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Ask HN: Just hit 3 mo. at new startup and the work is disinteresting

5 points by 71a54xd ↗ HN
Just hit three months at a new full remote startup I joined. The job provided a nice 30% pay bump from my last job, decent benefits and seemingly cool work based in Elixir (which is what I've been working on the most over the past two years). However, after "ramping up" they aren't even using elixir for beam and the work is wholly un-interesting. Curious if I should stick it out or go back to leetcoding / interview grind and land something new for the beginning of 2022? I'm 27 with 4yrs experience and what's scaring me is that staying here would make my engineering rigor / ability worse. New job would need at least a 20% bump from my current comp - also considering actually taking the plunge and going for a faang / growth stage.

Any advice or recs for hybrid work startups / companies in NYC are also appreciated!

cheers ;)

7 comments

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tucaz
How is the work “disinteresting” and what would have to happen for it to become interesting?
71a54xd
The tickets I've been given for onboarding have been poorly put together as the remote QA / reviewing process was horribly documented. The problems I was told I'd be working on turned out to be far more "in planning mode" than actually something they wanted people to work on. Two key engineers seem to dominate all of the meaty work and what was explained as a cool groundbreaking platform is really a boring accounting app written in elixir.

The most interesting ticket I've been given is re-writing how we do auth for certain clients. I need to get out of here.

rboyd
You mentioned 4 yoe before this. What were those years like? Asking because the current situation you describe doesn't sound super atypical to me.
tucaz
Isn’t it possible that you are not as ready as you think and that your leaders do not yet trust you to help them with more important stuff?

Could you use this opportunity to improve their process or even “teach” the company and team mates a few things here and there?

How about you show some leadership and drive them to where you think the team/company should go?

As I accumulated experience and worked with hundreds of people I found that people are most likely to complain and want things to be different but very rarely they want to change themselves or lead the change. The ones who do are the ones who succeed.

Just food for thought.

pauleibye
Join a smaller, earlier startup. I have 3 years experience and transitioning from a bigger company it is really nice to have control over absolutely everything. I work harder than ever before and feel happier somehow.
hermes8329
Is the paycheck interesting? Seriously money over finding your job interesting. If it's soul crushing that's a different story
weatherlight
Sounds to me you still need to "earn your stripes" as the company gets bigger, you'll get more meaty work, especially if you understand how the BEAM works and your coworkers don't.

(do you practice leetcode problems in elixir?)