Ask HN: Leave job right before app goes to production?
Some background: A few months ago I was tossed into a dumpster fire of a project that has now grown to ~15 developers. Business dramatically added scope and was changing requirements and demanding devs work nights/weekends to accommodate. As a result I made the decision to leave.
I was set to leave right after the app went into production, however now the launch date for the app has been pushed back such that I will be leaving one week before it goes into production. I want to stay until it is complete and do not like the idea of leaving right before it goes to prod, however my new employer wants me to start ASAP and with my date having been pushed back one week I'm not sure they would be too keen on it being pushed back another week.
How would you feel if a fellow developer left in the circumstances described? If you were a dev manager or hired this developer, how would you feel about them leaving in the circumstances described?
Thanks for your feedback
248 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 332 ms ] threadIf you were the sole developer or on a super small 2-3 person team, I'd empathize with your reluctance more, though I'd still advise it's time to get out. It's not really that you owe the "company" anything; it's that you don't want to leave your teammates and friends in a terrible situation, etc. I get it.
But being a member of a fairly large team... nah man, you should feel zero, absolutely zero guilt about leaving, IMO. I would feel no negativity towards you as a teammate. If you are truly irreplaceable on a team that size, it's just another sign that this project is being mismanaged. GTFO! :)
The same can't be said for being hit by a bus.
So I think "bus factor" is a much better name for it.
They will have more fires, and they'll have people to put them out. It can suck not finishing something you started, but you made that decision when you took another job and gave notice.
If they don't want to move date then they can't blame you for not staying on to see things go live, since they made the decision. And if it ever comes up in interview for future job (which is unlikely) you can explain it wasn't your choice.
So: ask new employer to change date. If they're not OK just start new job as scheduled, it really doesn't seem like it's your fault since you did your best. And given that "business dramatically added scope and was changing requirements and demanding devs work nights/weekends to accommodate" if anyone is at fault, really, it's management at old company.
I'm with you in that I'd prefer to stay to see it into production. However, you have a commitment to your employer in that you agreed to start on Date X.
So, I see two options.
1) Explain to your new employer why you think you should delay starting. Go with what they say.
2) Explain to your current employer that the dates are already set, and that you need to leave.
How your fellow developers feel about you is going to have a lot more to do with the relationships you've built with them over the months than the timing of your departure.
1. It doesn't sound like your work was properly respected.
2. It doesn't sound like you were supported by your previous employer.
3. It sounds like your new employer needs your help just as much as your former employer.
4. You committed to something to the new employer, not just to the former employer and the only one out of the three of you that is responsible for this delay is your former employer.
5. They have enough other developers, the consequences of you leaving are maybe a single extra day of development.
Leave.
If I were your boss at the old job I know you'll be leaving anyway and by the look of the project you're going to be the least of my problems. Maybe I could ask you if your new company is looking for somebody else. If I were your fellow developer: same thing.
I think there's two ways that a manager could look at this. One way is they could be personally affronted and take a negative attitude about it. The other way would be a little more introspective, and understand that you leaving was a symptom of other problems, and in that case they might be a little saddened but want to focus more on making changes to prevent something like this happening again.
At the end of the day though, the way I would look at this is that it's way more in your best interest to make your new employer happy than to make your old employer happy. There's a lot more downside to starting off on the wrong foot with your soon-to-be-current employer, than leaving on the best note possible with a former employer.
As the new employer, I'd be distinctly annoyed if you pushed back a week; they're probably counting on you and starting to schedule new starter stuff. That could colour an entire working relationship badly.
Good luck with the new job!
Typically this is what happens on bad projects. Developers stay until they finish the job and then they leave. One of the best ways to evaluate the success of a project is to see if the team is stronger and more empowered after the project. If people leave, it says a lot.
Possibly offer to consult for the previous employer, and/or simply let them know they can contact you if there's something they can't figure out.
Don't expect to be contacted -- they have 14 other developers which is far more than many projects that people leave.
Subjective feedback: Get out. Companies are a group of people doing decisions - the quality of the decisions you witness is a good approximation of the company as a whole.
Contracts are what binds you. And I know few companies that extend their loyalties beyond the contract except maybe the foreign legion.
Be as morally entitled to your company that they have been morally correct to you if you have a conscience. And what you describe is a death march. You are probably leaving the company because of a death march. Why would you insist being nice to a company obviously making their coders' life a hell because of their management mis-decisions for which they are fatly paid?
Except of course if you are the Légion Étrangère or special forces. In this case, well, that is their sense of abnegation that makes their reputation and make them trusted. But I guess you are no special forces sent on a secret mission where you risk your life.
And that is the reason why they suffer, so we have this kind of rights.
You already arranged a leave date with your employer, and you already went beyond what you were required to by trying to schedule that so you could help launch the project. You are not responsible for their failure to hit their schedules.
Trying to push your start date back with your new employer could also damage your upcoming relationship with them: they're more likely to care that the date change hurts their plans then that you want to do something generous for your current employer.
I think you should get out.
A little louder for the people in the back.
Especially if you've already given notice to your current employer, go ahead and get out. If you haven't... I think you can justify leaving easily enough. You fully intended to stay on and finish, and I think anyone that cares enough to ask about this will understand.
Actually, I'd say it's relatively safe to go a step farther. Based on the description, the odds favor the interpretation that the poster will not be leaving one week before the deployment. The odds favor that either the poster is leaving several months before deployment, or several months before the project gets canned anyhow.
To the poster, I'd suggest keeping in touch with one of those 14 people and just ask them to tell you when it ships. You have a very good chance of discovering that you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty over when you realize nine months from now you still haven't heard from them, and it turns out that it's because it still hasn't shipped yet.... (Or they found another job too....)
Totally. You've given notice, and accepted an offer (and start date) elsewhere. You're done. Walk away, or accept their dubious power over you.
If a relationship partner did something bad enough that you dumped/divorced them, but they demanded that you stay a bit longer because they hadn't finished doing the thing you disliked...
Take your power back. Walk away.
But it doesn't sound like a very nice environment, so expect to be their new scapegoat as soon as you've turned your back.
Computers have been purchased, training partners assigned, HR booked, initial projects pulled out of the backlog.
I've had a couple of firm conversations where I basically said, "On Monday you should be with the company you want to be with and if that's not us, I understand and will start the hiring process again."
Plus, I'm always concerned when a developer ends their last job on Friday and starts Monday at our company.
First several weeks will be ramp-up anyway.
If I want to avoid coverage loss, I'll go with back-to-back employment rather than risk a few days and having to enroll in COBRA.
I'm more concerned about the scenario where a developer has been working 12+ hour days on a release and then 50 or so hours later is now trying to ramp up on at our company.
That's only half the coin - the other half is "would you rather restart the hiring process than hire someone showing red flags (not sticking to their commitments / showing up on time) before they even start the job?"
Sick? Family emergency? Funeral? Sure.
Can't let go of your old job? Hmm...
> From what I've read about the numbers this seems very costly.
From what I've read, so is hiring the wrong person and then having to fire them or have them quit - all that time wasted getting them up to speed.
On the other hand, they may be getting cold feet about leaving all their old colleagues and friends behind and about to accept a generous counteroffer that they haven't yet had time to formalize.
Or perhaps they remembered they really hate PHP. Or the state they'd be moving to. Or gotten a last minute job offer from someone else that they like way better. Or...
That said, I've also given developers another week to wrap things up, more time because of illness and family obligations, and a couple more weeks to start when they asked because "they were still burnt out".
It's not like I throw my hands up and the first road block and shred the resume.
If the person wants to stay to finish one thing -despite the terrible workplace-, that's actually a major display of [misplaced] commitment.
I wouldn't want them to bail but I would understand.
[edit] Also the OP is asking about the situation of going back for another extension so that is the context of my answer.
I remember a similar (but less serious) situation in which I went 2.5 yrs with 0 vacation.
I was feeling pretty much beat and close to burned out so I scheduled a vacation outside of the country having basically the max number of PTO days an employee can gather. Told my manager of my plans and he passive aggressively told me that sure, you can take PTO... the project is on fire and we'll launch next month but sure, you go on your vacation.
Did not go because I was genuinely scared about my career.
Project got pushed another two months. Tried to do the same, same result. Got pushed back again two months. And I was still there, working my ass off.
Rewards for that year were mediocre at best, although I worked my ass off.
What I learned from that is the fact that work never ever ends. There is no 'perfect' time for leaving. Even after launch, the team may need the original developers to fight fires all day and patch production to keep things running especially if the project was a death march or if the schedule was pushed back a couple of times.
Leave, try your best to not burn bridges and be honest with the current employer.
1. Don't work your ass off.
Especially, don't work your ass off expecting to be rewarded. It never happens.
2. Never sacrifice your personal life for work. It aint worth it.
> Especially, don't work your ass off expecting to be rewarded. It never happens.
I think this might be an over-generalization and that this is might only hold true for people who are farther along in their careers. I'm currently in year six of mine and I've been given a lot of great projects and early promotions (with subsequent pay jumps) from having been in the minority of people on a team that is working their ass off. These returns have, however, diminished with time.
If I had to hazard a guess I think this is probably because a more junior engineer working their ass off can show quick and obvious improvements to the quality of your work and time management skills, which start off as near excrement and iterate to "ok" over time.
Importantly also - nearly all people will not offer a substantial reward unprompted. If you want something for working your ass of, you need to explicitly demand it, in specific terms (ex., don't ask for "a bonus", get a firm number).
A great many managers (arguably, most managers) are in the habit of making promises for rewards that they are either unable or unwilling to keep. My suggestion for people is to figure out which kind of people you're dealing with early on in a job - observe carefully how casually they promise things, and how frequently they live up to these promises. Calibrate your expectations accordingly.
This is a really good point.
This may be controversial to say but I suspect that this sort of assertive and open negotiation for future reward is part of the reason for the gender pay gap in software. For better or worse, I find that in most cases my male colleagues tend to layout more detailed expectations for compensation in advance of any salary renegotiation (promotion, raise, bonus, etc.) and to make themselves heard when they're not satisfied.
In the interest of full disclosure I am male so it could also just be that I am inexperienced with other biases relating to gender.
The world is full of people waiting, hopefully, for their 10% yearly raise, repeated over many years. They'll only realize after 5 years that they could have done the same progression by changing company after 2 years.
>>> If I had to hazard a guess I think this is probably because a more junior engineer working their ass off can show quick and obvious improvements to the quality of your work and time management skills, which start off as near excrement and iterate to "ok" over time.
Lemme tell you how it usually goes. The people at your company around you probably:
1) wont notice your improvements (determining good is hard and they ll forever remember you as the junior who just joined)
2) have zero management support (depends on politics
3) have the organization turned against you (typical raise blocked at X% per year top and only once a year).
If one wants to get his progression noticed, one should go interview at other places and tell his achievements in front of interviewers who wants to listen to just that ;)
An early stage career is handled by moving early and often, to the next opportunities: https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...
As I sit here and hold 5,000 carats of Mount Baldy Sapphire, all spoken for (at $30/carat) I'm going to have to call shenanigans on that one.
I work my ass off mining and I'm rewarded every day with a killer view, fresh air, and a distinct lack of idiot customers and bosses, and then I get to hold some of the rarest and most precious materials on this planet.
"Never sacrifice your personal life for work. It aint worth it."
You do almost exactly that mining. It's well worth it if you have even 1/10th of a clue of what you're doing.
Yup, when you find a larger vein or pocket or deposit than normal.
"Unused PTO?"
Doesn't exist.
"Do you ever take your hard-won rocks to the guy and he tells you no, they're actually only worth 1/10th what you thought?"
Nope. I know my grades and qualities, so I know what I can charge, be it in rough form, slabbed, cabbed/faceted, etc.
Working for yourself or in more functional economies that actually have things like workers rights is a different story altogether.
In fact, I would say that setting in place systems that push employees to work unsociably heavily and forsake family and life experience in order to be rewarded is a staple of countries with extremely toxic working cultures, such as japan and china.
Employers in countries with good workers rights tend to react mostly with abject terror if they discover you've been, say, working weekends. They know what happens if the government or local unions get wind that unpaid weekend work might be some kind of defacto standard in a workplace.
A job is just a job, they come and go. We trick ourselves into making them seem far more important than they really are, but ultimately it's just a means to an end. It's so easy to lose sight of that when life gets busy.
Things get better but you have to let time do it's thing too. Patience.
If you are having such thoughts, please seek help. National Suicide prevention hotline Call 1-800-273-8255
You can send me an email at my username at gmail if you need to talk or call this number 1-800-273-8255
At this point, you can probably safely go to the ER and tell them you fear you'll kill yourself so that you'll get urgent help.
====
This stuff you are going through, it can get better. It doesn't last. You can learn to deal with panic attacks, you can change jobs, and so on.
Anxiety is an absolutely horrible affliction and panic attacks are my personal definition of hell. The troubling part is that I understand how you feel. When panic attacks were part of my life, I often contemplated putting an end to everything. It wasn't that I hated life...it was that I hated the circumstances under which I had to live life.
However, don't hate yourself. You were brave and intelligent enough to listen to your body. Your body screamed at you to stop and you listened. Be proud of yourself because frankly, lots of people like you don't listen to their bodies and die of heart attacks when they are in their 30s. Or, they don't listen to their bodies and develop addictions to alcohol or heavy drugs. You listened to yours and you started the path to getting better. Let time do its work because frankly my friend, this is going to take time.
And please, don't kill yourself. I know that this job may seem like the be all and end all, but I promise you that it isn't. There are more jobs out there, and if software doesn't do it for you anymore, there are literally thousands of different careers out there.
I believe in you, so I know that you can get through this, but you may need some help or, at the very least, a kind ear. My email address is in my profile. Please use it - I will never judge you and will keep anything you say to myself, unless you tell me about a specific plan to kill yourself. Then, I am sorry that I have to say this, but I will do whatever it takes to keep you from fulfilling that plan.
Be safe. You are cared about.
This is very, very true. It applies to pretty much any commitment that is bad for you: a bad job, a bad relationship, there's always a Very Important Reason not to do it right now.
See also: https://xkcd.com/1768/
Exactly this. In general, it is totally fine to have short bursts of overtime but longer periods clearly point to management fail. Either chaos or greed rule in that company and the best thing to do is to get out ASAP.
Also, be explicit with yourself on why you do not want to leave shortly before deployment? IMO the only reasonable answer is that you are a key player and want to help your current project through birthing pains.
If so, you can offer to help your old employer, pro bono, for a short time after the launch as your time allows. No guarantees, but you will try. If they do ask for help, work for a few evenings or a weekend and help. But leave now -- the chances that the latest slip of a badly managed project is the last are always slim.
IMO consulting for your old employer might upset your new employer ("whom would he support if both of us need him at the same time?). Taking a few calls pro bono, even at work time (which is not pro bono now, your new employer is effectively paying for it) is usually just fine with new employer. This shows you as a responsible person that is unlikely to burn bridges changing jobs, valuable member of the team (your old employer values you enough to ask for your advice, etc.).
My 2c.
In my experience doing something "as a favor" is the fastest way to get the person you are trying to help to act in a entitled manner.
They paid you to do the job before, why do it for free now?
I've been in this situation fairly recently. I pointed out to my old employer that I was "being nice" by consulting for them since my new job was keeping me pretty busy, so I told them the max number of hours I was willing to commit to, and how much I would charge. Come up with a reasonable cost of your time (hint: not below $100/hour) and find out beforehand how they want to be billed.
It's business. A business exists to make money, not to be your friend.
Six months later when I was still getting calls I felt trapped. So then I finally told them that it had been six months and I could no longer help them without getting paid. Suddenly they managed to get things done on their own. We are still on good terms; I even meet for lunch or drinks occasionally with those same colleagues 12 years later.
Since then, I always offer to help for a fee while they transition. None have ever been upset by that approach since they are professionals; something that in hindsight I wasn't when I offered to do it as a favor all those years ago.
Some employers have taken me up on this offer some have not. That is the motivation though. I don't WANT them to take me up on the offer; I've just quit so I want to move on. I also don't want to burn bridges or leave anyone in the lurch.
I got maybe 5 calls of no more than 1 hour each and spent a few hours in SSH session (restoring a service I wrote for myself but put on the intranet which I thought no one but myself was using; when my workstation was wiped apparently enough people wanted it back). I got a "we owe you a beer" after that which I never claimed as I am halfway across the US now and that was it.
As I took no money I felt very comfortable choosing dates and times that were convenient for me. They would email me and I would set up an hour for a phone call or an ssh session within the next few days. If I took any money I would feel pressure to respond quicker. Anyhow, this worked for me, but obviously YMMV.
To elaborate on my personal experiences.
It was never about making money, but always about smoothly severing ties. In my first experience both I and my new employer were frustrated as I was receiving calls every week for more than six months. The old company and the new company were different, but they had close ties which is the only reason my new job tolerated that I was spending hours they were paying for on someone else for free. When it was still going on for six months I was advised by my current boss to advise them I would have to charge to continue to support them, and see what happened. At that point they said they understood and would discuss it with their superiours. It turned out that with money as a motivating factor they finally were able to get by without me.
With another employer I knew that a standard two week notice for them wasn't long enough as I was their lone sys admin, but anything longer would not have been ok for my new employer who had just lost a key employee on a major project and needed someone that could step in ASAP and hit the ground running. In that case I offerered that I could help out in the evenings or weekends for a reasonable hourly rate that was still above my normal hourly rate. They were glad to have that offer there and said they would only call me if they absolutely had to. I never heard a word from them until I got a call that their Exchange server (which I had repeatedly advised them for more than a year needed to be replaced, but they were too cheap to do so) had crashed and they urgently needed help. I came in on a Friday night after getting off work and then I worked straight through the weekend to setup a new server and recover all of the lost data. They were more than glad to pay.
With another employer I was the leadon a mission criticial financial system I gave them a longer than usual notice when I was leaving to give them extra time to prepare for my departure. Then I spent my last month doing nothing but trying to make sure everyone knew what was needed before I left. I gave them the same option, for a fee they were welcome to call me whenever they needed. Almost six months went by and I didn't hear from them, then I got a call when they realized no one knew how to handle their end of year cutover. I walked them through it in an hour long call. They were very happy to have the help and would have paid; I told them not to worry about it since it was only an hour and they hadn't been pestering me in the past, but that if I got a call next year about the same issue I would have to bill them for it. No bridges were burned there; they were happy and occassionally I have run in to some of the higher ups and they always tell me how they would love for me to come back if I ever decide I need a change.
Charge a healthy consultancy fee (hint: it's more than your ex-wage cause you need to cover taxes, your self-employed admin costs, and motivation fees). If they need you enough they'll pay it and if they don't then you're away guilt-free.
If you leave, it would give the management one more valid excuse to push back the dates further, this is what they might be looking for anyways.
Source: I'm a business owner who likes to take care of my employees.
Companies can't care for their employees because companies aren't people and don't have emotions. People in the company may care about you. And you may care about people in the company.
Once a business gets large enough, the people making the policies can't (or usually don't) care about you because they don't know you. The people who do know you can't change the policies.
And that's why I find the idea of loyalty to a company absurd.
I worked some weekends for a project at my last company because it was urgent (it was behind schedule and they "burned the ships"). Then they canceled the project and fired the lead developer on it.
[Edit]: And after I gave notice, I was given more flexibility so I worked hard to code some desperately needed changes to a neglected project core to the business. The changes I made in the last two weeks were so valuable that the internal customers agreed to shut down the floor for a while in the middle of the day to deploy my changes. Then, on my way out the door, the company told me that they wouldn't pay out my unused PTO.
I got it returned with a few choice emails.
You're on to continue with your life and grab a new opportunity and I'd wish you well on whatever you do, and I'd thank and appreciate that you worked weekends and nights to make the app happen.
Do what you must.