Ask HN: Did you change jobs during the Great Reshuffling and regret it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Did you change jobs during the Great Reshuffling and regret it?

34 pointsbuttocks60 comments

The Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffling pretty much started in 2021 and is still going very strong today. It's hard not to feel like you could be missing out if you don't take the opportunity now to pursue a better job, especially one with better pay and work-from-home arrangements. That's how I felt as my coworkers started moving on to better roles, and when the recruiters started hitting me on LinkedIn, I decided to pay attention. Now a month into my new job, I feel like a traitor and sell-out. I had a long tenure at my previous role and had life pretty easy. I can't help but feel that the current wave of job changing is fueled by hype and greed, and honestly I do not think that companies deserve to be screwed by all this turnover. While I am confident I can do fine in my new role, I have a nagging disappointment about contributing to this current trend.

View on HN

> I do not think that companies deserve to be screwed by all this turnover

Perhaps companies should better look after their employees and give them a reason not to leave. Many of us are fed up of being underpaid and undervalued. Add to that the increasing demands to return to an office and it's not hard to see why we're jumping ship to work for businesses that pay better and offer remote working arrangements.

I changed jobs almost a year ago and have zero regrets. I had a long tenure too. What did it get me? Maybe a 2-4% raise a year if I was lucky (which we all know is a pay cut in disguise when you consider inflation). None of us should feel that we have to be loyal to a business. That same business would lay you off in a heartbeat if it would save them money.

Yeap. Work my ass off and got rewarded with 3% this year. I have golden handcuffs with a retention bonus in early *2024* so they think I am locked in. Cue the shocked Pikachu faces when I resign soon because the idea of being there in 1.75 years almost gives me a panic attack.

> a 2-4% raise a year if I was lucky (which we all know is a pay cut in disguise when you consider inflation)

Well, when inflation was around 2-3%, it was alright: one could more or less keep up, without having to change.

But this year inflation skyrocketed and now that's definitely not good enough.

A raise keeping up with inflation says to employees that you do not believe they are any more valuable this year than they were last.

Most other companies would view e.g. 7 years progressing experience worth more than 4 years.. or 5 years with AWS experience is better than 2..

So I would argue it is not alright, unless it was the anomaly, not the expectation...

I'd argue that what you describe is seniority, which should be reflected in job title changes - with related salary increases. If your title does not change, you're effectively expected to carry out the same job as last year, so it makes sense to keep your salary static after inflation.

If your title does not change after 3-4 years, you can assume that management has no real intention to help you with career progression.

If your job title changes but you don't get a salary increase with it (apart from inflation matching), then that is probably the time to go to the job market and see what that title is worth elsewhere.

> I'd argue that what you describe is seniority, which should be reflected in job title changes - with related salary increases. If your title does not change, you're effectively expected to carry out the same job as last year, so it makes sense to keep your salary static after inflation.

this is what they say, but companies don't actually operate this way in my experience. companies tend to expect more of you after you've been there a while, whether or not they formalize this with a promotion. the title denotes a fairly wide compensation band with a lot of variation.

If you like the new job then you have nothing to worry about. Forget the “traitor” thing entirely. It’s just business.

There has been a huge uptick of “I hate my new job what should I do?” posts in an advice/mentoring community I’m part of.

The common theme in the posts is people who had quite comfortable positions at their previous employer but maybe didn’t realize it at the time. They went out and got higher paying jobs at companies that were desperately in need of engineers where they tend to have higher wages, shorter interviews to get people in the door. When the new job demands higher performance commensurate with the higher compensation and the company want everyone performing at a high level, it comes as a shock to the system to people who were accustomed to lax companies with lax delivery schedules.

Of course there are people for whom the opposite has happened or who are doing the same work for better pay now. Those people are happy! But I think the “great resignation” narrative being repeated over and over again created a lot of FOMO that also churned people out of otherwise comfortable jobs at good companies, with mixed results.

> The common theme in the posts is people who had quite comfortable positions at their previous employer but maybe didn’t realize it at the time. They went out and got higher paying jobs at companies that were desperately in need of engineers where they tend to have higher wages, shorter interviews to get people in the door. When the new job demands higher performance commensurate with the higher compensation and the company want everyone performing at a high level, it comes as a shock to the system to people who were accustomed to lax companies with lax delivery schedules.

That's me! The new company lured me in with a lot of money, but they were a dysfunctional mess (nobody even knew what the architecture is...). I quit after two months.

Nothing ventured nothing gained. But of course, venturing is not risk free.

The, I you're comfortable where you are, the gains needs to be hi.

Traitor? To a company? What a concept. Corps will happily throw people on the street.. I don't understand that guilt that seems interwoven in your post. I changed jobs recently and got much better pay and WLB. Not doing so would have been betraying myself.

> I don't understand that guilt that seems interwoven in your post.

An account called "buttocks", with corresponding smiley in description... the potential for being trollish in nature is relatively high.

Their history shows dozens of normal comments over a ~3 month period. If they're trolling, it's a very long troll.

I'm not trolling, just anonymous and being goofy about it. Kiss my butt :D

You’re being extremely naive if you think of yourself as a traitor. If you stopped performing at your current level due to a major life event, most companies would fire you. You’re a resource being expended by your employer. Even if they treat you well we all know that they’d stop paying you if you became terminally ill for any real length of time, and you very likely weren’t given a pension to support you in old age either. The companies least affected by this trend are the ones that have given their employees better bargains (see fedex v UPS)

> I do not think that companies deserve to be screwed by all this turnover.

While this line gets a lot of attention, I want to attack the misconception too:

You owe your employer exactly what's in your contract. That's your agreement.

If you think you owe them something out of the goodness of your heart, and they have no contractual obligation to compensate you proportionally for that, then you're making unnecessary rules for yourself.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be insensitive towards knowing your employer will be screwed if you leave; but if that is truly the case, and you're not explicitly being acknowledged for this importance (contractually, monetarily, benefits-wise, responsibility-wise), you need that to grow. Where you're at, or somewhere else.

I remember talking to a past manager about how excited I was about an acquaintance who had accepted a position through my effort. The manager said he would celebrate on the day this person stepped through the door on his first day, and not sooner, because he'd seen people change their minds up until the last moment. It's just business.

A part of being a professional is being able to operate with sunk costs.

As someone who hasn't changed jobs despite some opportunities I have seen a couple members of our team who did leave for greener pastures. Both have since returned when those jobs didn't live up to their expectations. One just announced they were leaving again.

I don't blame either of them leaving though the one who is leaving again has certainly burned some bridges and lost any good will he had from the coworkers they repeatedly leave in the breach.

A lot of the comments are anti-company, and I get that though I don't they they are always deserved or relevant. In our case it's the people who didn't leave who have to deal with the extra workload while the company tries to fill positions where you can't just pluck some yahoo off the street.

In the end if you made the move because it was best for you and not out of malice then I wouldn't feel any regret.

My food expenses have doubled. My utilities have nearly tripled. It's a crime not to be looking for a new job right now, unless of course you're happy with what you're making.

Where are you that utilities tripled?

UK potentially

As an expat currently in the UK - my electric tariff is about to go from .18p per kWh to .36p. Gas is doubling as well. Most homes here have awful insulation, so I’ll be looking at 230gbp a month for my little two bedroom apartment. It’s crazy out here.

Yikes - we were rocking $23 in electricity for a 5-room flat here in Canada a few years ago.

Crazy, probably 3x what would be reasonable per kWh in Australia.

Not the commenter you were referring to, but for context, i'm in the UK and have seen water increase by 25%, gas and electric increase by 32%.

Likely UK or Europe. We've been hit by the Ukraine situation harder than elsewhere, because Putin started hoarding gas last year to prepare for the Ukraine campaign.

I didn't see much of a trouble in France - yet. It's probably UK because of, you know, that little smart Brexit thing.

You have cheap nuclear. Countries without that, like Italy, are seeing similarly high inflation rates on basic utilities.

We are definitely less protected towards this sort of event because of Brexit, but this is bigger than that.

Loyalty is for people, not corporations. I also don't think generalizing about what "companies deserve" is super useful, and definitely not something to internalize.

Personally, I feel a moral duty to do my best work wherever I happen to be employed, but it's still transactional. If they treat me well, and the work is interesting, I'm more likely to stay, but it's not an obligation. Now, if some individuals really stick their neck out for me, that does buy some loyalty, but only within reason. At the end of the day it's still a business and when the winds shift leadership will have to put the overall business health ahead of individuals.

You can always be screwed by changing jobs, it shouldn't be taken on lightly. But I think a lot of us are enjoying that companies are now offering us more flexibility, better work, and better pay, for the same job. And tech workers had already been changing jobs every 3 years.

Certainly I can attest there's some greed involved in my current job hunt. But the greater factor is getting to work on what I really want to work on. I want to feel excited to go to work, like I'm serving a useful purpose, and not just contributing to society's ills and bankrolling of some rich white dudes. For me that means I have to change jobs. This is just a great time to do it.

Having entered adulthood in the US during the Great Recession and being laid off the second it benefited the company (despite easily turning a profit), I cannot understand your position. My grandparents had hefty pensions and their careers grew _with_ their companies. Modern management practices dictate short-term margin as a priority meaning high-salaried employees are considered risks before boons. That, coupled with the well-known fact that salaries do not keep pace with CoL, it is nonsensical _not_ to take the same approach - always be on the lookout for your next step at any time.

Pensions are long gone in most small "startuppy" companies. That takes away one big motivator to stay.

Agreed. That was a large source of "loyalty" for older generations. My wife's father will retire soon with a generous pension - one of the last of the factory workers who had a pension. Employees aren't loyal and that is largely a self-inflicted issue.

I can't help but think that this post is astroturfing by a company that keeps losing its employees due to better conditions elsewhere. The thought of feeling guilty for an employer is preposterous to me.

Not necessarily employer, but you can easily feel guilty for a team. I did when i left a few months ago because i knew i was a valuable contributor, there was lots of stuff going on and that it'd take a long time for me to be replaced, leaving the people I've worked with for years, and whom i liked, under extra pressure.

Certainly they divided up your salary among them until they can find a suitable replacement.

If they only divided up the work I don't see a good reason to feel pressured.

I really liked the mission of the company I worked for. The management was poor and they did nothing as they saw my coworkers going out the door. Then I left too. That doesn't mean I want to see my former company and its mission suffer. That may not be completely rational but preposterous seems a bit harsh.

Loyalty is a two-way street or it's not loyalty, it's an abusive relationship.

It is not rational to treat a company like a human no matter what their policies and behaviors are, even when they are great, but especially when they don't treat you like a human.

Remember that basic thing any time anyone tries to make any other kind of argument.

If the company doesn't treat you the same way you would treat say your sister or a friend etc, complete with lending you emergency money and driving you to the airport and helping paint your deck... then they are not your friend.

Which is fine. The purpose of a company is not necessarily to be anyone's friend. A company is an artificial construct, a tool to perform a job just like a lawnmower. You don't feel guilty about replacing a lawnmower no matter how well it's served you.

People inhabit a company, but the company itself is not a person, it's a legal document and a structure of organization.

It has certain properties that make it somewhat of an entity, but so does a yeast cell.

It's not a person and it is wrong to allow it to convince you into granting it personhood considerations, especially when it does not grant them to you, ut really no matter what, even if it's been great to you.

All that means is that if they are fair and professional with you, then it's right to be fair and professional with them. You do honest work and don't seek to harm them for no reason etc.

But at it's best it's still only ever a purely business relationship. They don't owe you anything but the terms of the contract, which remember btw, they wrote, not you, and so you only owe them exactly that same thing. Not just legally but morally and ethically too.

You shopping for a better deal is not merely a technicality or legal loophole that lets you get away with behaving badly, it's simply not behaving badly in the first place.

It's not a mark against your integrity to insist on this basic respect and dignity. If anything it's a mark towards it because everyone who insists on being treated like a human are the ones helping to raise the standard that makes everyone else's lives less miserable. Too many people are too easily abused and exploited, and so the few that stand up for themselves are actually critical for us all.

I changed jobs at the end of 2020, my new job has better pay and better work-from-home arrangements, and I don’t regret a thing.

My hypothesis is that a significant chunk of the people who changed jobs circa 2021 are people who would have changed jobs in 2020 if there hadn’t been a pandemic, but held off for about a year while things shook out.

> I do not think that companies deserve to be screwed by all this turnover. While I am confident I can do fine in my new role, I have a nagging disappointment about contributing to this current trend.

How are companies being screwed? By one half of an at-will relationship exercising their will? Do you have as much sympathy when companies cut employees loose, often with too little notice? All in all, your concern sounds naive.

If you've contributed to anything it's waking up companies with lazy leadership, mediocre managers, and culture-less culture. These place are real.

And I myself am proud for having pushed myself away from the table and stated, "Not for me. No thanks. I'm leaving. There's no sustainable future here."

> I can't help but feel that the current wave of job changing is fueled by hype and greed

If you were financially independent before changing jobs, then there may be an element of greed to it. But even a financially independent person may change jobs for a vast number of reasons that don't involve accumulating wealth for the sake of it.

If you are not financially independent (i.e. you fall somewhere between a wage slave and a nearly financially independent person), there is no way you changed jobs out of greed. Inflation is high enough that ordinary people will either get a raise or become noticeably poorer in the next couple of years.

This research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco indicates that the "Great Resignation" does not exist in our industry. Quit rates had transient excursions for young, less-educated workers in service industries like food. They did not rise for educated professionals, in fact they are near all-time lows.

https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...

Overall I left for a reason and it wasn’t just about the money because my old company offered to match. I feel excited about my work in a way I haven’t felt in years. There’s no way my old company could have given me that. It’s hard to build up a new reputation but it’s totally worth it just to not feel that terrible boredom/burnout feeling anymore. People are nicer and it’s a much better work culture too. And pay is better. No regrets yet.

Sounds like you got FOMO and are regretting it.

Did you actually care about better pay or WFH arrangements?

I'd feel bad if I thought I was screwing people by leaving. But companies aren't people, they're a fictional entity that we give people-like qualities. We do so in order to benefit real people. Often that's forgotten and we get a mix of companies being seen as evil when actually it's the people in charge, or people taking advantage of the company, when in fact that is what a company is for.

One of my attempts at a life rule is to moderate my cynicism according to how cynically others are playing the game. If I see the managers in charge are pressing the line between what's right and what's legal, I will do so too when dealing with them. If I see someone who is more concerned about what's right than what's profitable, I will also relax a little and be a bit generous.

There's a version of you in a parallel universe that kept their old job and is feeling like they have lost a big opportunity and regretting not getting out of their zone of comfort, like you did.

Seriously, congratulations on your new job.

Keep in mind the average job length of a programmer is about four years. This was true before covid. People change jobs a lot. For lots of reasons, money being one. If you were happy you should have stayed. Unless it was a significant bump in salary it shorter commute it more vacation or something you really wanted to do Other than perhaps a pause at the beginning of the pandemic and assume people leading to work remotely, there isn't much difference about the "great reshuffling" than before

"I don't think companies deserve to be screwed over." If only there was something companies could do, to prevent people from going to another company for a higher paying job.

I changed jobs about six months ago. overall it was a pretty nice place to work, but they didn't pay enough to retain people. they froze raises during the pandemic despite continuing to post profits >30%. I left for a role where I get paid twice as much to work a little harder. the old company countered with a ~10% raise on my way out the door. I do miss my old team, but apparently that company just didn't value my work very highly.

Most companies will axe you without a second thought. The concept of loyalty to a company is akin to Stockholm syndrome.

Loyalty to people? Sure. But corporations aren’t people.

It's nothing new. People have always changed jobs. And people who change every two years end up with 50% better salaries over time. If you haven't added enough value in those two years to make it worth hiring you in the first place, then you probably weren't a great hire in the first place.

Yup. Left an “okay” position in April 2021. New place started out fine and then went straight to the shitter.

New bossman was toxic af.

Decided I’d rather commute into an office that work for thst dickhead anymore. Of course, the RTO isn’t happening for a few months but the new shop is 1000000000000x better

Companies will RIF you without a second thought so don't feel bad at all. You have move on so go with that. In saying that, the grass isn't always greener and other folk leaving your team creates opportunities for you.

If you left a job for better pay and other benefits, how do you feel like you betrayed or screwed the company? If they hadn't been underpaying and underappreciating you first, would you have left?

You have to consider the other point of view, if it's a choice between you or the business, then the corporations will always choose the business. Look after yourself first, you're fine.

I made the jump about a year ago (over WFH). Zero regrets. Love my new role.

A company is not a person, and when the going gets touch, it will not treat you like a person either.

Companies are free to start offering employment contracts if they don't want to be "screwed". The at-will relationship works both ways.

I made the jump to consulting almost a year ago.

Even though it has been challenging at times, I have never been happier with this decision.

You think companies are being screwed and this concerns you?

50% raises by FAANG or we will keep on shuffling.

traitor and a sell out? did you stop working for a charity and start working for facebook or nestle or something?

I changed jobs and I don't regret it. I left federal contracting due to vaccine mandates. New job is very comfortable. Making a bit more money, far less work. Good growth potential on the stock grants. I guess thanks to Biden for making me question my job security enough to start looking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com