HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why won't you quit a job you hate?

29 points by dbanisimov ↗ HN
For people who are bored at work, especially at big FAANG companies, why won't you make a switch?

Salary is a big factor for sure, but given an already good pay for technical talent why not to take a small pay cut and join a mission-driven startup, where you can be aligned in values and have an impact and growth?

34 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 66.7 ms ] thread
AnimalMuppet
"Bored" != "hate".

If you're getting good money, and your management is relatively sane, and you like the people you work with, think twice before you leave. I've been around enough to know that you can easily wind up in a much worse situation.

downerending
You haven't lived until you've had a psychopath as a boss and for whatever reason they've decided they don't like you.

Do you feel lucky?

apohn
Or they could really like you and make you the first person they call with their insanity and high priority tasks.

Either way, you're in for a bad time.

limeyx
Been there & got the scars
aalhour
Been there & won the battle. Talked to the other tech leads and convinced HR and the CTO with our position, that psychopath of a manager ended up getting fired during his probation period.
dbanisimov
Yes, sometimes people can say that they want one thing, but in reality they probably don't.

My theory was that there can be some complex set of criteria, including the emotional match, that can determine a better job fit for each person. The challenge here is to determine that set, and develop an assessment tool for both the job seeker and the company/team.

sjg007
That's an interesting idea. You'd probably need a psychologist to come up with the questionnaire and then maybe you could convince a company to let you run the study. You'd need paired feedback to0... I guess you could ask people to reveal their performance evals anonymously but that might undervalue employee-employer fit. You'd probably want to have these ranked by some outside metric of each company's success. Someone must've already done this, if not it'd be a good research project for a psychology or business school grad student. Sounds like a worthwhile YC startup. Maybe something like "work at a startup" could factor in or run this type of study too.
seattle_spring
Define "small paycut." Mid level engineers at FB and its ilk are pulling in 400k+ including RSUs and bonus. You'd be hard pressed to get even a very senior position at a small startup that pays even half that in real cash.
dbanisimov
Let's say 20-30% discount on salary and potentially a bigger equity upside than a big CO. I haven't seen startup giving out cash bonuses.
seattle_spring
Heh... Potentially bigger upside, but 99.9999999999% chance they're worth nothing. So, risk adjusted, more than a 50% paycut.

No thanks.

potta_coffee
Honestly? The job search + interview process is way too painful. I feel like I'm a good problem solver, I've made really good impact at the jobs I've been at but landing jobs is difficult for me. I tend to stick around til the job is more painful than interviewing.
dbanisimov
Agree here. The standard practice of structured interviews is just no fun for me, although I see why it works for many companies.

Did you do any research on the companies beforehand or had a set of criteria to ensure that the job won't turn out painful next time?

limeyx
Had a similar experience especially as I age and moved farther from the "Big city" where the cool jobs are and I refuse to commute that far
muzani
FAANG is very much above average. Many startups are very much below average. Statistically, quitting a FAANG to join a startup is just a bad idea. The only reason to do so is that FAANG has a lower career cap. Even then, the cap on FAANG is much higher than, say, starting a restaurant.

At startups you generally deal with less smarter colleagues, spending months putting out fires that stem from hacky code designs, and dealing with many absent bosses who are just there for passive income.

Many startups try to look mission driven, but what drives most of them is just growth. The more growth oriented ones might be dishonest. If you think Facebook is unethical, watch what happens to a startup running on 3 months runway, trying to raise a new round. You also have to deal with pivots, often by bosses who literally don't know the meaning of the word and just bounce aimlessly between different things.

apohn
I'm one of those people who used to work in a "mission-driven." job. As part of burning out and walking the slow road to recovery, I started to feel a lot of "mission-driven" people are really selfish ladder-climbers who are fantastic at marketing themselves and their mission. I'm not even sure if they actually believe in what they are doing outside of inflating their own ego/prestige/whatever.

I'm not at FAANG and I don't earn anywhere near FAANG money. I know the above is really jaded and skeptical view of things. But I suspect more than a few people feel what I feel after a few years in the workforce.

solveit
Not what you were looking for, but I would be conscripted into the military if I quit this job.
CyberFonic
If you read any articles about VCs you'll note that most startups fail and even when they don't the multiple investment rounds dilute any stock you might have been granted. They don't call the rare exceptions "unicorns" for nothing.

Besides, it's not salary that is the trap, but Lifestyle. Most people's lifestyles expand to consume their increasing salaries, so taking even a reasonable pay-cut means big changes to lifestyle ... and the loss of bragging rights of working for one of the FAANGs.

throwaway98320
Nah, the whole point of working for someone else is it lowers your own risk, have a good salary and a stable income. If mission and purpose is that important, might as well accept the full risk and work on your own idea. Assuming you have the qualifications to get a FAANG job, taking a pay cut to burn yourself out at a start-up where you get peanuts when the start-up sells just seems like the worst of both worlds.
itronitron
Maybe people who are bored at work should focus a bit on helping one of their coworkers. They are likely to get a lot more insight to the company and possibly value their own job a lot more.
inertiatic
I work for a startup, but I'm bored.

The biggest hurdle to overcome when wanting to switch jobs, for me and for all the people I know, is going through the interview process.

This isn't the sort of discussion you're looking for.

But I'd say for most people who are bored at work, working on a CRUD app in a startup isn't going to be intellectually stimulating.

dbanisimov
I'm a bit surprised to see folks mentioning interviews. Sure they suck, but HN crowd should just be crushing them.

And given the heated market employers should already streamline the process for their advantage.

seattle_spring
> HN crowd should just be crushing them

How so? Most interview processes focus on finding folks who can solve totally arbitrary algorithmic questions that aren't used anywhere other than "Algorithms 401" at University.

While there are a handful of HN users that seem to gravitate toward that being a useful skill worth filtering for, the prevalent attitude seems to feel that it's outdated and asinine.

taurath
You should definitely check some of the threads over the last 5 years on HN around interviewing. My personal rule of thumb is even if I'm 110% qualified for a position, landing a good job as an engineer requires 1-2 months of hard leetcode study. Then, assuming a good personality, no red flags, you get up to a 50-60% chance of passing any given interview.

Its incredibly time consuming and can also be quite stressful and dehumanizing, as you'll be leaving a lot of interview rooms thinking you're an imposter when the process is just awful.

JanAcai
In my case, the answer is: my job pays my bills, while I work on my startup after hours. Also, as many mentioned, standard interviews are so much pain.
claudiulodro
Almost none of the startups I see hiring in my area have interesting/worthwhile "missions".

No, I don't want to "reinvent how companies handle employee wellness perks" or "help find people the right credit cards and mortgage rates" (real quotes from startups in my area). That stuff seems worse than what I'm working on now.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
GreenJelloShot
1) Startups suck. They will work you to death all for the promise that maybe it will pay off one day (but probably won't.)

2) I don't want to work for a "mission-driven" company. What does that even mean? Most companies lie about their mission anyways. They want to make money, not save the planet.

3) There is not a company out there that is "aligned" with my values. I value free time. I value spending time with my family and friends. I value doing separate things from work.

4) I do not care about having "impact" or about "growth". Been there; done that. It is overrated. Building up a company's value so that the executives get bigger & bigger bonuses does not motivate me at all.

If you are able to change the world, build your own company. Don't work for someone else and let them take the credit. If you can't change the world, then stop pretending you can. Work, get paid, and then go home and spend some quality time with your loved ones. Stop trying to trick me into wasting my limited time left by slaving for other people.

Mobius01
This is a great answer, particularly the point about your environment and how much you value your own time. I’ve come to accept that if I want to work on impactful work, I have to do it on my own. At a corporate job, I’m perfectly fine doing 9-5 with excellence and leaving the mission-driven ladder climbing for others.

Survivorship bias is problem with startup stories. You will hear the great success stories of the few standing on the carcasses of the vast majority that burned out and crashed.

probinso
I have happily quit several jobs. As long as I have 6 months of living expenses (including insurance costs) saved I feel able to quit. This time would likely increase once I have family relations.

It helps that I enjoy the interview process and don't find it taxing, which I seem to be alone in.

maps7
I am 90% sure I would fail any interview I went for so I am pretty sure I am stuck where I am :)

But being serious.. the thought of preparing for an interview is so demotivating. I do good work and I am good at pretty much anything I do in my current job but I don't match any job descriptions I see. I've moved out of a pure coding role in my current job but that is what I would like to apply for.

anonyfelon
My screen name says it all. I have top-notch skills, but I will be forever haunted by white-collar crimes I committed over 20 years ago, and have even been pardoned for.

I stay with the company I hate (love the job, hate the politics) because it's almost insurmountably hard to get a good job somewhere else.

The pay is just okay here, but if someone else would give me a chance, I could easily make 20%+ somewhere else, for the same work.

neuroticfish
Why would a company and a person ever have aligned values, unless that person owns/runs that company? Companies are ultimately tethered to the will of its stakeholders and the stakeholders only hold stake because they expect a return on investment. People value things like family, travel, friendships, romance, spirituality, pursuit of passion, personal fulfillment etc. Why would a company ever value these things?