Ask HN: New Job Poor Fit, Can't Make Immediate Jump

3 points by Scalanchilis 9 years ago | 3 comments

I took a new job about six months ago and am into my second project with them. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be a colossally bad fit. My job responsibilities have turned out to be closer to business analyst and assistant project manager than software engineer (but paid a senior software engineer salary). Their agile work style has turned out to be heavily bureaucratic, full of long meetings, documentation I am constantly being asked to generate, and just overall unpleasantness; I scarcely ever write a single line of code on the job. This did not match expectations based on the interview nor based on the experience listed on my résumé.

This is a remote position, and for various personal reasons, I am looking to relocate, a process that would take a few months and coordination with my S.O., and so am not interested in taking a local job in this mid-sized city. Good remote positions have been difficult to find. Financially, quitting in the interim is also not an option.

I am at odds trying to figure out a good way to handle this situation.

alphanumeric0 9 years ago |

Hi, fellow remote worker here. I am in somewhat the same boat, as I'm not really working on large scale software projects, more just plumbing for our frontend devs (I am a backend developer for a design company). As a result I often find myself creating my own priorities and requirements, which can relieve some of the boredom.

If you have the opportunity and the clout you could suggest new tech or new processes that might help alleviate some of the pain points you're feeling. It's at least worth a shot. You might end up getting to do some new dev work as a result.

shams93 9 years ago |

Starting a side project might help unless this is a more than 8 hours a day job, which I've had and side projects are impossible working 120 hours a week. But if its a normal 40 hour workweek remote that gives you some extra time to do a neat side project which could lead you to being on the indie hackers' site listing.

Scalanchilis 9 years ago | |

I'm honestly kind of burnt out by the end of the work day and want to get out and socialize to recharge my batteries. I've been investing much of the rest of my free time into getting back to recruiters, checking out companies in cities we're considering relocating to, etc.