Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did you quit your job(s)?

16 pointsfastbeef24 comments

Looking back at my career, quitting each job meant I learned something about myself or the industry.

Job 1: Wanted more money.

Job 2: Learned that what companies say and promise isn't really worth anything. Wanted more money.

Job 3: Learned that companies change with time just like people and that sometimes you outgrow eachother. Wanted more money.

Job 4: I actually don't care about the companies mission. I just want to clock in, work and clock out. Wanted more time/shorter commute.

Job 5: Even if I'm wildly successful at this place, it's a career dead end and I don't want to stay here until retirement. Wanted more money.

Job 6: Self-employed contractor. 30 hour work weeks, paid well and plenty of energy for my family. Staying here for a while.

Why did you quit your job HN?

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I quite often feel like I was not made for full time jobs. I know that it's what lazy people say (and quite likely I'm one lol), but I'm amazed that even in spite of my laziness I managed to acquire FIRE money before I'm 40 (and also, without the help of the mad FAANG salaries). To answer your questions - I quit pretty much all my jobs because of the same reason - namely that I don't like working. The job I did were either too dull/repetitive, narrow-minded and/or pointless/stupid to hold my interest. I suspect that the job that would be acceptable for me may not exist - i.e. it would be so nice that the employer wouldn't have to pay for people to work it.

BTW now when I'm basically at FIRE money (I will still work for some months to pad out my account), I feel like I've swam through the ocean of shit to get here.

I hear you, same boat. Tried the big corp thing, startup lottery grind, settled on an easy remote gig (part time) while I run headfirst towards FIRE. Working great for stress levels so far.

What do you do if you don’t mind answering? I recently quit my job because of my mental health and would love to find a part time job though having trouble finding one in the tech space

I'm mostly working contracts (programming, architecture). I quit them fairly regularly - I've just checked and my median time of stay on a job is 12 months (ranges between 4 and 22). Between the contracts, I take ample amounts of free time to recover and convince myself that I can do it again...

Regarding part time, after proving to be a valuable addition to the team, I was twice able to convince my bosses to let me work part time (60% and 50%). Depends on the local market and how hot you are compared to an average replacement available to your boss, asking for part-time can be very feasible. However, in my case it didn't help much as I, in both cases, still quit a couple months later anyway.

At jobs, I feel like my soul is poisoned by all the crap and idiocy that takes place there and working less does not fundamentally change it that much (the poison is still there). Fundamentally, I feel like I didn't learn the skill of copying with job suckiness that most people seem to have mastered. Hence, my only hope is FI and then doing my own thing (I have some ideas) as a way to stay productive and generate some extra income.

For the last years I was working on several startups as a contractor.

I always put my very soul to the success of the project, tried to be friend for everyone on the team, committed for 40-50 hours per week. When projects demanded non-profile skills from me, I was open-minded, trying to learn new skillset in no-time to help as quickly as possible.

All the times I was dissapointed on being really no-one in the end for the project.

Despite I was trying to be guiding voice to help project to stay away from bad decisions, project owners were not really listening.

I said, many-many times things like "let's stop delivering new features until we will have at least 1 paying customer and focus on getting customer flow", CEOs just kept pushing in obviously wrong direction which ultimately meant end for the project.

Now I'm fed with all of this and decided to put my limited time to my own projects.

Job 1: Graduated college and got a job in my major

Job 2: Economy shifted (dot-com bubble popped.) CEO asked me to over bill hours to our largest client

Job 3: Company went bankrupt

Job 4: Ran my own company for 13 years. Went to Burning Man and it flipped switches in my brain. I could no longer stand working alone in my basement and got a regular job

Job 5: After a fun 3 years, Board of Directors seized control of the company, fired the founder/CEO, and replaced managers with people from their last startup. I gave it a year, but we didn't click and I left over personality differences.

Job 6: Best job ever. Company and I both took a risk as I was under-qualified but the position was open for more than a year. Eventually wasn't able to perform as needed and we decided to separate. Cool company let me stay on as long as I needed to interview, let me make contact with anyone in their LinkedIn network, etc. Fired in the nicest way ever and still respect them.

Job 7: Myself an several others injured during office renovation. The office turned into a literally a toxic environment. After returning from Worker's Comp, CEO started referencing imaginary "performance problems" and thought our injuries were all "pre-existing conditions" despite OSHA investigation. Decided I liked being able to breathe air and not worry about getting fired.

Job 8: Having a great time with new coworkers and hope I stay here a long time!

(This covers 1996 to 2020)

1. Owner didn't pay me. Lots of manipulative BS. Wanted more money.

2. Startup seemed okay with me being remote at the start but weren't actually okay with it.

3. Contract ended amicably with contracting company.

4. Job seemed okay but they sold the client on an impossible deadline. Left when shit hit the fan.

5. On a very longterm contract but grew bored with the tech and suspected the contract would get cut short so I jumped to something that seemed more long term with potential to learn something new.

6. CEO made promises and didn't deliver so I'm fielding offers and will probably leave once I get something that pays more.

Lessons: 1. You make more money every time you jump ship. 2. Don't listen to what people say. Listen to what they do. 3. No boss/company is interested in providing you with opportunities to learn. They all want to exploit an existing skill set and all real learning has to happen on your own time. 4. Employers don't really want remote. They give it begrudgingly because enough of the talented people are demanding it. 5. It's probably better to just let contracts end, then double-dip during the transition. 6. These people aren't your family.

Job 1: StartUp shut their doors, got laid off + they paid terrible.

Job 2: Not alligning at all with CTO nor CEO, terrible attitude (OH: "being sick is just a mindset...")

Job 3: Poured my soul into the company, was respected left right and center, but CTO was absolutely clueless. PhD, never coded in his life, had no idea what he was doing. Quit.

Job 4: Marketing and sales driven company, hundreds of Instagram people who drove the StartUp hype train without personality or interest. Good team but terrible environment.

Job 5: Went freelancing ever since. 4-8 months long projects, doubled my income, not attached anymore to a company mission or politics, do my best work and leave.

Job 6: Found a remote + freelance gig. Perfect combination. Have time for my family and myself (Hobbies in the middle of the day, bit more work after my kids are in bed etc.). Be able to have breakfast with them in calm and piece without having to catch a train or beat rush hour.

Excluding jobs in High School and College...

Job 1. Not happy with the work I was doing, management was pushing me to learn ASP.Net and Windows stack, wanted to continue using Linux and open source languages.

Job 2. After 5 years I felt like I was stagnating and not learning enough. We started getting projects where I was again spending lots of time in the Windows stack again.

Job 3. Job was "Remote" and an awesome learning experience but I wanted to work "global remote".

Job 4. Currently where I'm at and enjoy the freedom but I do much less development than I used to and that is starting to eat at me I think (We'll see!).

Maybe I've been lucky but I've never switched jobs for pay.

What's your opinion on the windows stack now that .net is open source?

I'm totally for the open source bits, we use .Net Core heavily at my current job now. I like the change in Microsoft and windows. Still don't use Windows on the server or desktop but I like .Net core.

Job 1 was government related and very slow pace

Job 2 was for more money

Job 3 was because I didn't like the company (ended up going back to Job 2 with a big raise after 6 months)

Job 4 (same company as Job 2) because I wanted to change industries and live abroad

Job 5 was because of pay and startup having a bad financial moment

Job 6 was for a better offer, same industry and similar role. Worth noting that job 6 had promised me a raise that never happened. Likely if it wasn't for feeling lied to I would still be there.

Job 7 is current job and really happy about everything ! Not even open to conversations with other companies. I could likely double my salary in a FAANG if it was what I wanted.

Job 1: Lucky to find a job during the recession at an aerospace consultancy which let me learn a lot but after 4 years without a raise I was looking for more money!

Job 2: I enjoyed the project, my team, and the salary was good, but corporate politics eventually killed the project and split up the team. I took a lateral move to a new company.

Job 3: Currently at a smaller company recently acquired, so everything is in flux.

When I am looking for a new job I am not just looking at the current salary but career growth and hoping to get in a strong industry. Right now industrial is a tough industry.

Job 1: Very old technology. Wanted more money Job 2: Government contracting job and by the end I had no work. Bad culture (there was no work). Told me they were debating between a 2% and 2.5% raise and decided on 2.5% because they really liked me lol. Job 3: Company was in the process of going bankrupt and I wanted to relocate to Silicon Valley. I got laid off before I landed a new job though :) Job 4: FAANG - I'm happy here for now

Job 1: They waited until after 5 minutes of the end of my last day to tell me the contract was being renewed

Job 2: I had the opportunity to be an early stage employee (#2 actually) at a startup I liked

Job 3: After 9 years, I had given everything I could to that startup I liked

Job 4: I found out I'm not built for corporate bulls*

Job 5: They ran out of money and let us go

Job 6: I had a better offer

Job 7: I have a better offer and will work from a coworking space I fell in love with

Most of the time when I've quit a job, it's because I'd grown bored with the work and wanted to do something new. Less frequently, I've also quit jobs because they were (or became) terrible, and because I wanted to move to a different area.

I think those three reasons covers every instance where I've quit a job (ignoring contract work where the contract ended and I opted not to renew).

Job 1 (6 months): Bored at a big company and wanted a startup.

Job 2 (4 years): Burned out and was interested in a career change.

Job 3 (6 months): Not into career change, starting a family instead. Back to startup.

Job 4 (7 years): Startup was coasting and I'd done everything I wanted.

Job 5 (6 years): New startup that got acquired but didn't love role in new company so found a new, interesting role.

Job 6 (1.5 years): Didn't like the new role or company

Job 7 (still here):

Job 1: learned everything I could there and got bored.

Job 2: lasted 3 months, fairly shit job, so I left

Job 3: got bored

Job 4: got a better offer

Job 5: not really left, we got accuired

Job 6: (blue app company) didn't like my direct manager and wanted a long time off. The team I used to be part of had the only project I wanted to work on at said company.

Job 7: still there, but I'm getting bored...

Every time I got more money

- Job 1: Moved to a new city

- Job 2: a personal thing happened with my supervisor which sort of sent me into a downward spiral, emotionally and also professionally. I decided to get out of there to start over.

- Other random jobs I've usually left because it just felt like it was time. Outgrew my post, that sort of thing.

Almost always a bad manager, or bad management in general. And by bad, I mean terrible.

Switching jobs almost always came with a raise, but I never cared about money that much.

A couple of times I automated myself out of a job. Can't stand having nothing to do, even for good pay, so left.

Job 1 (18 months): Desperately needed to change industry, I worked in game dev, and it was most probably the most unfulfilling experience ever.

Job 2 (20 months): Was startup, so company matured a lot and lost all of its glamour.

Job 3 (8 months in - still there):

There are a few reasons:

"People don't leave jobs. They leave bosses." This is true. I have done it, and I see others do it. And it has happened to me.

You outgrow the position or company. This has also happened for me.

I only quit once, the CTO (my direct-manager) was a huge micromanager and would belittle you when you answered his questions.

More money, or the opportunity to work with “better” engineers. (Scare quotes because the betterness was by my perception from the outside. Sometimes they really were better, sometimes they were better at some things and worse at others)

At this point, only money- all the other stuff is subject to change, rapidly, without warning. But the money is written in a contract.

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