Ask HN: Started job 3 months ago...not going as planned
Three months in and I am far less happy in comparison to my previous software engineering role. I work on a fairly distributed team, which was supposed to be agile. We don’t have a product manager and our manager isn’t involved much. We are told that we will be getting a PM, but nothing in sight.
I have one colocated team member and they are less than ideal. They fall asleep at their desk or during conference calls and don’t seem to care much about software development in general.
Onboarding and training was nonexistent. It has been pretty much trial and error since day 1.
I feel like I was sold something in the interview process that is not accurate.
Long story short, how long do I stick it out before looking elsewhere or even returning to my last job as I left on good terms?
64 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadIf you've got the cash and don't have to have your next gig set up, give your two weeks now and start the mental healing.
As a hiring manager, I would not care at all about a non-comprehensive list, but I would absolutely care about someone trying to hide past employment
For example - during the 2008 downturn, I worked a job that was not terrible, but used tools and hard skills that were completely non-transferrable to any job I've had since then. So I no longer put it on my resume even though I was there for 2 years. Would that two year gap over a decade ago be a conversation? Assuming of course, that I even put anything prior to 2010 on an application anymore.
I guess for me - do you dig into every gap you see? Maybe they left under good circumstances and just don't want to list the job because they weren't proud of the work they did there.
07-2019 - Present: ACME blbalbalablablablaba
05-2016 - 06-2019: Tesla blabalbalablablabalbalab
Other relevant experience: * Apple, blablaba * Facebook, blablabla
Although I started doing this around the fifth year of my career, I'm now a graybeard that has been in the business for a very long time and have racked up a lengthy work history. Nobody is going to want to read through a 5 page resume.
My practice for a couple of decades now has been what you state here -- I write a new CV for each position I'm applying for, and only include the things that indicate my fitness for that position. I'm always prepared to provide a complete work history if anyone asks, but I don't remember anyone ever asking.
But I found (n=2) that recruiters/hiring managers got hung up on that one 4 month block vs. the 15+ years of other experience I had on there. One asked "Well if you're going to cut bait and run at the hint of small issue, why hire you?" It's hard to explain, without disparaging the employer, that the 4 months you were there had you in therapy 3 days a week just to keep your sanity :) And it is a he said/they said type situation.
Given how some companies I've worked for used me for their benefit, I feel zero guilt over leaving off the ones that were toxic.
Better to say another form of the truth: the company was a poor fit.
Most checks are just to make sure you didn't steal your SSN (or using a dead person's one), and very high-level felony check.
This is for tech jobs only though. Other industries are more strict.
Some tech startups don't even bother with bg-checks at all.
That said, I had one employee renege on an offer (before starting), which ticked me off royally. We had limited slots and he waited a long time to tell us of his decision to renege. That was not cool in my books.
Mostly because the employer had enough money to keep a lot of staff and make them do bullshit projects, half of which wouldn't reach production.
Only instance when someone got a slap on the wrist was when they, ahem, showed the wrong demo. Hilariously enough the only objection here was the perpetrator used company equipment.
The guy who got escalated for going to the swimming pool during work hours(even thought he stayed later to make up for the lost time) upon hearing that was furious.
This is incredibly common, and not just at big companies. I bet half my time as a developer has been spent building products or features that never went to production. Includes work for startups or small companies where you might expect that in the case of extreme failure, but also for household-name bigcos and everything in between. Throw in products that are scrapped before being the market long enough to make the effort seem worth it, and my experience of this industry has been pretty damn nihilistic. Alienation, I guess you'd say.
If done correctly, this isn’t doing the bare minimum - it’s actually going above and beyond. What he didn’t clarify is whether or not somebody is breathing down his neck to produce results. If they are, then he needs to push back on that person that he needs some help getting up to speed. If not, he can spend as much time as he wants/needs learning the existing codebase - write some unit tests, try to create an isolated testing environment, do some profiling, read up on all of the libraries/frameworks/tools that the product uses… find useful (but relatively safe, for now) things to do. That may be what they actually want from him. I personally wouldn’t be in a hurry to find a job where somebody was handing you daily assignment, but I also wouldn’t take unreasonable advantage of the situation - if you don’t have a specific task to work on, do something that’s at least work related.
Feel no shame in it either, it sounds like the company misrepresented some or all of the role and the team.
Find another role, give standard notice, leave on good terms, but control your departure and exit, don't wait around for things to improve.
No magic answer, but in general I find I'd rather work on a fucked up environment where I can make incremental improvement than a good-enough-for-people-who-aren't me environment where everyone is to comfortable to tolerate any changes.
Would you want to go back to your previous job? It's possible they might want you back if you left on good terms. Would be easier, cheaper, and faster for them than backfilling your position.
At least unless you channel your inner Napoleon and start transforming the organization yourself.
I don't have that in me, and most people don't, but I hear it can be done.
You just get worn out over-time and give up.
edit - expanded info.
Eject, as long as this isn't going to add to an existing pattern in your employment history.
People in the position to hire have more than likely been in the situation where they were sold a bill of goods, gotten on the job, and had to make the same choice.
But if this is going to be, say the third short term gig in a row, then it's going to be a hard sell that the problem has been the employers and not you.
Assuming it's the former, when it comes time to talk to other potential employers and interviewers, state the scenario factually and without rancor. "I was told during the recruiting process that we would be writing the platform in Node, turns out we were hand punching Fortran cards."
Edit (hit submit too soon): if it's the latter, then you need to stick it out for at least 12 months. There are some great comments in the thread about changing the culture, etc. I would add to those to shift your mentality from "this is my employer" to "this is a client for whom I'm going to do the best work I can for 12 months." I can yap a lot more about that shift but if you can create a mental firewall between you and the employer and minimize emotional engagement, doing the time will be easier. :)
If the pay is substantial you should definitely give it another 6 months. I think as workers in general, that we should evaluate the companies and its leaders annually the same way they evaluate us. Hope this helps.
Yeah, absolutely agree with this. I made the transition from employee to consultant/contractor, and have no regrets about the decision.
If you can do good work no matter what situation you're dropped into, it means your worth at least twice your salary as a consultant. If you can transform an underperforming group, you are worth even more.
I'd quit if you can. Pay attention to the red flags.
If you feel like there's still potential with the company you're at, be straight with your manager and tell them how you're feeling diplomatically. Otherwise, I'd start sending feelers out elsewhere.
Assuming you left your previous job on good terms and want to go back, reach back out! I've been at companies where people boomeranged back ranging from a few months to a week. It's not as uncommon as you think.
I would say that's standard practice, on both sides of the table. Everyone tries to put their best foot forward in an interview. Anything not written in the contract might simply have been said to try to close the deal.
Large companies are not known for their amenability to change.
I'm in a similair situation right now myself but almost a year into it. The job description and job title absolutely does not match up with the reality, no leadership / direction and I really struggle with motivation. I have mentioned this but it still continues.
I think the only thing left for me to do is quit, the only problem with that is I have a nice remote deal that would be hard to match. Feeling kind of stuck. I might try contracting myself.