Ask HN: Got hired for a position that doesn't exist. How do I leave? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Got hired for a position that doesn't exist. How do I leave?

50 pointsplease_help68 comments

I'm a recent CS graduate from a decent university in the US. It's no CS powerhouse but it's well respected and decently known. I won't name which because I don't want my co-workers to accidentally see this and identify me.

During my last semester we had a guest lecturer in my parallel programming class. He came from a local startup which supposedly created advanced systems to assist the work of other statups.

The engineer from the startup went on and on about how each day there is a challenge and you learn so much. I decided to apply and see what would come out of it.

I went through a very tough series a interviews complete with Python puzzles and whiteboard problems. During these interviews I was reassured the job there was challenging and rewarding. I got a (generous) offer and accepted.

Fast forward to my first day and I ask my team lead what's the project I'll work on and I quickly learn that the challenging work is done in a sister office. I get told that this location mostly does very simple client facing Java Swing applications. I was devastated and almost quit on the spot. I would have if not for the fact that I have very large student debts and can't afford to not work.

Now I've been working there for a month and I've tried everything to get assigned interesting work. It's pretty much impossible since no such work is even done at my location.

How do I get myself out of this? I'm looking for other jobs already. I could omit ‎my current position from my resume but then I'll be forced to reveal it if I get an interviews during regular office hours.

I have a friend who wants to personally refer me to work on his team at Amazon but I don't want to blow the interview. I would practice but at the end of the day I'm so burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake.

I know there are no clear cut solutions but I'm interested in hearing from people who had similar experiences.

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I consistently deal with this as do many of my coworkers. Here's some suggestions:

- Take care of your immediate responsibilities first (rent, food, loan payments, etc)- this is non-negotiable unless you have a golden parachute (i.e. mom & dad). It's quite honorable to work for survival.

- Always keep an eye out for a better job, the more interviews you go on the easier they will be. Never be satisfied where you are if personal growth is important to you.

- NEVER expect to just be given the most interesting work out of the gate at a new job. That's not the way it works. You generally have to prove yourself. If they are not delivering on a promise that may be a separate concern, but I'd be skeptical of a job that would give a rookie dev the "interesting" work (which is usually the architecture work).

- Identify problems at work and solve them in your free time, then present them to the appropriate people; that is the best way to fast track your own interesting work. Note the politics of your company and be sure to not step on any toes.

- Most importantly, do your own interesting work on the side. Start a company, create/contribute/maintain an open source project. I can't stress enough the incredible opportunities that exist for skilled developers that have some initiative.

- Get in a good routine that works to accomplish your short and long term goals, it's unusual for a job to satisfy that entirely.

> It's quite honorable to work for survival.

What does that even mean? It's necessary sure, it can also be a smart strategy, but honorable? You don't owe them anything and staying for 'honor' is foolish imo.

I took it as "you shouldn't consider it a personal failure to be temporarily doing crap work just to pay the bills".

I think if you need to work at McDonalds to avoid calling mom and dad for money, then that's honorable. The easy unsustainable way out is not usually the best. I've been there.

Depends on your relationship with your parents.

If your parents are supportive and you are looking for a CS degree, only work at McDonalds if you feel like a life experience - probably not a bad idea.

If you have opportunity to get a zero interest loan from your parents or free bedroom with no external judgement (ie, supportive parents), that is a far better standpoint to spend your days working full-time at getting a job in your field.

Definitely (I'd be hypocritical to say I didn't take advantage of that myself), but when I hit 25 those zero interest loans weren't there anymore.

Great advice all around. I'd also add to this an important, but somehow occasionally controversial piece of advice: don't just quit the job. Yes, it's not ideal to be looking around for another job after only having been there for a month or two. But that's a lot better than looking for a job as an unemployed person. A lot of companies——certainly not all, but many——attach a deep stigma to unemployed job seekers.

I've been in your position before. Well, sort of. At the time, I hated seeking advice and getting responses along the lines of, "Well, that sucks. But just make the most of it." But there's really something to that advice. Make the most of it, and in the meantime, conduct a job search.

The good news is that you're an engineer! I cannot possibly overstate what an advantageous position that puts you in with respect to 99.99% of job seekers on the market. If you were anything else——a salesperson, a marketer, a corporate strategist, or what have you——your situation would be a lot thornier than it is. At least take some solace in that your line of work is in high demand.

I completely agree about not quitting (if the job is unsatisfying). I've found I consistently have way more confidence going on an interview already employed.

When the motivation is more personal fulfillment or better pay/conditions, and less "Can I put food on the table and a roof over my head", there's a lot less pressure and nervousness about the interview as well.

And you have more power since you don't "need" the job you can be a better negotiator.

I see some good advice on this thread so a followup question.

I'm about to quit my job with the aim of starting up my own company. I don't have a lot of non-tech contacts - i.e. potential customers and angel investors. That is my biggest worry.

I can't really bootstrap while on the job since I am currently in a large corporate job where the company owns everything I dream up.

So .. while I agree with all the advice about not quitting a job until one has another one lined up (I've given the same advice to others) ... I am about to go against this advice myself.

Any words of advice on how to manage this? Am I bonkers? Some stats ... have 6 months of living costs in liquid savings. No kids. Going to be leaving a job that pays north of 120K (which is not much in elite companies it seems).

One of my best friends went through a very similar predicament with her startup a few years ago. She and her startup aren't technical, interestingly enough, but she's been very successful, and has raised a fair amount of VC and angel money on the basis of very few a priori connections.

She bootstrapped while on the job. I am not 100% sure how she managed that vis-a-vis her employer, but I'm guessing that she had a conversation with them and put her cards on the table, and that they came to an agreement of some sort. Incidentally, IANAL, but my understanding of those workplace IP agreements is that they only cover inventions and ideas you come up with "in the course of performing your job," or something to that effect. They do not cover nights and weekends. Read your contract's fine print, though, because there have been horror stories here.

Hit me up over email (address in my profile) if you're interested in speaking to my friend about her experience. I'm also happy to help as best I can.

Two issues: You are new to the job, in your first month and you are already pushing for all the interesting stuff. Welcome to the world of commercial programming! Sometimes it sucks but also sometimes knuckling down and getting stuff done will either a) get them to put you onto much harder/interesting projects as you are easily capable with the easy stuff you've been knocking out. b) Getting the easy stuff out of the way means you can then spend time tinkering on algorithms or reading online to further your knowledge.

At the end of the day you have money and time on your side, I was once in a similar position and I cut back on everything social to optimise my time away from work to find a job that I really enjoyed. Good luck but try not to moan too much, even 6 months there will help dividends with finding future work. (No one wants someone that is gonna quit immediately because they don't get what they want to do all the time).

This is right on with what I was thinking, but I'd add that it's the recruiter's job to make the company sound so appealing that new recruits want to work there, but they aren't the ones driving work assignments. Not only is it acceptable to ask what you're going to be doing, it's encouraged. They may have well known you'll be doing Java stuff at first, but still flashed the lights in your eyes. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Thanks for your comment. I couldn't expand too much with the allotted 2000 characters but the thing is that I can't really get transferred to the other projects.

The interesting work is done in an office on the opposite coast and I can't move for family reasons.

I understand I might sound difficult but what really got me down is that the interviewer pretty much flat out told me "You will not do CRUD. Brush up on your algorithms!".

Anyway thanks again for the comment it's nice to know people were in similar situations and got themselves out of it.

> I can't really get transferred to the other projects.

Yet. Remember - your skills are an unproven commodity; performance on an interview has nothing to do with your actual abilities on real code. You're being tested now.

Many companies will not allow transfers for up to a year (including places like Amazon). If you decide to stick it out, you might be surprised what hard work will do for you.

[EDIT] Noticed the family bit after posting; these kinds of issues will resolve themselves with time as well. Remote work is possible, and if this is a startup, they may be more willing to accommodate your living restrictions, letting you work with colleagues who aren't in your office.

Its also possible that they plan to expand their "difficult" work into the other office; I just watched a company in my town here completely take over the bulk of development work from the home office, solely on the backs of a few skilled and perseverant individuals.

Personally, I would suck it up and take the money for a year, gain some experience and then bail. It sucks that they may have been deceptive, but it will probably end up being a good learning experience.

Also, the hard truth is that most programming is not exciting and really is just what you described, building CRUD apps. Further, who knows what you would have been doing if you were at that other office. You're a junior developer and nobody is going to give you particularly exciting or sexy tasks on day one or day 365.

This is pretty common in the tech industry. Everyone sort of adopted the "Google style" interview with lots of algorithms and complex problems, but few have Google style problems to solve. When poorly managed most of these interviews turn into a random subset of the engineers at a company asking you to implement something completely useless so they can "help you along" and seem smart when they judge your solution. (hint: startups have a billion other problems to solve before optimizing a sort over what a standard library can provide will ever move the needle)

An extension of this is every developer regardless of level ends up getting the algorithms questions and mind games because it is the only way most engineers know how to interview.

Unless the company is still very small (3-5 people), most of the people you talk to in an interview won't have any control over what you are working on anyway. They will probably be your peers and tell you what they are working on, but don't take that as an indication of your role unless you hear it from the person you'll be reporting to.

You are welcome, to give you a bit more detail that fits closely to your experience is that I was in a situation where I didn't want to move and now I'm working for a great company and do it all remotely. I enjoy the company but even as a senior developer I'm not on the cool exciting new projects I'm down in the legacy code fixing stuff. Ultimately you are going to end up working on what makes the company the $$.

Outside of work I code the stuff I don't get a chance to do at work, get a cool idea and work on it in github/bit bucket etc. Once you've had the 6months plus at the company combined with some project work on a passionate personal project you'll find the programming world will offer you more opportunities than you thought possible! Chin up! :)

In my first job out of college, I had maybe 2 hours of work per day. In the first year I was there I produced 2 albums, ran a monthly party, learned a new programming language and launched my first web app.

Ay my first year review, my boss called me out on it, and I said, "am I getting my work done?" He couldn't deny it.

I continued this for another year. At my second year review, my boss did something I still think is brilliant. He'd been following what I'd been learning, and asked if I couldn't use my new knowledge of building web apps to solve an in-house problem.

I spent the third year working extra hours, building a web app but for the company. Everyone was happy.

I've never been a good employee, so YMMV, but CYA, and let it be their problem. If they fire you, there are always other jobs. You'll get out of debt eventually.

This is good advice. I went through similar experience in my 2nd and 3rd jobs, where the work of "junior security consultant" was reduced to pushing compliance paperwork. I ended up studying tons of new technologies on my own, and publishing tech articles in local magazines. It helped my resume tremendously when I got out of the consulting business.

> I would practice but at the end of the day I'm so burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake.

Sounds like you were sold a pup, but this is firmly in your hands. You're in a (relatively) fortunate position:

Your daily work is so easy it's actually boring, you say. Plenty of time, then, to try little POCs in other languages, to do some self study on the internet, or to perhaps involve yourself in client-facing meetings or other aspects of the company's work, if that sounds appealing. Use the slack to broaden your skills.

An easy job means you leave on time. Go home, do some exercise, eat a healthy meal, then spend a few hours each evening working on personal projects in a much more exciting stack. Instant energy.

You can spend part of your work day thinking about you side projects as well, maybe researching whatever technique or library you need next (but be careful not to do any actual work - your contract likely forbids this).

And spend some time looking for a new job too of course.

This is the best answer I've read here. I don't think blaming you helps here. I've personally seen things like this happen to me. Sure I've learned more about how to prevent this from happening in the future but it's still very aggravating.

Basically, don't give this job your everything. Do the work that's required of you and like the parent thread says leave yourself a bunch of energy. A technique that's worked out well for myself and other friends in the past is taking the first couple hours of each day to do personal projects and then go into work.

Don't give them the best hours of your day.

Thanks and good continuation of the point.

I'm often the first to say "pay your dues" to complaining youngsters, but OP has done nothing wrong and instead seems to need some guidance on how to maximize the value of his/her days while working out of this unlucky decision.

All I would say is that it's important that OP does try to find another, more engaging job, either in that company or elsewhere. It would be a shame to develop a permanently half-assed work ethic at 21, especially when he/she seems to have the energy and moral fibre to work hard. Treat this as a short-term situation.

I have had a somewhat similar experience, quit after 3 or 4 days, and it has had 0 negative impact on my career. I can't believe the commenters telling you to grind it out -- why would you do that in one of the hottest job markets in this field ever? You owe the company nothing, they misled you. And the commenter saying day after day of boring work isn't enough to burn a person out alone . . . of course it can! I can't stand this meme where every (probably legitimate) problem with one's evaluation/enjoyment of their life can be solved by diet, exercise, and sleep. Don't be afraid to climb past the first few levels of Maslow's pyramid, folks!

Get out ASAP. I've been in a similar position for the past 2.5 years: el. eng. MSc from a respected uni and I've been restarting PCs, fixing failing VB6 programs and reading HN. (Although at a decent salary.) Now I've finally been able to muster up the courage to leave here to travel. I'm just afraid that spending so much time in a meaningless dead-end position has ruined my chances to get hired at more interesting an challenging positions.

Your next job interviewer is most likely not going to know that your previous job was that boring. And he/she does not need to. A job like you have can still be quite okay experience; the bottom line is that someone hired you, you made a living, and you got some experience. In fact, this may be a more valuable experience you believe now. In addition to reading HN you can study more new things, whatever interests you.

In the next interview, you can be honest and say that "I like to get more challenges, and I feel I can do more than what I have done". True and to the point.

One of my earlier jobs was such that I applied for an interesting job to work on SQL applications in Unix environment, at XYZ, the largest publishing house in the country; I did not get that job but they put me to a team that worked on a useless Christmas card address register using dBase IV on MS-DOS. Afterwards, what I could say was that "I worked on database solutions with XYZ company, and while I liked the working environment, I'm looking for some more challenging tasks". Got me into a job where I stayed for 20 years and 1 day.

I have hopped between three companies and two different industries. I think in majority of cases, I have been acknowledged to be incredibly talented both technically and practically. As for myself, I know I studied hard enough and solved some pretty difficult problems to be quite competent at whatever is thrown at me.

And similar to your case, I have also sought challenging work where I could be utilized 100%. But I have convinced myself that such environments don't exist. Why? Because there are two ways to tackle every problem: the simple but laborious way OR the complex but quicker way. How you perceive your work is up to you. You can see it as challenging and breaking new boundaries and work in similar manner to solve those challenges or you can see it as simple and boring and "ask for the solution to a similar problem."

For example, my first project had a highly revered boss who made me think that the project I was working on was significant and amazing. When he was assigned a second project, I was not going to come along, but the way he described it to other people made it seem the second project was just as challenging. In a turn of events, his assignment changed and I took on the assignment instead. I found it to be very simple and mundane. I learned at that point, the challenge in a project is the challenge you highlight and the challenge you CHOOSE to tackle.

Every project has challenges and every project has its ups and downs. How you perceive a project is up to you.

Others have already said this in one way or another, but I think it's worthwhile to add another voice.

I'd just stick with it and keep looking. Be honest with the places you interview with when they ask why you are looking after so short of a time - the job is not what it was represented to me and despite my trying I can't fix it; and as a recent college grad with student loans I can't afford to leave while I'm searching. There's no need to try to hide this on your resume - it's better to be honest and explain it than try to hide something. Employers are people too and they will understand that.

My biggest piece of advice is don't give your notice at your current place until you have a written offer in hand for a new position.

The lesson learned here is always ask questions in your interview. As the person being hired you should be just as engaged as the person interviewing you, because you are also interviewing them.

Learn everything you can about their company. People love to talk about themselves, and their companies. What they've built, what they're doing, how cool it is, and what challenges they've faced.

You can learn more in a 20 minute conservation then in 2 hours reading their website.

Thanks for the comment. I guess I could have been more inquisitive. The thing though is that I did ask what my daily responsibilities would be. I did ask about the ongoing projects.

All I was told about is the work done at the other locations without being told that there was a difference of course.

I tried to get to the bottom of things but apparently not hard enough.

Don't beat yourself up. Making those mistakes is how you learn. Making this mistake on the first job is surely a forgiveable offence.

Sounds like he was flatly lied to.

His only mistake was not drilling down to "who will I report to and what is that group doing now?" And given that this was a bait and switch, at best he would have not gotten the job, which is mostly bad if he had other possibilities.

As other have noted, he is indeed getting an education in all sorts of other things. If he could move past the lies---not saying he should either forgive or forget---and make the best out of the current mess while finding a better job quickly, months not years, he shouldn't be too bad off.

Experience is something you earn shortly after you need it.

You are young, fresh out of college, and obviously very sharp. You'll be fine, you learned a lesson that's all.

Sorry to hear about what happened. I know the feeling.

My advice is just to float your resume out to recruiters and keep looking for other jobs, which you are already doing. If you can keep the job you have and still make it to interviews, don't quit.

Staying busy writing Java Swing applications isn't a black mark by any means. I think it would be harder to explain a period of unemployment than a period of underemployment.

My first dev job out of college was at a startup (not in SV), and there was only dev work for the first 2 years. After that, all responsibilities were taken on by the lead dev, and we juniors were left with no work at all. Nada, zip. The salary was just enough to live on, and no one was allowed any raises. I took on a QA role and the other junior just bided his time taking MOOCs. QA wasn't for me, but I did it for almost a whole year until I couldn't stand it anymore and quit. I actually planned on becoming a truck driver, because the starting salary was about $5-10k more than what I was making as a dev. But I sent my resume out one more time and ended up getting a great Rails job in another city through a recruiter. So I didn't actually do trucking.

"I could omit ‎my current position from my resume but then I'll be forced to reveal it if I get an interviews during regular office hours."

You shouldn't be ashamed of your current job; it's well paid, it can be done well and professionally, and probably it can be more creative than you think.

Two things:

1) Being in debt sucks. Become incredibly passionate about the idea of never being in debt again. If you don't have a giant student loan weighing around your neck, you are far more free to pursue work that interests you. So what to do? Come up with a plan in your favorite evolution of Visicalc, complete with how much debt you're going to pay off each month so that you can put a date on the calendar about when you're going to be debt free. Even if you're doing soul-draining work, knowing that that work is getting you one step closer to being free from debt should help.

2) Your current situation isn't as bad as it seems. I work with a ton of devs for whom working at a cool startup was their first real job. Awesome for them! Also totally not in line with most people's reality. Most people start in some version of "the bottom," whether that be in terms of low salary or poor culture, and then they maneuver their way through a couple of jobs until they find work they really enjoy. If you are smart and get things done, you'll do this too.

So your interviewer lied to you, exposing a toxic part of the company culture. They'll probably lose you over it and you'll eventually end up in a place you prefer to work.

Just come up with a plan to get out of debt. That can move your career a lot closer to freedom than you may think.

My first job out of school was a developer job, but for the first few months they asked me to do some general sciency stuff that had very little to do with software engineering.

Onboarding engineers into an ongoing software engineering project is a bit of an art; and choosing the right job is also a bit of an art.

Looking back, I wasted my time going on job interviews. My first job was actually better than I realized.

In my current job, a lot of "first projects" for incoming engineers are lame, but they expose the incoming engineers to our process, code base, and the internals of our product.

IMO, it's too early to leave your position. It would be different if you had a toxic boss; or toxic co-workers; or found out that your company made its profits by killing kittens. In this case, however, you just don't like your first project.

I'd explain to your manager that you understand that someone needs to do the grunt work, and then be assertive that you didn't sign up to write Java Swing applications. Don't threaten to quit, but make it very clear that you'd like to work on something else.

You might need to be the donkey with the carrot hanging from the stick for 3-9 months, but if your manager is good, he'll get the message.

"Looking back, I wasted my time going on job interviews. My first job was actually better than I realized."

this is worth considering, especially when you're just starting out. I had a similar experience to the OP and had a string of 3 jobs where each was worse (in terms of being a mess) than the one before. I still managed to learn a lot along the way and don't really regret any of it, but in retrospect the first place had their shit together.

It might just be me, but it sounds like you have some pretty unrealistic expectations of what working a job is really like. Banging out crap work sucks, but it is work that needs to be done. And since shit rolls downhill, you're going to be the one to catch it no matter what company you work for.

I'm sorry, but it seems like you need a quick reality check - you're a CS graduate who isn't from an ivy league university, and you appear to have no experience developing in a professional setting. From my experience with similar employees, there's simply a lot about professional programming practices which you likely don't know about yet.

Without a proven track record, a responsible manager would be an idiot to immediately give you "challenging" and "interesting" work; work upon which the company likely stands or falls. You have to build up that track record and prove your trustworthiness and ability.

Thankfully, building a track record doesn't actually take that long (unless your manager is an idiot, but sadly, that's a learning experience you'll end up getting as well). The method is very simple: apply your skills and knowledge to the work that you are doing. Strive to leave the code base in better condition at the end of the day than it was when you started it. Challenge yourself to exceed the minimum. Do more with what you've been given.

In the worst case, you'll be in the same position next year as you are now, only with more money and some practical experience you can take to your next job. In the best case, your company will recognize your ability and start giving you the interesting work you are craving.

I've found that while Adam Savage works in an industry which bears little superficial resemblance to ours, there are a lot of parallels to your situation now which can be drawn from his talk at Makers Fair 2013:

http://youtu.be/Xx9oJ8_r__8

You don't drop it. You grow up and make the best of what you have, until a new opportunity presents itself. Persistence is the key. I once got a job, by applying to the opportunity every day for a month, and they finally called me and were impressed at my persistence.

My Advice to you is two pronged: 1. Stay in the market and looking (always, never stop. If you find an incredible opportunity take it) 2. Do your job, your mundane, boring (boo hoo) job, and then you do more. Get yourself noticed by the other location. Get to know the management team at the other location, be it by email or phone calls. Offer to do stuff on your own time for them. Soon they will want you there. They will extend an offer to you. If you want it bad enough you will get it.

Welcome to the real world kid!

There is no shame in leaving after only 2 months, if you're really not enjoying. I've just left a job where I had to do nothing, the last months of the year was horrible. After many months of free time, I really had no idea what to do, days were boring and long.

I would start interviewing as soon as possible. Don't worry about blowing the interview at Amazon, you can try again in 2 years. You'd do well to read the interview questions at glassdoor.com, they often ask the same questions (I interviewed there), but don't think that you should postpone it and spend the time learning. Just apply again in a year, it's not like you are a very capable learner when you're burned out.

Try to get transferred to the job you applied for. I would be completely honest with the situation and see how they react. Can you get hold of the guy who gave the lecture?

If it doesn't work out I doubt that IT is a field in general where finding a job is that difficult.

>The engineer from the startup went on and on about how each day there is a challenge and you learn so much.

The world of "startups" is filled to the brim with charlatans. "Everybody's killing it." Be skeptical; even the "good" companies aren't all they're made out to be.

That said, start lining something else up while you make a little money and learning what you can. No big deal. Here's some advice: people care way too much about their "career path". There are more important things in life. If you're smart and capable, jobs and money will always come easy. This will be a mere blip on your radar.

I think you should start applying for jobs now.

I think you'll have a _better_ chance of getting the job you want _now_, fresh out of college, then after 2 years of working at a job you _don't_ want which qualifies you to work at other jobs like it.

And what do you have to lose, anyway? Don't quit your job yet, apply while you're still there.

I wouldn't stress too much about whether to include the current job on the resume. Maybe now only a month out of school, you could leave it off, it hardly looks like a gap. Or put it in, and be honest if people ask -- it was not the environment or the work you were led to believe it was in the hiring process. Anyone who doesn't want to hire you because of that -- are they someone you want to work for anyway?

Leave it on the resume or don't, and if whatever you do is awkward at one interview, do the other thing next time. (But even if you don't they might ask what you've been up to. Personally I'd find honesty and transparency less stressful than trying to talk around it, and if you're confident and comfortable you'll do better at interviews).

Figure out what to do differently to avoid being bamboozled next time. (Make sure you talk to your to-be manager and/or co-workers before you get hired? I don't _think_ it's unusual to want to meet and talk to your to-be manager before accepting a job!).

Don't count on getting the first job you apply for (you might not), or what you think is your dream job (it might not be), you're going to have to work at it. (As you didn't the first time, it just fell into your lap, and look what you ended up with!). In the meantime, you're making good money apparently (very generous offer?), so it could be a whole lot worse, that's life, sometimes things don't go as we'd like.

Most jobs are found through networking -- just like you found the job you have now. So start networking. If you live in a city with lots of programming jobs, there will be user groups or meetups, find them and go to them. And keep staying in touch with and spending social time with your former classmates who you get along with.

Grind through the work and pay off your loans, as you indicated you did get a generous offer. One of the biggest challenges that you need to learn is how to slog through the boring stuff - it can't always be interesting: even when you work at interesting places.

It's a job, not a playground. Jobs can be cool, but you need to work on that.

> so burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake.

Boring work alone won't do that to you. There's something else here, are you working overtime?

Hey, please_help. I'd start by not beating yourself up - everyone has done some variation of this mistake by being very excited during a job interview that's going well and saying yes to everything (often a lowball salary or a team position that you don't want) or not asking many questions.

Don't omit the position. Say you quit because they misled you. Say that you know every job includes some amount of drudgery that you're prepared to tackle (right?) but you were pulled into something you didn't sign up for. Often there's scuttlebutt between companies and people know which places treat employees like that anyway.

As for leaving, this is entirely your prerogative. I'd say think strategically - is there any purpose or reason for you to stay? If, for example, staying will get you a goal like provide you with X months of runway that you can then use to survive and look for better jobs, then stay. If not, and it's only getting in the way of you finding other jobs, then just quit.

And next time just ask what the position they have lined up for you is. The market is in your favor, and you've already gone through a rigorous interview process and survived. I'm sure you'll do great. Good luck!

Here's my two cents.

1. Make sure you've told your boss that you are not being challenged and that you really want to work on something that will challenge you. Perhaps you have already done this, but I still mention it because sometimes we can have a difficult time being direct and saying exactly what we mean. Make sure that they know you are grateful for the position but from what you were told during the hiring process, you were going to have more challenges. This may help you get the challenges you were looking for, but even if it doesn't it will help you when you need to explain why you have to leave. (If you have to leave, exit gracefully. I cannot emphasize this enough.)

2. Make sure you're open to challenges. Are there other challenges around you that you can work on? Sometimes the best challenges are not the ones you go looking for. Sometimes the best lessons come from unexpected challenges.

3. Keep open to new places and don't hide what you're doing. Explain clearly why you would be leaving - you were told that it would be challenging but once hired that changed. Honesty is your best policy here because hiding anything will be a red flag to anyone who scrutinizes your experience.

Not very original, but I hope it helps.

Don't be afraid of blowing the interview at Amazon. It's a massive company that's very hungry for developer talent, so if you can code I'm sure you can eventually find some team that will take you. Definitely keep practicing your data structures/algorithms puzzles, but know that even if you bomb out the first one, it won't be that hard to get more chances.

Years ago early in my career I took a job that I realized during the first week was a mistake. It wasn't until I got embedded with my team that I realized how toxic the environment was and no real work was getting done at all. Everyone just sat around doing -- I don't know -- it was pre-web so I really don't know what everyone was doing with their time. I was going nuts just sitting there.

I told my boss at the end of that week I couldn't do this. He pleaded with me to stay another week. I did and it was no better so I left and didn't come back.

I wasn't sure what to do either, so I left it off my resume. I don't even recall the name of the company anymore. As you would expect they ended up going bust.

Nowadays I bring this story up in interviews if possible and I find most everyone has a similar experience if they've been doing this work for awhile.

If you can afford it I'd say just quit and get looking. The job market seems pretty hot right now if all the recruiter spam I get is any sort of measure.

You were mislead, perhaps intentionally. Be professional but find another (better) job and get on with your life.

A lot of people who work or worked for crappy companies will tell you that you have to "pay your dues". After all, if they had to, it's only "fair" that you should to. I disagree with that premise.

While it is certainly common to have to "pay your dues", I have never had to. Work for a small young company with pressing software needs and there will be lots of "green field" work even for the "new" guys. Work for the Amazons of the world and your chances are much slimmer I think.

Just this week, I was about to tell a company that I would work with them "if they had a challenging project". When my friend saw what I'd written he said: "No, no, don't write that. Just tell them you'll take the job. Sometimes you need to take work that isn't fun."

I told him" "Well, maybe you do." :-)

Start looking for work, but keep your current job if you can stand it. Leave them before your boredom effects your performance and they leave you. You have a great explanation when interviewing at a new place as to why you want to leave your current job.

I once took a job doing server development -- hired by the CEO to sort out all the problems and technical debt surrounding the companies backend.

The VP of Engineering returned from pat leave and ordered me unto front end work while the CEO was on leave. I had no interest in that work and had to learn while doing using their crazy framework that was an absolute mess. I regret not walking 2 weeks into that, but stayed another 5 months resulting in total burnout.

Do you think there was an effort to deceive you? In my case I believe there was (after seeing how the company went about business). Chances are if they lied to you about the job description, they'll lie to you about other things.

This is your first job out of college. There is absolutely nothing unusual about your situation.

Welcome to the workforce.

Amen. One of the best things a college career counselor can do is make sure kids know they aren’t special little snowflakes, or super rock-star A+++ awesome. It should not be a shock that an entry-level position is doing entry-level work.

Agreed. From what I read, career counselors (maybe others) are pretty horrible at managing expectations.

The fact that you nailed a well paying job out of college should be considered a blessing/miracle/massive gift...not a burden.

Work your ass off for several years and prove your worth. In reality, a degree means almost nothing in the workforce...it's just the price of admission.

Real world experience is worth more than gold.

Prove you have what it takes over the long term - and THEN start bitching about not being on cool projects :P

I would practice but at the end of the day I'm so burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake.

You've had a tough break but the only way you're going to get through it is with effort on your part.

Decide where you want to be in six months and come up with a plan to get there. Then just work it, work it, work it.

If you can't move directly into another position then start a project on the side that you find interesting and can be shown to prospective employers or may turn into something you can grow.

You need to avoid feeling sorry for yourself. It's not going to help. It's only going to weigh you down and make you a drag to be around. Prospective employers and partners will pick up on that and will be turned off by it.

In your free time, do customer support. Improve projects. Do code review. Build tools for other workers. Go see human ressources and ask to see what software they use. Read up on the best softwares, research them, and present them to your boss. Do things that you can assign to yourself on your own.

You won't be able to assign yourself to interesting projects (the seniors are as bored as you and will have priority). But you WILL be able to assign yourself to interesting tasks.

You need to watch out for depression and burning out from feeling meaningless. I was in such a position a while back and it wrecked a lot of parts of my life. Hard work is hard for you, but no work is even worst (when you are forced to stay in office).

At first I was going to write a "Stick with it until you can hop to another job, leaving this one off the resume" comment, but then I saw you'd be writing Java Swing applications, and now I just want to convey my condolences.

Just a word of caution: in interviewing be sure to frame your reason for leaving as only that you were deceived as to the product the hiring manager develops. It would hurt you if people view you as a person who quits when things get boring (which if you're not careful in your explanation is how it could come off).

Also I would not try to hide that you have this job (e.g., in interviews). But a resume need not include this job.

Some commenters here don't sympathize with you so much. I think they are wrong and that the employer misrepresented the job intentionally. That might even run afoul of employment law. Sorry to hear about this.

Well, I'd say getting out of your "burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake" is important. Having a normal life after work is good for you. Don't go home and go to bed.

Perhaps exercise a bit to get your energy levels up. Sensible dinner (no junk food) and maybe after that you have some energy to work on things that you care about.

Perhaps if you can breeze through your day and not let it bother you since you have student debt you could spend your evenings coding or a projects that truly interests you.

If you really want the challenging problems at work I'd say you do need to find a new job.

I had to cut my teeth on test scripts when I left Uni. Coding at Uni and coding in the real world are very different beasts. One is one hackathon after another gaming the content based on project scoring guidelines. The other is making boring software ;)

Now is the time to spend an hour a day developing your own skills on your own pet project.

You also have quite a few years before I would consider yourself a 'good' developer. Even 21 years later I'm still learning new stuff almost daily.

Challenge yourself. If work isn't challenging, then it's your responsibility.

I was in a similar situation. My first job out of college was a dud (I was literally being paid to sit around and do nothing).

On the plus side, you get to be paid while searching for the job you really want. This means you can take your time to find the right job, and your current position (and salary) gives you a better negotiating position.

I wouldn't worry about hiding your current position. The fact that you want a new job for more challenging work should be seen as a good thing by the right employer.

I'd also try to network with the sister office. Perhaps they are willing to work with you if they realize your qualifications.

> I would practice but at the end of the day I'm so burnt out from boredom and repetitive work that I can barely stay awake.

Easy: get up early and practice. You don't have to wait until after work to practice.

I spent some time in the mid-1990s building a product from 5-7am, and then going and doing an office job to pay bills for the day. It works.

> I'm looking for other jobs already. I could omit ‎my current position from my resume but then I'll be forced to reveal it if I get an interviews during regular office hours.

I'm not understanding this part. If you land an interview can't you take a day off for it?

I think he's more concerned about appearing like a flake. I.e., why is he looking just a month after starting somewhere?

I don't understand why he has to tell the new company that he's employed, or tell his employer that he's interviewing, whichever is the concern.

First world problems

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