Ask HN: Are you thinking about quitting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are you thinking about quitting?

28 pointsJoel_Mckay53 comments

If it was not irritating staff, than what finally tipped the scale.

Cheers =)

The actual doing of the work isn't pleasant. I like everyone fine, team members, team leads, execs. None of the people bother me. It's the processes and day to day work. It's just a shitty slog. I'd give anything for an infinite list of well written jira tickets that I could just grind through forever. I hate the fog of work which only has 1/2 a sprint of visibility. I don't need a mission statement or buy-in. I just want to be a cog in an actually functioning machine.

Agile is such a killer of morale and discretionary effort.

You're just not doing agile right!

I refuse to believe Agile is anything but a micromanagement framework.

Yeah, i feel exactly the same. Make someone write tickets with the exact problem/feature and expected behaviour.

Interesting comment, and really share the feeling. I’m curious to hear from others who read your words and went “oh yeah I definitely experienced something like that before.”

Personally I think this is hard to achieve. It would imply requirements never change. It would mean that the what and why behind a product are set in stone for months/years to come, including lower level functional details. It implies the market doesn’t move. And on another note, that you’re not part of discussions around technical feasibility, tech debt, and so on, that could change the trajectory of a project and its issues.

I don’t see an endless refined backlog happen, but I’d like to be wrong. Maybe this happens in something like airplane software engineering?

I would kill for a product owner that actually does their job, so I know what the hell am I supposed to be building.

My therapist told me I need to (and he's right).

On the surface I have a cushty job. I've been wfh since March 2020, and since the company was acquired in 2021 I fell between the cracks, I basically do what I like, and nobody cares. I'm currently doing my own thing in the morning and evening and working about 4-5 hours in between, but not achieving anything. I don't believe in the (new) company's goals and I don't feel I'm using my talents in a useful way. So it's not great for my mental health, but gee, I'm going to miss the freedom unless I get really lucky.

I hit a point where doing my current job just wasn't an option anymore. I was so unhappy, they could have been paying me 1 million a year and it wouldn't have mattered. I got there from a combination of feeling like I wasn't doing anything right, and even if I was none of it mattered anyways.

I've never felt that way about a job before, like despair. But it made it less of a decision and more of an eventuality.

This is exactly how I feel right now. In 2 hours I’m going to announce my 1 month notice to my boss. I have no next job lined up, but I do have about 1.5 years of expenses saved up. I am awful at my job, the writing is on the wall, and for months I haven’t found the motivation to care to do better. It’s demoralizing, especially since I consider myself a capable person.

You have my sympathies. I did this once (see my other comment). In my case, finding the next job without having an existing one was unusually difficult. (Yes, everyone says this.) Employers strongly avoid the unemployed. And as it happens, it cut my comp in half.

It's a tradeoff, but there's more to life than money.

In your case, did it end up being worth it in the end?

Yes, but the alternative in my case probably would have involved suicide. Unfortunately, that's not something you can tell prospective employers, as an explanation for taking a break. (I'm not at all suicidal these days, so worry not.)

My suggestion there is to think of a plausible fib that won't raise flags. You could make up a consulting jaunt or maybe a dying relative you had to take care of. Or just say you needed a sabbatical. This might seem unethical, but my read is that employers really _want_ to see you "act normal", which in our society means lying about certain things in a professional context.

I’m very glad to read this, as I am feeling in a similar boat, and the strong impetus to move was getting close to suicide. Thankfully, I am making progress and I have committed to the changes, which lifts my spirits.

This comment is encouraging, thank you.

Good luck. Perhaps useful to keep the Buddhist parable of the farmer in mind: https://donsnotes.com/religion/parables/buddhist-farmer.html

In short, it's hard to tell whether something that seems awful now might not turn out to be good in the long run.

As a counterpoint, I found it extremely easy to find a new job without having an existing one.

It's tough market. Take a step back.. take tomorrow off. Get your resume ready on the weekend and start applying. Give yourself a few days to understand the response level from applying and make a decision.

Don't give a month.. give two weeks when you need it (after the offer)

Yes. Solo Software Engineer employed in a company of like 30 people. The other people are Network Engineers, Security and Management.

Developing application for internal use. I'm employed with part-time contract (60%).

I'm burning out. I have to do everything. From project management, devops, gathering requirement, testing, customer support, documentation, instruct,... All you can think of doing as a team of at least 2-3 people, I'm doing it solo. This is not the way, I can feel it. The people don't open issues, don't communicate. I have to keep nagging, asking to give me feedback and test. Keep asking: test and give me a feedback. And then, when they need a feature to be usable, something breaks or don't work the way they thought should work (That's why damn it I asked to test and give me feedback). The thing that made me go crazy was when I asked to test a feature in the development version, so that when they feel ok, I would deploy it in production. I got answered: I can't be bothered to have two URLs and test on different version than the production version. I mean, what am I supposed to do?

I should at least be paid more. Looking for another company with an actual Software Engineer team, with an actual Project Manager and actual person/system that test the requirements/specification. With a member who spend most of his time to documenting and giving support. Thinking about quitting.

Always have to watch out for a business with 1 donkey cart... you usually end up pulling everything, and being treated like an ass.

Thank you, I am here all evening... lol =)

The only thing that keeps me from moving is the interview process. I am surprised there hasn't been some novel way to get staff without the traditional interview.

its pretty common these days, if you talking about avoiding programming problems. I don't think we've really internalized that much of what 'software' people do now isn't writing software...but I think we're starting to admit that revstring isn't doing us much good

Yes, I'm considering it.

- The company made a big push for RTO 4-5 days per week the past few months and I live about 2 hours drive away in rush hour. It's not required for me yet but will be if I ever shift clients.

- It's becoming increasingly clear that they only promote/give good raises to employees willing to work an extra 10-20 hours per week on internal projects outside of their 40-45 hour/week client work, and I haven't been willing to do that, I have too much going on outside of work hours.

- I'm getting a little burned out of my current client and project. I could have my company transition me to a new client and project (and thus probably require me to go to the office a lot more), or I could just find a new job for more money and be in the same boat that way.

- My spouse desperately wants to quit her almost six figure job (like yesterday, she doesn't want to wait) and make a big push to become a full-time writer (for probably about 10% of the pay, after expenses, at least to start. hopefully will make almost as much money as she is now in 2-3 years), and we determined what all she's paying right now, and currently it would require almost a full extra paycheck (>$3k/month) for me to cover everything she's been paying for right now, between half the mortgage, student loans, medical prescriptions, credit card payments, etc.

By both of us giving up on luxuries, going out to eat, subscriptions, and me cutting down on my own loan repayments and investments I can probably free up an extra $1200/month without too much problems, but getting the other half of it will require cuts I'm not sure I really want to make if at all possible (not maxing out 401k when I'm already way behind for my age, for example).

So I should probably try to get paid an extra $30-40k+ more if possible, which almost certainly won't happen at my current job.

Not saying it'll be super easy, as there's all the layoffs going right now. But I don't get paid anywhere close to SV wages right now, so I'm thinking I might still be able to work a bit cheaper than those laid off and yet still get that much of a bump, as long as I look outside of my region.

I've been at my current job for 18 months so far, btw.

I had been tired of the game for a solid couple of years when I got in an accident. Guy ran red light and t-boned my car. Came out unscathed but made me question all the decisions. Still took me another 2 years of figuring out next steps and finally quit.

It wasn't one major thing but several things leading up to a critical mass. During the process, found myself collecting and going back to some key pieces of writing that helped think through the decision. You might find these useful, collected all of them here: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame...

I've wanted to move since day 1 (~2 years ago), but haven't felt compelled to. Job search hasn't been. There simply don't seem to be many developer jobs in my country.

As for why, the three main reasons are the commute, the punitive atmosphere created by management and the outdated tech practices. For an example of that last one, I got a lot of praise for generating a root keypair and using that to sign certs for our internal services. Apparently they had been trying to do something like this for upwards of a year but couldn't figure it out.

WFH?

For my current job? They don't allow us to. For a company in a different country? I'm exploring this as an option these days. I don't feel great about my chances of getting a job at a serious company because the quality of my years of experience is really low (who wants to hear me talk about all the ASP.NET Web Forms apps I work on right now?). I think my best shot are "nearshore" contracting shops, so I'm trying to apply to those when I find them.

I quit one job in my career. I'd been pretty happy with my duties and very much so with my manager and coworkers. Then there was a reorg where I was reassigned to a group known throughout the company as a disaster under a new manager who knew nothing about the business but still hired a new level of (outside) management. The final straw was required frequent travel because he didn't like remote meetings (this was a few years pre-Covid) - so it was traveling across country to sit in a conference room for 2 hours, then home.

Yes.

This year I plan to join a large corp with good engineering standards. I am going to grind leetcode and system design if I can double my salary. If I fail at grinding leetcode I'm just going to apply everywhere and make move to a better corp.

Reasons: Understaffed. Things constantly breaking, which I have no power to fix because of a legacy system. New features over reliability. Poor team communication. People on different pages. Lack of care about quality as long as it works.

> a large corp with good engineering standards.

what are the examples? I've worked at amazon so thats out.

Honestly, if I am going to swim in shit, I would much rather swim in shit at bigger corp making more money. As long as its not predatory lending I don't really care.

I think microsoft has decent standards, but hard to get a remote position from last time I talked to a recruiter.

I'm in the exact situation. Thought a legacy system would be a fun project to modernize. Nope. It's hell. They don't want it modernized. Knowing more about it than before, I couldn't even if I wanted to. So for 2 years I've been keeping the house of cards and duck tape from falling over and I just can't give a fuck anymore.

curious if they will reach you 3 months after you quit.

They def will. Should make for some nice contract work here and there.

I'm in the same situation. I can take this anymore...

Not permanently, but yeah. I quit ~6 months ago. Made enough to support myself for a while and needed to take a break and focus on health.

Last few months I've started taking on small amounts of work and considering looking for full-time employment again in a few months.

No regrets - my health has improved.

I was fortunate enough to have a windfall a couple years ago and haven't had a full-time job since. It's a bit weird to just wake up and have nothing planned while all your friends at work, but over time you find hobbies/activities to focus on.

I dream about this happening to me. Without giving too much detail, can you say what kind of windfall? Inheritance, settlement, lottery pay day or something else?

I guess it depends on whether you need to work or want to work.

I caught enough of the money printer where I don't have to work but also doing nothing triggers my existential angst more than actually feeling like I'm working toward something.

I think about all the time, and wish I did quit sooner.

My issue is that I'm kind of in a Catch-22, or at least what I perceive to be one, with my career.

I just keep making excuses as to why I cannot quit, and I have succumbed to my own insecurities too much to make an actionable changes in my life including my career.

I sometimes wish I would just get fired or laid-off, so I have no choice but to be forced to find something new.

I just did. Since I got kids, it got worse, honestly. I waste so much time on work. I can't take it anymore if it's just another CRUD job. I have no idea what my next role will be. I will take some time to find something I like. I hope I can find one that gives a least some meaning.

I'm open to quit if someone offers me a better salary and/or working conditions. Since I don't have a degree and I am not in IT, this is a pipe dream.

As soon as I can sell my company I'm quitting!

Don't tell the buyer that, as golden handcuff clauses can be sneaky. ;)

Work to Rule is always an option if you don't want to quit. These types going 'above and beyond' as they advertised in their job interview and CV are probably not going to like going 'above and beyond' at every chance. That just leads to burnout.

First time I've heard of that phrase, can't believe that is basically what people are referring to with the term "quiet quitting."

I guess you are right. I forgot these principle of mine and went to the dark side.

I hate C

I believe it is subpar tech by modern standards

Also I wish there was more programming / SE

You should learn to enjoy the simple things in life.

Hmm, is it about C or lack of programming?

Probably meant Assembly, as one can't get much simpler than that... =)

I'm near the end of my (paying) career and have had about ten jobs. Most I eventually left just to "see more of the world" of tech work. (Two went bankrupt.)

I've only had one job that I quit "for cause". It looked like the best job I ever had, and would have been, except that my boss was a psychopath. It wasn't a close call, and I was seriously interviewing within three months of starting.

Except for unusual cases, all jobs are about the same. Any given job might be a bad fit for you personally.

Limited advice: If you're working with or for someone evil, leave ASAP. As for discretionary quits, keep in mind that your new job could be a lot worse, and you won't know until it's too late.

Curious, what sort of psychopathic red flags did your boss give off?

The first one was on my starting day. While showing me around the systems, he sat down at my PC and sent a vicious email, using _my_ account, to another group that I'd need to be on good terms with. I immediately had to go to them and diplomatically explain that I was not the one that wrote the email.

There were many other such instances, most worse and that were direct attacks against me. I probably could have won a lawsuit, but that's foolishness. If you're in a situation like that, run away as fast as you can!

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