Ask HN: When to Quit?

You should leave when you have a better opportunity elsewhere. No more, no less.

I don’t know what anyone should do. I think there are no black and white answers anywhere.

But… I can tell you that there’s some weird recommendation right now that if you are the least bit unhappy, or have the slightest bit of FOMO, or have been slighted in the tiniest of ways… “that you must quit”.

Like… that people are being convinced there is no value in having a current job if it isn’t your dream job.

I just had a developer ghost us two weeks ago. Just not come in one day and only when repeatedly texted answered he is looking for other work. Besides the extremely unprofessional aspect, when pressed he had no answer for what we could do better except double his pay or why he wouldn’t look in his off time.

We paid him a good salary for his resume and work, but he has somehow convinced himself that he can make double somewhere else and still work 32 hours a week with an extremely relaxed working environment.

I just don’t get who is making these insane recommendations to people, or why anyone would listen.

I wish our former guy luck, but whatever job you plan on taking - please don’t fucking ghost your employer out of no where.

It depends (a little bit) on your age, and (a lot) on your desire to learn or do more. You might be hitting a point where you are getting bored, sick of not learning anything new in your current position, and this may be the biggest motivator for you.

Other factors or metrics or motivators or whatever we might call them may include money (you mentioned), comfort, job security, work environment, travel time ...I can't think of any more right now. One big indicator might be when you wake up in the morning and you dread going into work. Chances are you will be happier somewhere else.

You're time and skills are valuable, that's why you get paid to do the job you do. It's up to you to find the line.

(edit) Also, you can try moving up in the company you are in? If you like the culture and environment and whatnot, and feel you are being under utilized, they may have something more demanding for you to do there.

Most recently for me, there were a couple of things:

1) I had no where to go career wise. Vertical movement meant becoming a manager

2) My last couple of performance reviews felt like they were nitpicking to rank me lower. It felt like a cheap trick.

3) We went from being an R&D POC group to a production group. I enjoyed both, but the former is more fun

Everyone is different. Staying at a job isn't just about the job for everyone. What are your goals? What else is going on in your life? Optimizing for learning is great if you are looking for growth. Is it the best idea when you've just had a baby?

If you are looking for growth and learning opportunities, and you aren't getting them, them find a new job and then leave. The job market for engineers is red hot, so that shouldn't be a concern. And, assuming you have a little bit of discretional money / savings, you should be fine on that front.

Just be aware, the grass isn't always greener and it's very hard to learn about an company from the outside, because culture can be very different team to team. So, if you move once, be prepared to have to move again, if need be.

For me, I'm still looking for growth and to take on more responsibilities (to grow as a leader). I've learned that if your boss isn't your champion, growth isn't going to come inline. So, it's probably time to leave. But, that's just me.

I will say that for me, personally, the people I work with have a much larger impact on my job satisfaction than any of the technical aspects. I don’t currently work with the most advanced and interesting technologies but I do really like the people on my team and we all get along and work really well together.

An anecdote: I previously left a job to pursue what I thought would be a great opportunity to work with a “modern” and fun technology stack. However, my new manager turned out to be a totally manipulative jerk and my coworkers were rude and uncaring. I lasted about 9 months there (enduring stress and panic attacks like I’d never dealt with) before I reached out to my old boss and asked for my old job back, which is where I’ve been for the last 4 years and I’m very happy I made that decision.

So even if the stack is terrible, think about how other aspects of the job impact your mental health and stress levels. Can you live with a terrible stack (or maybe even think about ways to improve it) while working with good people? Does your compensation cover any downsides to working with that stack?

If you feel you’re underpaid, can’t stand the technology, and the relationships with your coworkers don’t balance either of those aspects out, then I think it’s time to pursue something else. But be warned that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Quit your job. Deep down you already made the decision.

If you need logical reasons why, read about this study on how we all should make more change decisions:

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/study-of-20000-coin-tos...

Same exact shoes except I'm a 34 year old manufacturing engineer.

I've heard recently that when faced with indecision it can be helpful to brainstorm a bunch of different questions to ask oneself.

Have you bounced around a lot between different jobs throughout your career?

Make it easier on yourself by changing the problem statement: decide what the things that you want to achieve and see improvements in are, and then never give up on those.

That should, hopefully, make all kinds of life decision-making easier. You'll still need to make calculations and take risks, but it'll keep you on course.

What are your goals?

One doesn't appreciate nice coworkers until one has had to deal with the alternative.

One factor to consider, the market strongly favors candidates at the moment. I'm currently on the flip side, of trying to hire a large engineering team. Interviewing is no fun, but you are at a time when you could find a company working on the exact technology you want to grow in. So, whatever your personal metrics are, or current employer metrics are, I would also add a market metric that influences your decision. Other factors to consider: 1. Do you have a clear growth plan from your company in either management or individual contributor? 2. How have your recent performance reviews gone? 3. However you rank this, are you satisfied with your day to day work and find it interesting?

The best time to start looking for a new, better job is the day after you start your old prior job. In other words, you are never not looking for your next job. Depending on "how good you have it" that may be easier or harder to accomplish. It doesn't mean you have to leave your current team, department, company, or industry. It may be an expansion of your current role, taking on a direct report when you have none, or taking on a direct report who's doing something a little far afield from who you currently manage.

If you're "already gone" and wondering when to look for a position truly outside of your current team / department / company / industry then the best time to start looking is... today. The sooner you start the sooner you'll begin gaining the most valuable resource possible in this scenario: more information! Knowing what kind of response your resume is getting, what roles are out there for you, what companies are interested in you, and what the pay looks like for those roles... all of that is very difficult to acquire absent an actual job search. The sooner you start looking, the sooner you'll have a feel for where your resume and interviewing skills could take you next. Then you can weigh if it's enough better than your current role to be worth it.

Just start looking for a new job, and when you are holding the offer, it should be obvious whether you actually want to leave. There's a big difference between "this job is insufferable, I'll walk out into uncertainty over this" and "I can stay or I can go to this specific new place".

When you find something that looks better to you. Since you're uncertain, you can look around. If everything out there seems worse than your current job, it makes sense to stay where you are.

Of course when you're making this assessment, there are a bunch of unknowns about any potential new job, so it has to look significantly better to compensate for the risk you're taking (and for the overhead of switching).

Basically it’s when you get less than you give.

Including salary, experience, connections, fun, whatever your priorities are.

And you’re the only one who can estimate the value right.

Well, I had the idea of quitting my current job in mind and the when was "probably in one or two years", for a few small reasons that were adding up. Can't say I'm not learning new things, and my colleagues are really nice.

And then I ran into two folks from another company at an event, the discussion was going really well, and one of them, the boss, told me "Join us!" (I didn't show any intent to join them or to quit my current job).

That solved the problem for me. They seem to offer what I'm looking for. This is an opportunity that ran into me.

I wouldn't rely on such thing to happen, but maybe it can happen to you too?

How long you been on it? Few years? Sounds like you are ready. Any less, I would say look at your history and make sure it won't make you look like a problem employee (not all employers are progressive about job hopping).

Everyone has their own set of metrics, sounds like rate of learning is a big one for you. In this case look for options that maximizes that metric, then compare and tradeoff along other dimensions. Be careful heeding others' stories. The flaw with overcomplicating this decision process with too many data points, especially from others on HN in different places in their lives and have preferences than you, is that it will lead to prolonged indecision and ultimately regret. Good luck!

Not a job but a very steady client.

I was working on a pretty nice project when this long-term client announced that for the next project, we would need to support an old version of the operating system. I had just gotten up to speed on the latest APIs and their statement meant, that my efforts would be a malinvestment.

I stopped working for them, and took on another long-term client.

If you're thinking about it, it's time. Prepare your resume and start looking. It's a great time in the market to get a new job. Seeing raises from 20-80% from some people I know in my network.

Ask yourself the question, what are the consequences of not quitting? When the answer to that question is outweighed by positives of the corollary question what are the consequences of quitting, it is time to move jobs.

As with the stock market people tend to sell too late when prices are falling and sell too early when prices are rising. Sounds like you are waiting to "call the bottom before selling".

When you have a firm offer to start a new one in two weeks. There are other reasons, but a real different job is big as you never know when or if you can find a new job. This is a great time to look, but you might be the unlucky person who doesn't get an offer.

If you have a lot of saving you can sometimes risk leaving for a few months of travel, but give yourself plenty of time to get a job before savings runs out. (Different counties have different support for this so check to see how the rules work where you live )

If they are doing something illegal then if you don't quit when you discover it, that is because the FBI or equivalent asked you to stay on to gather evidence. Illegal covers harassment, though you shouldn't stay on if it is against you )

In general though don't risk not having income.

One more general principle is that often a decision isn't as irreversible as it might seem. You could very likely spend a year or two trying to find a better fit at other companies, then return to this job, possibly with much better pay, and content that the grass is as green as the rest.

Also, something my brother told me years ago is, "if you're trying to decide between two things, try to pick the one that lets you do both."