Ask HN: Should I checkmate my employer?

What's on your resume? You sound like a full stack dev + DevOps. Both are in high demand.

If you've worked for 8 years doing all that and aren't getting any interest, your CV may well suck. If you were hiring a new PHP developer, consider the things you would care about in a CV you were reviewing.

Your resume is a mess probably. I'm a writer. If you want me to take a look email me John at Biggs dot cc.

The answer to that question is almost always “yes”. There’s no shortage of IT employers, quite the opposite.

What kind of jobs are applying to? Your xp sounds like “rando IT guy” so it might not be translating well.

You would be better off asking this question to a recruitment consultant, ideally one that specialises in whatever it is that you would label your core skillset.

Without seeing your CV, my guess would be that you're missing some criteria that the orgs you're applying to are applying as a front-end filter. For example, maybe you don't have the right degree (or maybe you don't have a degree at all), and the places you've applied to auto-bin CVs which don't meet this standard. This is something a recruiter can likely help with, either by manually bypassing the filter or by pointing you towards orgs which don't have those requirements.

The other thing I would say is that it's pretty clear you actually want a raise, not a move. Is that coming across in your applications? I wouldn't personally waste time interviewing someone who didn't seem like they were genuinely looking for a job change.

Throwaway acct.

I left my first sysadmin job after about 3 years because the advice I recieved is that if you work solo for too long, you develop your own ways of doing things, become unable to integrate into more mainstream best practices, and become effectively "unhirable". I wonder if that has something to do with your lack of success in the job hunt.

It sounds like maybe there's a lot of 'institutional knowledge' about how that 42U rack and the rest of the network is assembled that only you know. It would be expensive for your employer to replace you, but with an external consultancy that replaces a large fraction of your infrastructure with something they can manage, they could survive if you left.

If you're willing to take the risk and switch careers, it might very well be worth having that sit-down with your employer where you lay out exactly what will happen to their infrastructure when you leave.

Edit: I would reconsider how you wrote your CV.

- It's not a matter of the degree to which you fit some specific title (didn't go to enough board meetings to be the Director of IT, or whatever). It's not percent score match, it's pass/fail. Were you the director of IT, or weren't you?

- Eight years is a lot of problems to solve, and a lot of weird niche technologies to learn just enough about to be dangerous with. Those are specific examples of your ability to be really good at the stuff you've been doing. Mention it. Plus, who knows if someone else is looking for someone with experience with a weird niche technology?

- Given how long you've been doing this job, PHP dev might be too big a leap to make at one go. Might be worth looking for something halfway there, that's still perceived as similar to what you've proven you're good at.

There are CV writing/review services available, but I can't recommend one that specializes in technical jobs. Perhaps someone else here can.

Because it sounds like there's something about your CV that is causing it to be ignored. UK standards for this are different, but make sure you don't include things like age, gender, race, or a photo. Do make sure there is correct spelling and grammar. Focus on how you used technology to solve business problems.

The other possibility is that you've hit an industry-wide hiring lull. It's getting towards the end of the year (budget time), and the economy is slowing down.

Are you applying to PHP dev jobs? And what type - office, hybrid, or remote, in London or not London?

It sounds like you may be failing some sort of implicit cultural filters - you've been in the same small workplace for 8 years and apparently your circles don't include highly-paid IT/development people. "International-tier" tech is a fairly distinctive and exclusionary culture to anyone who is not fluent in either its own norms or those of a handful of adjacent academic fields, and the boundary may be policed based on shibboleths that even members couldn't articulate explicitly when prompted. Looking at your post, I get enough of a "cultural difference" gut feeling that reinforces this suspicion - I think the most glaring signifiers are the excessive spacing, omission of apostrophes and commas (though I realise this is more common in the UK) and a certain harshness in verbiage like "aggrieved" and the "The problem/s? They won't..." that is at odds with the nonconfrontational style of the modern workplace. (There was actually an opinion piece on this on the HN front page a few days ago: https://goodreason.substack.com/p/on-corpspeak)

Consider befriending some people in your industry who are in a position closer to the type that you would be interested in, and asking them for feedback on your CV or at least absorbing the way they talk and present themselves by osmosis. I'm not in the UK, but at least in the European location I'm in there are many tech people circulating on local meetup (social) apps.

Failure may not be so bad. A company that doesn't want to invest in IT when everything is working likely will invest when things break. I would say just make sure your bosses know what's coming and put it in writing. Write a succinct report, with the headline up front, that explains exactly what will happen without additional resources and what you could make happen with which additional resources. Get them to sign off on it. When failures start to happen, point to your report and explain that you're locked and loaded with your plan to fix it as soon as you have the resources.

I would be very cautious about negotiating a salary when you're in the position of knowing you can't get a better salary on the market. Fix what's wrong with your resume, get a better offer, and then negotiate (or not). Just not a good negotiating spot to be in if you know you ultimately have to accept what they say.

Step one: believe them as they demonstrate how little they value you.

Step two: Do your job, as described in the job offer, and stop doing extra. They place no value on that extra work.

But in the long term, don’t stay, even if they do give you a raise or exceed another offer. After all, they didn’t value you before; imagine how little they will value you when you’re a bigger cost to them.

There's likely something wrong with your CV, have a professional review it.

Depending on your life situation, I would greatly consider starting your own company. If you are willing to work on IT there are always possibilities.

Seems like it's a good time to work a more leisurely 8 hour day, turn off the pager outside work and take all the vacation you're entitled to.

Hire a consultant to look at your CV. I used levels.fyi had a great experience.

If you’re not getting recruiters it’s because you’re not matching keywords. If you can get in front of hiring managers, past the ATS and recruiter screen that is, your resume is good. Otherwise it’s bad.

Your employer can replace you for some annoying short term costs.

If you’re in a small business you might be working for what I call “mom and pop tech company”. These are painful to work with because getting cash for anything is like pulling teeth since they think of the business cash as their personal bank.

Get the CV cleaned up, discuss a transition with your employer, and offer to stay on to support the consultant for a market rate fee. This will save them money. But it’s time to move on.

Agreed your CV probably needs work. But talk to a recruiter in the industry to help you improve your resume, they know far more and have more accurate knowledge than another engineer. Also, not sure how many positions you've applied to but apply to as many as you can, 100 would not a bad number of positions to apply to. It can be a numbers game.

To answer the question in the title - No, you shouldn't. For the same reason if you google "employer counteroffer" every piece of advice will advise you not to take the counteroffer. You've already signaled your intentions and they will no longer see you as aligned, crippling future growth at the organization, and they will oust you once they can.

Its shocking to me how poorly people are compensated in the UK. There's no way a competitive market could exist there. Move to America if you dare... you can actually make something of your life.

A) Sit your employer down and say "I am applying for Jobs in the 80-100K range because <list of reasons>. When I get an offer I will take it, you are welcome to make me an offer to stick around now"

B) Get on LinkedIn and scope out some recruiters, reach out to the ones you like the look of with a brief of the sort of role your looking for. Get on the phone with them and get their advice - they will get you interviews.

Don't stop B if A works. Ultimately you should leave your current employer - they are not going to "get it" overnight so it will happen again in some form.

With your skills I'd expect to see you earning at least 80-90K depending on location. Aim for more full stack or DevOps roles. Consider management or team lead tracks - you clearly have strong organisational skills.

Another option, not sure if you've done it yet, but have an honest, face to face sit down with your employer. What you're experiencing is burn out; tell them so.

Find another job.

Are you doing anything beyond just sending out CVs? That's a pretty poor way to find a job, TBH. A CV is required for a job search, but best delivered after you've had a discussion with a hiring manager (at best) or someone at the company (at least) about the position.

In my experience, the best way is to find someone who used to work with you and see if they need help or know anyone who does. You have far more credibility and they'll have more info about you.

The second best way is to meet someone at a technical event, connect with them, and (after a sufficient period of time, don't do it on the first email) see if they know anyone looking.

The third best way is to target local companies who you'd want to work for, and who you know someone at (use LinkedIn or Xing). Meet them for coffee, learn about the company. If it is a fit, ask if it is okay for you to send a CV over.

All of these take some time to implement, which is why it is good that you are currently employed. (Always easier to find a job if you have a job.)

Start now.

A couple of things:

It sounds like you're asking two (or more) different questions. Your title implies maybe getting back at your employer. I think many of us have gone through similar feelings, but ultimately you should do what's best for yourself and not necessarily what'll make you feel good in the short term (checkmating / petty revenge). In my experience, typical advice is to not take a counteroffer from your current employer. Will you really be satisfied at work if they give you that raise? Will you go through the same issue in another several years?

As for the resume development and lack of responses - maybe try applying to worse-paying jobs, and see if you get hits. Take the recruiter calls and find out what it was about your resume that they liked. You could even go so far as to say you were hoping to get a better-titled position etc and see why they say you're not qualified. You can use all this to better edit your resume, or go develop the needed skills at your current work.

I've also been contacted by headhunters in the past, and with just a little bit of prodding, they're very happy to critique and edit your resume because it's in their best incentives to do so.

I suspect you come across as a bit “Jack of All Trades; Master of None”.

On the systems administration side of things going from one system to a rack isn’t nothing, it’s an achievement, but a lot of employers paying £100k may have applicants coming with more breadth of experience or significant scale - either 1000’s of systems, 10000’s of endpoints, maybe they’re looking for specialist knowledge implementing endpoint protection using Crowdstrike?

In the developer dimension for £100k they’re likely looking for a PHP developer who has ‘full time’ written software in a professional setting for a number of years, worked on teams of developers and contributed to big projects and big codebase (~20k LOC across ~20 repositories is ‘hobby’ scale, plenty of places in industry are >=2 orders of magnitude larger), and perhaps they also seek prior experience with the frameworks they may use?

I’m not sure you should be aggrieved, £60k is nothing to sniff at for a smaller-scale IT role with a “Does It All” blend of duties.

Also beware almost everyone is far more replaceable than they might themselves believe. I doubt a SMB would have much trouble finding applicants for a £60k role involving figuring out your stuff. Maybe they’d just hire two people on £40k to have more arms around the problem domain and more resilience against a repeat? Definitely don’t underestimate that trying for “Checkmate” may/will result in an adverse reaction from your employer. Generally employers dislike being strong armed and even if they pay you today they may well begin working on their Plan B.

If you want to take your career in a different direction and focus on something like PHP development you may have to accept this involves taking one step backwards before you can take two steps forward. Maybe that’s a PHP Developer role which focuses just on that, and not 36 other things, but maybe it’s a bit more entry-level because you don’t have the experience today to join as a “Team Lead” of a 10-person team doing XYZ.

Lastly, by far the easiest way to find your next big thing is within your network, not shotgunning your CV into lots of places who have publicly advertised an opening. Look in your local community for topical microconferences or user groups and get involved. Look for more national user groups or communities around e.g. Kubernetes (if that’s your jam) and get involved. Many of those will have Slacks with #jobs channels where hiring managers will post opportunities. Being a participant in the community, particularly if you’re a respected value-adding member, is a foot in the door.

In the UK? Ask Thayer Prime, she will 100% know how to sell you and is in touch with a lot of interesting companies.

It sounds like your unambitious employer treats your work as a cost centre, and achieving a grudging pay bump isn't going to change that.

I was like you once.

You have plenty of raw ability, and are capable of a lot, you've proven that. That can be hard for employers to digest when you apply for jobs "through the front door" (e.g. job boards, career sites, etc.).

A bigger question that might help guide you is, what are you hoping to do in your career next? Focus/clarity may help you here, especially to emphasize the skills that give you a better chance of being matched to and landing a job.

Also, I mean this with all sincerity, great for you for reaching out on HN. Do whatever you can to network, because the people who know you and know what you are capable of can be far more helpful in many cases than "going through the front door" applying for jobs. Going through the front door is notoriously difficult.

I don't promise to be able to solve anything, but reach out if you want to chat. I have 20+ years experience and started out much like you.

Email in profile.