Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

29 points by mrtb 3 years ago | 59 comments

After uni I joined a FinTech with ~200 engineers and strong employee reviews. Like many grads, it's my first full time job in software, which makes it hard to gauge how good or bad the overall experience is compared with other companies.

Three years in I think our company is, on average, as good as the best 'out there', but when individuals hit rough patches (stress, poor growth, low autonomy, etc.) they often start looking for a new job. Even if they decide to stay put, they sometimes plow on with low morale, berating themselves for not trying a new gig.

I believe other good software companies would have just as many problems - though maybe not the same ones as us - and that some of my despairing colleagues would be happier if they had that mindset, focusing on making the most of the opportunities they have and driving change instead of pining for a nirvana. But maybe my expected cosmic background shittiness is too high, I'm romanticising pointless suffering, and we should actually all bugger off.

How can first timers make better judgements about their situations - both in terms of being grateful for what's good around them and critical of the genuinely bad?

PS: For those who have been at one company for most of their career, but who felt like quitting for one or more reasons, did things get better or did you just accept the tradeoffs?

Have you ever truly regretted quitting a job - why?

Money aside, did you ever leave a job you were happy with to find one where you were even more happy? Did that work?

cs02rm0 3 years ago |

I was advised to move every two years in software, without knowing if it would be good advice. As it happens I roughly did that for a while, until I went contracting when curiously I stuck around for longer, well, not that curiously - I can be picky about roles and conditions now and doubling my income is no longer likely.

For the first few moves I doubled my salary. That helps a lot.

You grow a network too, you see things from different perspectives, get variety, learn new tools. A change is as good as a rest. And when all is said and done, if it doesn't make you happy, just take the extra experience and increased salary and go back.

But look around you, how many people who left the company ever came back?

IME the advice was good because companies tend to value you as little more than who they hired, the jobs market values you for who you are now, which changes quickly early in your career.

Good luck either way.

fishtoaster 3 years ago |

I would say that, regardless of the company, you should seriously consider quitting your first job after a couple years.

Even if your first job is great, you just have no basis for comparison. If your next job is great too, then swell - now you can work there confidently! If it sucks, you try again. The knowledge you gain by trying a few places is better than sitting in one place, even if that place is actually really good.

For me, my first job was ok. My second job was ok, but in different ways: some things it did way better then job #1, some things way worse. By the end of my second job, I have at least the start of an idea of what I liked and disliked, and used that to inform my third job search.

Really the third job search is where it's really at: you have a lot more options (as a mid or senior engineer) and you have two data points about what you want and don't want in a job. This allows you to optimize around what the best job for you is. My third job lasted my about 5 years until an acquisition because I had dialed in what I liked by that point. If I'd stayed at my first job, I'd never have found that.

verteu 3 years ago |

You should quit. There's a randomized controlled experiment on this exact topic. See column 6 in page 28 of https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22487/w224...

On average, people who flip a coin to decide whether to quit are much happier when they quit.

To be precise, if we define H as self-scored-1-to-10 happiness six months after the coin toss, then B_wald = (EV[H | heads] - EV[H | tails]) / (Pr[quit | heads] - Pr[quit | tails]) = 5.203.

shoo 3 years ago | |

Conclusion of the linked paper:

> The results of this paper suggest the presence of a substantial bias against making changes when it comes to important life decisions, as evidenced by that fact that those who do make a change report being no worse off after two months and much better off six months later. The results of this paper are, of course, merely suggestive. If the results are correct, then admonitions such as "winners never quit and quitters never win," while well-meaning, may actually be extremely poor advice.

Centigonal 3 years ago | |

This is a fascinating paper, and IMO you should submit it as its own link so more people can read and discuss it.

mi_lk 3 years ago | |

some entries in the same column:

  should I quit my job -> 5.203
  should I start my own business -> 5.256
  should I propose -> -5.125

dan-robertson 3 years ago | | |

I’m not sure I understand what I’m looking at but I think my reading is that if people are unsure about quitting their jobs they probably just need a bit of kick out of status-quo bias, but if people are unsure about whether or not they should propose, they should probably find something they are more sure about instead of letting a coin decide. It doesn’t sound totally unintuitive to me. I guess I think of people thinking about quitting as being biased towards the status quo and I think of people who propose as being indecisive about the timing/method but having reasonable conviction about wanting to do it, so I guess that the people having reservations and being indecisive have genuine reservations?

Also, based on the GP’s formula, maybe the effects look large because people don’t do what the coin tells them very often so you are dividing by a small number?

turkeygizzard 3 years ago |

I'll offer some different advice from all the "quit" people (9 comments so far and all advise quitting).

My first job out of school was at a really top-notch place. I grew a lot early on but growth started to slow a bit already by 1 year. I became frustrated with things and wanted to leave. In retrospect, I still think that was probably fine / the right move for me at the time - but what I'd really like to have known is how to make better of the current situation. I lacked the emotional maturity and perspective to take things more into my own hands. Admittedly, I've gained most of my wisdom from job-hopping and seeing things at different places.

I would advise you to be prepared to leave, but have an honest conversation with your manager about your frustrations (and also what makes you happy there). If it's a good place, they'll reciprocate by helping you towards your goals. If not, then you tried, and you can feel good about leaving.

Also just in general, I find average tenure is a very strong indicator of things. Crowd wisdom is important. If most people leave after X time, there might be good reason for it. If your company's average tenure is much longer, then you should try to figure out why those people are happy to stay so long

shoo 3 years ago |

Leaving a job is a good opportunity to re-calibrate your pay to market rates. Most companies don't give existing staff raises that are indexed to market rates. It can also be a good opportunity to set healthier boundaries - e.g. if you've ended up working a lot of unpaid overtime or carrying a pager without being paid an extra allowance for it, negotiating a new job with a new employer is a good opportunity to correct that.

I've never regretted quitting a job. The pay rises have often been surprising - the funniest one was returning as a contractor to a workplace I'd gotten bored and frustrated with as a junior/intermediate engineer, getting paid 3x what I was paid before. That was eye opening, and a lesson about negotiation and market rates I wish I'd learned years earlier.

If you are interested in switching track into management or technical leadership, and have no prior experience in those roles, it may be much easier to do this while staying within one org for a longer period of time, assuming the org has such roles to fill (growing company etc) and they are open to mentoring you.

Another aspect is that different colleagues' subjective experience of the same work situation can vary wildly. I've joined teams as a contractor in somewhat challenging corporate environments and projects and had a lot of fun, where some of my colleagues who had already been there for several years had a lot of emotional baggage, and would react to day-to-day situations with much frustration and pessimism. Even if the company is objectively a pretty good place to work, individual workers can end up completely sick of the company's particular problems / politics / failures.

If you ever find yourself obsessing over thoughts related to work, and it impacts your mental health and enjoyment of life outside of work -- that is perhaps a signal of looming burnout, and that it could be a great time to take care of yourself and find a different job. Even switching to a job that is worse on paper in some respects can be mentally like a holiday if it lets you completely refresh and clock off work each week with no mental baggage. Sometimes in larger orgs it is possible to get some of these benefits if you can jump sideways onto a different project.

marpstar 3 years ago | |

> I've never regretted quitting a job.

I have, once. About 10 years ago. But I ended up returning to the company I left and keeping the 20% pay raise I got when I came back. I was happier my second time at the company, after having experienced a truly toxic work environment when I had left.

I stuck around another 9 years. Just left in December. New job starts Monday. Confident I won't regret it this time.

bawolff 3 years ago |

Fwiw, everytime in my career where i felt like quiting but wasn't sure, when i eventually did quit my biggest regret was usually not doing it sooner.

If your gut is saying it is time to move on, you should probably listen.

brundolf 3 years ago |

You can't really know. Even other people's anecdotes don't mean much, because everybody has different things that make them happy or unhappy. The only way to really learn how things are is to venture out and see for yourself!

I was miserable at my first software job. I liked the people I worked with, the company was small/casual, I thought I had it pretty good. But underneath I was deeply unhappy. So I saved up some money, quit, and tried freelancing for a few months. Parts of that were great, I learned things, but overall it wasn't for me. So then I went back and looked for a new full-time job. That one ended up being the best job I've had, and really showed me how much I can love my work in the right circumstances.

None of that would have happened if I'd just stayed and gritted my teeth

I would ask yourself: are you really happy? If so, great! But if part of you is unhappy or even just curious, go see what else is out there! There's very little risk if you wait to quit until you've found a job, especially if you're young and without dependents. Don't assume what you've got is the best you can hope for. Take an abundance mindset, and go learn about yourself and your field! You can't predict what will happen, you just have to go out and see

sarah_eu 3 years ago |

Never regretted quitting either. My first job was pretty stellar too, in engineering R&D, and probably the smartest set of people I've worked with to date. I must have been among the top earning graduates from the CS program at my university (which isn't a great university for CS, to be fair). I quit because I couldn't adjust to being a company employee, working in a bland business park on the edge of a new city, writing Python in an open-plan, doing agile, and going to lunch with the same people at the same time every day. Great company, feel nauseous just thinking about it.

mettamage 3 years ago | |

Sounds like you'd be open for working remote :)

andersentobias 3 years ago | |

This resonates.

bdw5204 3 years ago |

A good rule to determine whether you should quit a job is to examine how much you think about quitting. If you're thinking about quitting on anything resembling an occasional basis let alone a regular basis, the answer is yes.

If you ever suspect you might get laid off or forced out via an unacceptable change in your working conditions, start looking immediately. As stupid as it sounds to anybody who hasn't accepted it as normal, its an open secret that many companies consciously discriminate against unemployed people so it's easier to find another job if you're currently employed.

lupire 3 years ago | |

> many companies consciously discriminate against unemployed

Those companies are generally terrible places to work with toxic people.

ApolloFortyNine 3 years ago |

You don't, so just make sure you leave for the right reasons.

And truly the right reasons are whatever you want them to be. It could be solely pay, wanting to try something new, or being tired of your current job. If you're sick of your current job, as you've noticed with your coworkers, it doesn't really go away. Sometimes the only way to see how good you have it is to leave and experience it yourself. You either stay miserable or take a chance elsewhere.

Just make sure you leave in good standing and you likely could even come back down the line, hiring is infinitely easier when you've worked with the candidate before.

alkonaut 3 years ago |

I did 6 years at my first job. Then I moved so I “had” to quit (this was 15 years ago so long before remote was common). Then I realized switching from desktop software rich in processing and complex algorithms to working on things with a web stack was terrible. Just doing crud plumbing was soul crushing.

I asked for my old job back (remotely) and have been there since. I now realize that if I rule out any job with any web or db’s in it then I likely rule out 99% of all dev jobs. And that’s fine.

oblib 3 years ago |

I have worked with folks who weren't happy with their job. And I've quit a few jobs I had because I wasn't valued there.

But it wasn't because the work was unfulfilling. I've never really given that any thought because I was working to earn money and agreed to do what they needed done.

I have worked at a couple places where someone with a much higher pay grade quit and I was asked to take over their position but not offered a raise in pay. I quit on the spot when that happened. I have never felt anything close to regret over that.

But I have known friends over the years who have. They had a sweet gig at a great company and they didn't really realize how good they had it until afterwards.

I tried to talk a few of them out of that who, after they quit, came back and told me they regretted not listening to me.

Personally, I have had a pretty hectic, but also "rewarding", life. I'm 63 now and just getting by. Others I know who got and stuck it out working for a company that paid them well are doing much better.

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets. I'll just say that if you have it pretty good, ride that for as long as you can cause shit happens.

AdrianB1 3 years ago |

My personal advice to anyone is to move from a company before you are there for 10 years. It does not matter how well you are doing, how good you are rated, it is both a career killer and a personal investment that will make it a lot harder to leave when you should have left a long time ago.

I am not talking about job hopping, not at all, but after 20 years in a company it becomes a sort of a marriage and this is not healthy for you, even if it is great for the company. Your marriage is for life, your employer is not.

Another moment to leave is when you did not learn anything new in the past 6 months. In IT, this is not good.

kevinmchugh 3 years ago |

I left a job I really liked after 9 months, when a team I knew offered me a role at an early stage company. I took that job and stayed almost four years, and when it wound down, I went back to the previous job. Things had changed - it grew a lot - but many of the leaders I'd known during my first, short stint were still there. I came back at a more senior level, and came in with a positive reputation amongst many of the people who I hadn't worked with before, based on having done good work my first time out. This worked really well for me.

I have never regretted quitting a job I disliked.

sys42590 3 years ago |

I never regretted quitting a job. There always was a good reason to switch.

If you are unsure if its worth to stay, do some interviews.

I recently did 3 interviews and found out that my current job was better than the offered positions.

AdrianB1 3 years ago | |

Curious: in what way better? I am doing interviews from time to time just to see what is outside and I found companies with better pay but very toxic atmosphere, companies that pay less but great to work in (relaxed, friendly), not yet better pay and better atmosphere but that's what we all should be looking for.

sys42590 3 years ago | | |

For me switching jobs always was two steps ahead and maybe one back. My first full time job had subpar pay and benefits but allowed me to take over a lot of responsibility.

After 2 years I switched jobs (thanks to a friend) to get a better salary, less pressure, but also a bit more boring, and too much paperwork.

After 2 more years the huge amount of paperwork started to really bug me. Fortunately 2 job offers came from former colleagues and I accepted the second one.

This job was really awesome and I stayed many years and did not follow up on any jobs that were offered to me.

After these years however some changes in management above me led to significant shifts in my projects and suddenly I was interested again in job offers, and this is how I ended up at my current 4th full time job.

I'm quite content at my current position, still I interviewed with 3 positions that were relayed to me by a headhunter. All 3 offers had at least one catch (the ones I did not interview with were even worse), so I agreed with that headhunter to not contact me again.

joncp 3 years ago |

What if switching jobs came with no overhead? That is, what if you could decide one day to change jobs and you'd be going to a different job the next day? Would you do it? Sure you would. At worst, you'd find out that your original job was great and you'd go back there.

The reason I pose that question is that I've found that for me the hardest thing about switching jobs is the overhead of switching: I have to do uncomfortable things for a while: grinding leetcode, switching to a salesman mentality where I'm selling my skills, risking lots of rejection, etc. The thing is that it's always been worth the hassle. I've gotten a raise every time. I've met people I respect and like every time. I've also learned things that I didn't know existed at every new job.

If you go through a couple more jobs and find you miss your first employer then you can at least go back there with a better resume than you had when you left.

jerzyt 3 years ago |

At one of my previous jobs, I did a project on employee retention. Our goal was to identify valuable employees who were most likely to leave. The results were surprising at first. The top two factors leading to an employee moving to a new job were: high performance review and high increase in compensation (raise and bonus). On reflection, we realized that we just reaffirmed their market value, so they could negotiate their next salary starting from the new base with us.

Bottom line, whether you're happy or not with your job, you should probably move.

AdrianB1 3 years ago | |

Really curious about something: according to the Pareto principle you should identify the top square root of employees that are top performers and pay them significantly more than the rest (they are producing several times more,~ 9 times, you even if you pay them double you get more value than from the rest of the people). Was this a conclusion of your project on employee retention?

david38 3 years ago | | |

This can change from quarter to quarter. There are companies like Cisco which pay bonuses sometimes exceeding 100% of salary to top employees. This way they’re not stuck paying that if the employee loses motivation.

There are some downsides. Engineers are far removed from the money and complex problems often require the work of many people. Some of that work is 100% necessary and sometimes not valued (writing tests). The typical mistake I see is companies rewarding people who delivered big greenfield projects before the projects have been proven to actually work. A few people on the lucky team get raises, bonuses, promotions, and then more then half the time, the project fails and the older stand-by that was being supported and slowly improved by the less-cool engineers continues to being in all the money. Those engineers then get pissed and some fraction quit.

So a few major caveats * correctly identifying the top 3% is difficult for upper management * identifying too early leads to false positives and backlash * because it’s far from the money, many programmers are quasi-communist in terms of thinking about team deliveries, so highlighting the output of a single engineer makes one person happy but half a dozen mad. There are many companies that don’t announce promotions too far and wide for that reason

lupire 3 years ago | |

Maybe people who get raises are the talented people who can get offers elsewhere.

Maybe people leave after getting a bonus because they postpone leaving until they get paid for their work.

Did you check for confounders?

orwin 3 years ago |

At times, I regretted a bit quitting my first non-internship job, because the second one was so much worse (but with better pay, and i learned corporate software like Jenkins and some AWS stuff). But the third (that i started 4 months ago, full disclosure) is so much better than even my first job that i cannot advise you against changing job.

I intend to stay until they don't need me anymore.

daviddever23box 3 years ago |

The best physical analogy I can muster is that of a sail: wind propels you forward, yet it's never originating from one direction. Ride the wind to your next challenge; the younger you are (and with the least amount of external responsibilities, e.g., family, mortgage, debt reduction), the easier it is to adapt to quick changes in wind direction / speed.

teeray 3 years ago |

I’ve never regretted quitting, but at the same time I can look back and see times when I moved from better teams to worse teams. I’ve also moved from worse to better.

I think it’s important for your career growth to get experience with different teams, different products, and different verticals. It’s always a gamble, but it’s also one that makes you stronger every time.

pmorici 3 years ago |

If there is something about your job that is making you miserable daily, especially if it effects your mood outside of work definitely make a move. Beware of strongly linking your general happiness to your job generally though. If your are unhappy about something outside of work changing your job probably isn’t going to help make you happier.

Apreche 3 years ago |

Every time I changed jobs I was hesitant. Every time it was the right move. There were many jobs I should have left sooner.

smallerfish 3 years ago |

The market sucks right now, especially for junior engineers - so get an offer before you quit. (I have, in the past, done it the other way around.)

When you do interview, try to get a good sense of the team you'd be working on and what you'd be doing day to day. Interview them and make sure that they're a right fit for you.

edfletcher_t137 3 years ago |

You can never know for sure. I only regretted quitting my first major job many years later after life had illustrated why it would've been better to stay. You just have to trust your instincts or take a leap of faith. Good luck.

AussieWog93 3 years ago |

Not what you asked, but even if it feels like the cause of your stress is work, don't rule out other things like lack of exercise, unhealthy diet, relationships that feel like they're going nowhere etc.

lupire 3 years ago | |

And vice versa!

6510 3 years ago |

I've often taken vacation days to go work some place else for 1-2 weeks. If its horrible I'm more happy in my old job (as if I've taken a vacation) if its nice there Ill consider staying.

techstrategist 3 years ago | |

This is an excellent “I didn’t know you could do that… but why couldn’t you?” idea. Surely some people are under work contracts that wouldn’t allow it, but otherwise it’s a super interesting tactic.

bawolff 3 years ago | |

Where are you finding other (tech) jobs that are ok with this arrangement?

polalavik 3 years ago | | |

The secret is nobody needs to know

nerpderp82 3 years ago |

I have never regretted quitting a job. Even if it turns out to be the best job you had, change is good. Three years in FinTech sounds like you might need some perspective.

jstx1 3 years ago |

After 3 years at the same job (especially your first job), you'll likely be able to get a higher salary elsewhere.

mrbonner 3 years ago |

I knew it when my new job offered 30% more in salary and bonus and benefit comparing to the 1st I got out of college.

bhaney 3 years ago |

> How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

You don't know, but it very likely will.

joshka 3 years ago |

Talk to former employees. Connect via linked in

yieldcrv 3 years ago |

Don't get married to a position.

nathants 3 years ago |

only two rules in life.

good or bad, nothing lasts. plan on it.

the next thing’s always better. if it’s not, it’s not the next thing.

dan-robertson 3 years ago |

One thing I often think about is a description of the distribution of job-quality as being fat-tailed[1]. That is, the 95th percentile job is a lot better than a median job and, in particular, is a lot better than if job quality were normally distributed. The referenced piece describes some strategies for looking for outliers in a fat-tailed distribution (e.g. the best jobs). If you agree that job-quality is fat-tailed, you should be wary of the phrase ‘as good as the best’ because there is a lot of difference in the tail. But, it is conceivable that your firm gives you a job which suits you to a similar amount than what you might get at similarly sized companies with similar businesses.

If your job is currently outlier-good, you have a high chance of ending up with something worse if you move to a random job, and even if you know what sort of things you like about it and try to find things you think you’ll want, there might be things that you like but don’t realise until you move and so fail to take into account when looking for other jobs.

One thing that might be useful to you is trying to figure out how your job compares to what other jobs could be. I think the only real way to do this is talking to people you know at other companies, ideally people who have worked at multiple places and have been around long enough wherever they work to see more of the inner workings. If you don’t know such people then maybe you’d be able to meet them socially at parties or conferences or something. I think things online will be written either by companies (mostly emphasizing good parts) or by people with unrepresentative opinions and so you will likely not get the most realistic picture.

There are some other things you could do, e.g. talking to people within your own firm who have worked in many places but stuck there – why did they leave places before, why do they like the current place, what do they not like about it? Or looking at some statistics like attrition (and do people not leave because they are happy or because they are e.g. sitting around waiting for an IPO?). Another thing you could look for is people who leave and then come back (which would likely also be an option for you too if you left – don’t burn bridges and if they liked you before they would presumably be happier to hire someone they already have a good read on and who better understands the business than a typical external hire). If people leave and then return, maybe they left for personal reasons unrelated to the job (e.g. a spouse moving to a distant city for work and then returning), or maybe they left for other companies, and thought that the previous place was a better option. Or maybe they went to pursue something like being a farmer or a carpenter or retired or whatever and decided it wasn’t for them and returned.

[1] https://www.benkuhn.net/outliers/

blue039 3 years ago |

> Money aside, did you ever leave a job you were happy with to find one where you were even more happy? Did that work?

I understand you said money aside but money is genuinely all you should care about. You are trading decades of your waking life to the rat race. It should be your first, and in my opinion, most imperative concern. If you were truly a generous and austere person you'd be a volunteer.

Frequently. I've only recently maintained "tenure" in my later engineering years. Mostly because I don't want to fight with scrappy new grads for positions anymore. First piece of advice I can give you is ignore anything about "fun tech stack" or "culture". It's all bullshit. Of course, parrot the lines they want to hear about how these are the things you look for. Appear fun and excited to work in their "fun stack" in their "culture". Use this as cover for what you really want: money. At the end of the day money may not buy happiness but I have rarely met a happy person that can't afford to be comfortable. Beer coolers, pizza, ping pong, and "fun activities" don't buy you time with your family, friends, and neighbors. Money does.

Second piece of advice: never fall for the "find a job you love" trope. Remember this: if you do not own the company you will never love it. You may like it. Hell, you may enjoy it. But the specter of a layoff, getting fired due to a bad review, etc will always be just a few steps behind you. Always remember as a software engineer the pinheaded MBAs have you squarely under the "cost center" line in the balance sheet. And no, getting shares in a company does not imply ownership no matter how many times HR tells you so.

Fact of the matter is for the first two decades of your career you should honestly be looking to move on from any company in <= 5 years. So, a minimum of 4 companies in 20 years. You'll want to reduce that to a move-on-rate of every 3 or so years if you're in start up land. Loyalty is not awarded. Not here, and not anywhere else. That ship sailed 50 years ago.

The reason? More money and more responsibility. You have a chance to redefine yourself at every new job. These redefinitions can bring you more money and more power. More money and more power is very "sticky" and you'll find people who "fail up" execute this strategy brilliantly. You are more likely to see a significant raise via quitting than by staying around. This advice is universal. It applies equally to tech as it does to landscaping.

Of course, this is just a rule of thumb. Don't leave a company that values you and gives you good raises every so often. Evaluate carefully the opportunity cost. One example from my career: I had a job where I made $X where $X was a little below average. I liked the company and the people. I interviewed around after I got my second or third "money is tight" in a review (despite others seemingly getting rank and pay). I found a company that I could tolerate willing to pay me 1.3x $X. That is a slam dunk. Without question I put my two weeks in and GTFO. Especially when you are young this is very important. If your raise is 10% and a competitor offers you 15% you may want to weigh other facts. But when you're talking multiples of your potential raise...just leave. You are not married to the company and they are CERTAINLY not married to you. If you like your coworkers that much get their phone numbers and meet them at a bar. Despite the himming and hawing from your boss they're probably doing the same thing as you.