Hacker News Reader

Comment by bpchaps | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. That list is definitely surface level and should be taken on a case by case basis.

My recent employment adventure turned me cynical. My then-soon-to-be boss seemed great during the interview. He was technical, his questions were interesting and deep and the team seemed happy. Turns out he was a complete sociopath who made everyone's life living hell. The unhappy weren't invited to the interview.

The first clue from the second day at drinks should've been, "I voted no in hiring you, but [his boss/my previous company's CTO] convinced me to change my mind." in front of the other senior admin. Kinda downhill from there.

What makes these situations so difficult is that leaving a job early has such a strong negative effect on your future work prospects. Even worse, being unhappy at a job affects your work prospects, too. There really isn't a win in those situations.

View on HN

Leaving a job after the second day (or even the second week) doesn't need to have _any_ negative effects, you just leave it out of your CV.

Easier said than done. Being hired means you also wrap up all the other ties with the other companies you're working with. You effectively have to start over. Also, considering how small some fields are, doing this could be pretty damaging further down the line.

Sure, you need to be in a position where you _can_ walk away from a job - and be fairly confident you can pick up another one promptly, but leaving company A in Feb and starting at company B in April isn't something that'll raise questions about your CV - not the way leaving company A in Feb and starting at company B in June or August will.

It's a pretty good time to be a developer - most of us don't need to hang around under asshole bosses just to keep the rent paid next week. If you start a new role, and the red flags are waving madly on day 2, strongly consider walking out.

This advice won't apply to first-job-put-of-college devs, in that case you might just need to suck it up for a year, and put off buying that flash new car or taking that trip to Vegas until you've got 6 months living expenses saved (Note, may also not apply so well to fairly well paid junior or mid level devs who've gone way too deep with SF housing rental either... Same advice applies, build up a six month living expenses savings, so you _can_ afford to walk out on an asshole boss if you need too...)

Is it really? If the fields are that small, wouldn't other people know what kind of an ass that boss is, too?

I'm not looking in the same field anymore, so.. Yes. Really. :)

But yes, other people did know what type of boss he was. The last recruiter I worked with said, "You worked for X? That guy was fucking mental..."

Ahh, OK - if you're in a field so small that everybody knows everybody, it's somewhat different to the "Can you spell Javascript? Great, how does $140k and a BMW as a signing bonus sound? We're building Uber-but-for-seahorses!" scenario :-)

I not only know how to spell JavaScript, I also know that the 's' has been capitalized since Sun and Netscape first announced it, and I can even do magical, wizardly things with it! Where do I sign up for '$140k and a BMW as a signing bonus'?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com