was best for my productivity, for the good of the organization, that I would have to have a think about the environment.
My boss couldn't hold back sneering laughter when I said that.
... I had been working part time 1099 for a company for a few weeks and formed a great working relationship with the guy who hired me. The same day as the scolding I asked if there was enough work for me to come on full-time, naturally there was, and I put in my two weeks the next day.
I started out as a remote Clojure engineer and never looked back. The only other interesting part of this story is that I was a PeopleSoft developer at the university for the fun of it, my heart was obviously with more modern technology the entire time.
I worked at a game studio that was contracted to help with an AAA military sci-fi first-person shooter. The protagonist in the games has usually been lionized for using technology in war, and I didn't feel comfortable working on something that would impart those sentiments onto teenagers. Someone else can elect to do it and other game studios were hiring for games that had different themes.
Even though I completely disagree with you I have to congratulate you for your coherence.
Instead of blaming the company or tell bad things about them you just decided to leave and find something else that worked for you.
The company has the freedom to work on whatever theme they want and you have the freedom to not work for them. This is great!
Kudos
Instead of blaming the company or tell bad things about them you just decided to leave and find something else that worked for you.
The company has the freedom to work on whatever theme they want and you have the freedom to not work for them. This is great!
Kudos
Got tired of building businesses for someone else and decided to finally go out on my own.
Was hired to do a difficult job, when the job was completed the management moved me to another team, with a new manager. The new manager was/is incompetent, and cared only about hitting their personal KPI's and taking credit for any team success. They refused to listen to senior engineers advice (new manager was a mid level engineer internally promoted to management when someone else left and always knew better). All of my advice was ignored, the end result of which was massive technical debt and inefficiencies across the board.
I managed to last about a year before I could take it no longer.
I quit two weeks before head office canned the entire project and fired half the studio.
I managed to last about a year before I could take it no longer.
I quit two weeks before head office canned the entire project and fired half the studio.
When I look back at my career, I've found I'm least proud of my work when I'm most comfortable with my job or role.
Comfort, at least for me, seems to be tightly coupled to how much I'm learning and growing. The more comfortable I am, the less likely I'm extending myself into new roles or learning new things.
I've yet to work in a company where this didn't happen in 3-5 years. The last time I left, though, it was specifically to build my next startup: https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/
Comfort, at least for me, seems to be tightly coupled to how much I'm learning and growing. The more comfortable I am, the less likely I'm extending myself into new roles or learning new things.
I've yet to work in a company where this didn't happen in 3-5 years. The last time I left, though, it was specifically to build my next startup: https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/
It was a legacy product where documentation had drifted from reality so far that marketing did not understand and were blatantly mis-selling it, this led customers to raise 'bugs' that were projects in themselves.
Coupled to this everything was estimated by senior devs, everyone else was 'junior' and not to be consulted, even if that junior was the only person who'd worked on that product in over a year. The senior devs probably could have done it in the timescales they gave but no-one with less than 5 years experience there could find the responsible line of spaghetti.
Coupled to this everything was estimated by senior devs, everyone else was 'junior' and not to be consulted, even if that junior was the only person who'd worked on that product in over a year. The senior devs probably could have done it in the timescales they gave but no-one with less than 5 years experience there could find the responsible line of spaghetti.
Job 1: Founders not present in day-to-day activities, hired authoritarian manager that didn't understand the business. When my salary was late for the 3rd time, I quit. Went to work for a multinational, with better pay and more interesting challenges.
Job 2: Bored after 4 years and wasn't allowed to change teams.
Job 3: Very long commute and team lead was very unethical (lying to directors about technical issues, abusing budget, etc).
Job 4: Infrastructure renovation project was cancelled after they were bought by Google. It became a dead end job.
Job 5: Got offered more benefits and better pay at another company.
Job 6: Got bored after 2 years and there was nothing they could do, unfortunately. Great people though.
Job 7: NGO. Got bored after 4 years.
Job 8: NGO (Top 5 website in the world). Sold itself as solid engineering place. Turned out to be very political. Left after 8 months only.
Job 9: Still here. Might leave if I can't move the needle on engineering practices (most likely for political reasons)
Job 2: Bored after 4 years and wasn't allowed to change teams.
Job 3: Very long commute and team lead was very unethical (lying to directors about technical issues, abusing budget, etc).
Job 4: Infrastructure renovation project was cancelled after they were bought by Google. It became a dead end job.
Job 5: Got offered more benefits and better pay at another company.
Job 6: Got bored after 2 years and there was nothing they could do, unfortunately. Great people though.
Job 7: NGO. Got bored after 4 years.
Job 8: NGO (Top 5 website in the world). Sold itself as solid engineering place. Turned out to be very political. Left after 8 months only.
Job 9: Still here. Might leave if I can't move the needle on engineering practices (most likely for political reasons)
I haven't quit yet, but I certainly want to build a company. There isn't enough time in the day to do it on the side.
The recession shattered the company, but it somehow still functioned (this was 2012). The day to day job was a step back in terms of technology, tools, and methodology, and was not moving anywhere. Company got bought out by a huge corporation, and I couldn't see myself escaping the "hey this ticket is for your old company's app. it will keep you occupied until we have another one for it" loop, and never changing anything.
My org was constantly behind the “business” deadlines, leaving developers to work nights and weekends often. Bad personal growth (boring C#, tightly coupled, extremely complex enterprise app) due to doing the most lame bug fixes, and copying code to add a new UI. No fun! Tired of making pennies - needed to get out on my own!
My list of "things i want to do, but ... work" got too long. Taking vacation wouldn't make it better since the finite nature of it killed the feeling of freedom. Quit to go do a few of those things. Eventually missed having a job, so I got a new one.
Boss/Owner had no idea what was going on, wouldn't listen to our networking area, and asking the network team (2 including me) senior anything would be like pulling teeth from a chicken.
Found another job that paid 1.5x what I was making then and jumped ship immediately.
Found another job that paid 1.5x what I was making then and jumped ship immediately.
Product was not helping society. Only fuelling increased consumerism of pointless crap. I was on 3 days a week by the time I left, with a pro rata salary that sustained my life comfortably. Still couldn't justify the work to myself.
Better pay
I loved working at my last job mostly why I even stayed so long. I asked to be paid fairly and nothing happened, after a few weeks of looking I was offered 10x as much. Still miss working there though.
I loved working at my last job mostly why I even stayed so long. I asked to be paid fairly and nothing happened, after a few weeks of looking I was offered 10x as much. Still miss working there though.
10x?! For that to not be an astronomical amount, you would have had to be making around minimum wage, no?
It wasn't much above minimum wage. I really don't care about making a lot personally, I had access to interesting projects there and a lot of resources I could never afford personally, as well as the freedom to pursue what I was working on however I wanted. Also, everyone I worked with was brilliant and I learned a lot.
I just couldn't afford to live.
I just couldn't afford to live.
I make hyperbolic statements like this all the time. I'd personally take that to mean he jumped a few levels on the income ladder from say working poor to middle class. The point is it feels like 10x.
Same. I kind of miss my old work and company but I just make so much more money over here. Work is pretty boring atm though so I'm always looking around, kind of have the feeling I'm in a golden cage at the moment. Want to start something of my own but am too scared to actually do it after I recently got a kid.
Started my own business. Had enough of the corporate Rat Race after 10+ years. Now I am in the entrepreneurship Rat Race :)
Management does not understand software.
Part burnout and part fed up with their development process.
burnout from dead end job
Hey, me too
I went part-time elsewhere. Who cares if I earn less. At least I'm not shouted and sworn at all day any more. I do miss some of the devs though.