Is Your Tech Job Really Bad Enough To Quit?
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- The familiar question "should I stay or should I go?" is common to programmers, or really anyone in a tech job. But it's tempting to just bail the moment you don't like some aspect of the job, hoping for greener pastures.
The flipside of this is when you probably should have left a long time ago but you stick around! Hey, I've been there. It's easy to have fear and blind spots make it hard to know what to do.
In this episode I share 7 signs it may be time to quit your toxic tech job and move on to something better. If you only see several of these signs, that's actually pretty normal. But if you're stacking up a bunch of these (or a few are particularly bad) you need to take action!
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CHAPTER MARKERS
0:00 Introduction
1:57 7 Signs it's Time to Quit Your Tech Job
2:42 1. Personal and Professional Stagnation
3:32 1.1 Self-Serving Pitching of Opportunities
4:42 1.2 Career Advancement Opportunities
6:15 2. Misaligned Goals or Ethics
6:22 2.1 Unethical Asks by Company
7:19 2.2 No Passion for Company
8:20 3. Toxic Work Environment
8:30 3.1 Poor Decisions by Management
9:47 3.2 Micromanagement
10:56 3.3 Lack of Support
11:50 3.4 Overwork Culture
13:15 3.5 Undervalued Employees
14:25 3.6 Rife with Politics
15:56 4. Work/Life Imbalance
16:04 4.1 Unsustainable Work Hours
16:59 4.2 No Flexibility
18:28 5. Compensation Below Industry Standard
19:08 5.1 Mismatch betweeen Qualifications and Pay
20:27 5.2 Lack of Benefits
21:31 6. Diminished Quality of Work
21:42 6.1 Lack of Motivation
22:28 6.2 Overlooked Contributions
23:24 7. Better Opportunities Elsewhere
23:41 7.1 Talk to People When Employed!
25:14 7.2 Failure to Follow Industry Changes
26:32 Episode Groove
#techjobs #careeradvice #programmer - Věda a technologie
Are you wondering whether it's time to get a new tech job? I hope this episode helps you make that decision. What are you facing? What are you going to do?
►► Know your options! Access my FREE data hub for the top 25 software industry roles, TechRolepedia → jaymeedwards.com/access-techrolepedia/
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@@renatosanhueza890 thank you! I just fixed it. You'll have to reload the page.
I made the difficult decision to leave a company just before Christmas. I've worked for a variety of companies. Some better, some not, but all have some dysfunction. The important thing is that they are able to operate in good faith, work as a true team, and put aside petty personal politics. You can work through problems if you know the rest of the team are just as committed.
Amen, did the same! I've been enjoying a few months off working on myself and feel far happier.
Wish you nothing but the best going forward left 5 months ago. Lies and jealousy and nonsense came my way. They knew I was going to leave and attempted to fire me. But failed. Pure disgusting politics.
@@JustLikeBuildingThings Same. Hopefully whatever you do goes well
Much appreciate, also just got diagnosed with autism in my 30s... lot to take in but only way is up!@@ozhoneybadger
Ya I've been in a company where others said it was super toxic, and yet the team I joined was like a bubble or oasis within that environment. It takes strong experienced leadership to make that possible. They say people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad management. Especially in a large company, your experience can vary dramatically by the team that you're on.
Be logical and not angry or spiteful. Start interviewing, find your job, and sign your new employment contract. At this point give your current employer a 2 week notice and never tell the a$$holes why you are quitting. Give a neutral reason like I got a significant salary jump. Don’t burn your bridges even with the a$$holes and make sure you don’t end up without a job in this entire process.
Truth
@@WhiteHonky-mv1eu "make sure you don’t end up without a job in this entire process" - I cannot agree more with this part!
I just recently decided to move to another company for several reasons you mentioned (industry, motivation, management and politics) in a company I worked for 8 years
The funny thing is, that since I know my time at the company is ending, I am much more motivated and I will leave with a last project that I can be proud of.
That's one of the reasons why old school guys often work on short-term contracts only. If you know it's going to end soon, you won't relax on one hand and you become far more difficult to manipulate using job security, career expectations and other phantom things on the other hand. And company management often understand that and are closing such kind of opportunity.
This is how I felt like when I had put in my notice recently. I was fed up and tired but that last week was so much easy and I was energized by the thought of what was to come. 😆
Thanks for making this video. So many things you mention were there when I left my last job.
I just received a mandate that me and my team (Full Time Employees) has to log 7 hours of dev tasks completed every day - not including meetings. We work tons of OT and have been at the company a while, (me over 10 years) but a new manager does not trust any of us. We are now hounded every day about the hours as well. "You're two hours short for the month". "I'm an FTE! and I worked 30 hours unpaid OT this month!". Things can really go downhill quickly at companies.
Ouch. I had one coaching client this year who was at the tech lead level, and when new management came in they demanded he deliver code at the same pace as other seniors AND lead the team. Ridiculous.
I would definitely quit, that's outrageous.
@@Jaime-eg4eb I'm working on certifications (AWS - I already have two) and a Grokking the coding interview course to be prepped for interviews, but I want to be better prepared before I throw myself out there, but yeah I'll be looking to move on some time this year.
I left my job this week cause of the lack of growth in career within the company, my skillset felt like it was dulling due to lack of challenge, my manager wasnt utilizing me fully and by time they spoke of doing so, I had lost interest and started looking at more interesting roles. It was weird to say I was getting bored and the lack of structure and randomly being assigned duties and then my manager lack of tech background was so inconsistent in their decision-making it would make my head spin. Definitely looking forward to the next thing in my career!
Best of luck! Sounds like you were well reasoned to search for something more engaging.
Thank you once again for insights, Jayme.
And another one beautiful guitar!
Additional thanks to guys in comments for sharing stories.
Thanks yeah I was actually pretty pleased with the tone I got on this one. The Gretsch is a fickle beast.
I left my previous job for a couple of reason, some which you mention. I felt I was no longer learning anything, hence I felt that my skills stagnated. I was also being heavily under utilized. I was being put to perform tasks that I just felt I had no business doing. Also, the job description I applied to, completely changed during my tenure with the company. I knew It was a matter of time before I left and I did.
Recently, after 7 years in the same company, I was looking around the job market and realize I need some new skills. So I made plans to upskill myself on my next job but I won't quit just yet, I'll use my current job and see if I can push into projects that get me exposed to new skills.
I'm really glad you're putting the time into these episodes, it's probably the most realistic and truthful opinion about the industry I've ever heard... 100% my experience as well.
always love your guitar transition. keep making this videos
More to come!
4am here at my country, cant sleep thingking about the future. This video appear, coincidence or a sign😅. 7 out of 7
Stay healthy, stay safe, and remember that a cat always lands on their feet regardless!
Every time I move, companies disappoint me two years in, like clock work. It's almost always external factors they are responding to, too, it's kind of uncanny. But I can't change jobs every two years because it looks bad on a resume, so I end up feeling a bit stuck.
I'm in that situation now, even though it definitely could be worse. It's just not as good as it started, ya know?
I was just talking to my wife about this with respect to groups of people at church. It seems every group of people once it reaches a certain size encounters more corruption because scaling introduces changes in incentives.
I typically tell people to find a small to medium size company with a decent culture, and plan to leave when things go south. It inevitably happens to them all. Doesn't mean you can't really enjoy it until that happens!
This video hits home for me, and pretty much spells out all of the reasons why I quit software engineering and focused on technical product management instead. I got sick and tired of getting yelled at by incompetent managers who clearly had no clue. Dysfunctional companies are sadly the norm in software, and thankfully I'm at a company where my work is appreciated and respected. Sure I could make more elsewhere but then again, there are more reasons to stay than to leave.
There's a pretty good correlation study in social science between salary and stress. Definitely higher salary usually mean more stress. Though it doesn't mean less salary equal less stress lol. XD
Hey Jayme, I just wanted to say you rock dude! Love the guitar in this episode. So genuine. Also, amazing career advice. Keep doing what you are doing man! 😊 🎸💻
Thanks for your support! 🙏
im gonna say this is par for the course.
the only control you have is your perception and attitude.
try and ejoy the ups and deal with the downs , we ALL have em.
If you must leave a job, instead of quitting begin putting litigation in place. It will get you a better exit payment and terms. Once a company sees you taking steps to begin litigation they will stop stepping on you.
I'm doing well my job, but I will quit for overwork, they ask always for extra times , costantly checking what you are doing... i prefer to change job.
i raised my eyebrows a cpl times during this. love your channel. so nice to hear it from another like peer. how many others can’t talk to others bc they don’t get code??
Great to hear. Thanks for checking out the channel!
Jayme, it feels like you are talking about each project I participated in since I moved to the USA. :) I lost my faith in healthy work environment 5 years ago. I just do not believe it exists anymore. The goal of businesses currently is to get money from other people and extract as much as possible effort from employees.
Wow accurately , that’s how ppl become communists 😅 btw you are absolutely right, with only exception that businesses are always to get money from other ppl and exploit employees
Sorry to hear that. The goal of businesses is to make as much money as possible, and to extract effort from employees. But it still can be done in a sustainable and ethical way. Unfortunately modern society is often run by people devoid of ethics - and so you get this. Sorry to hear about your journey. I hope you're in a better place now.
@@HealthyDev i am not in a better place NOW. :) Now I am jobless for last 7 months. 😆
@@ffatherandersonoh man. Hang in there.
@@HealthyDev 😁🫡
Thank you for making this video, I am currently encountering all 7 and more in my current position and actively looking for better opportunities, I am not naive though, the grass is never green (rarely) it is brown everywhere I might as well get a better salary and benefits, some additional points.
1. Offshore contractors are introduced, quality goes down, moral goes down, deadlines missed etc etc.
2. Org introduces SAFE, then find out that the agile strategy is now more waterfall than ever before.
3. Positions are not backfilled, double-down on contractors, see point #1
4. Rampant title inflation, you get to be a senior, tech lead, architect due to project pressure
5. "Wearing multiple hats", doing things outside your role because head count won't increase
6. Putting people into positions where they have no business in said role, analogy, making the janitor a chef
Thanks for this video. I started out as a frontend developer ending up as a UX/Product designer, looking at the whole process of software development (more or less). Then the mass layoffs hits and getting back in has proved really hard. Competition is tough (UX is now SO over saturated) and now I have to do several tests - logic and personality when meeting new companies. It’s ridiculous with my resume and recommendations. It’s never enough. They want you to be a super human being doing everything… Thinking of leaving this industry entirely OR deep dive into Python (jobs around that and AI keeps getting hyped).
Wish I could become a baker doing bread. 😄
Python is pretty saturated as well as it's got a very low barrier to entry.
@@scriptkeeper8243 Yeah I think you’re right. Right now I’m back into HTML, CSS, React and TypeScript. Feels like “the new PHP” - so many systems are built with it so it’ll stick around for a while but JS is still crazy with all new frameworks/libraries. Feels like I should just ditch “UI/UX” and go for Python and AI. Have started looking at open source models.
it definitely seems like you need to switch companies to bump up salary
I once worked for a company which became concerned of becoming a technical expertise fabric (i.e. people were learning there and leaving for better jobs because they didn't want to or couldn't become managers). So the global CIO and his colleagues decided to introduce technical career paths. They've built a nice looking role matrix containing position names like "Senior Developer", "Lead Developer", "Principal Developer" and such for a number of roles. Little or no management, you focus on your role duties, and you get promoted up to a Director if you do good. This looked really cool, so they've printed it in color and put it on the walls all over their IT offices worldwide. But one thing they "forgot" was promotion quotas. E.g. if they had an annual limit of 10-15 people promoted to a VP, 1 to a D, etc. per 1000 employees in a region, that was going to stay as is. So obviously no technical promotions to higher grades were going to happen because management folks hadn't have enough for themselves, and they were much better trained to win this contest (let alone being able to dedicate much more time to that). I mean realizing that was like an explosion. Dozens of people working there for a decade or so felt like they were spat upon or f..ked over. It would be literally better if that matrix had never been introduced. Especially considering that company had much weaker restrictions on hiring onto higher grades from outside, meaning the money was not a problem. A missing third dimension to that role matrix became our popular joke: leave the company, work for 2 years somewhere else, come back to a position 1-2 grades higher than your previous one was.
Hi Jayme - I very much appreciate your channel. I am a QA engineer having done both manual & automation testing. In the 1990's, I graduated with a business degree but, because jobs were really hard to come by, I went to tech school to learn computers. Probably one of the best decisions I ever made. I enjoy working in IT despite the ups and downs. I agree with your assessment that agile is challenging to implement in any organization.
However, one thing that I have noticed that hasn't really changed in software is that QA is seen as an afterthought. For example, I remember one instance where the Dev team released a build for QA to test at 5:00 PM on a Friday. Delivery to the customer was on Monday. The QA team (which was just myself) worked late all weekend testing the application. Seriously, there were hundreds of bugs. I mean, realistically, how much can be fixed 3 days before delivery? One thing I learned from the experience was to push back.
Anyway, thanks again. Stay Strong.
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I stay there will be trouble, but if I leave there will be double.
I was waiting for someone to go there ;). You are the first!
@@HealthyDev great minds think alike 😊
Thanks for the video. You’ve talked me into biting the bullet and moving on from a not so rewarding position!
@@MAbild7well I'm not trying to talk anyone into anything. Just layout out considerations. If you feel it's time to move on though, I'd trust your instincts!
I left my toxic job seven months ago...was in QA Engineering. I've had plenty of interviews since then but the spark is gone and nowadays they want you to solve leetcode in the interviews and know AWS AND Azure and Java AND JavaScript. It's nuts .I had such a toxic experence at my last job I think I'm still healing. I filed for BK last week because I have exhausted my savings and not found work....but oddly enough-I feel fine about it. I felt better doing that then having to spend another day in a toxic job. It's bad out there but I'm hopeful I will find another job that has great culture, etc. They DO exist but not sure it'll easily be found in the tech space.
It does take time to recover from a toxic prior job. I don't think people want to admit this. It's actually normal.
Hi. I'm going to stay, right now I think I'm in a good place and I enjoy what I'm doing.
Recently watched a video of people walking in the mountains, setting up cameras to film snow leopards for study. What a wonderful job. What are you guys even doing in IT, especially during this recession? Is it really worth consuming methamphetamines on a daily basis to meet the company's productivity goals? Building some AI-based concentration camps and total surveillance networks? Pushing advertising into minds of millions to help companies sell some commodities or services which nobody really needs? Or helping financial oligopoly to rip people off even more? Or working for whatever other "successful" projects...
We ask ourselves these questions every day ;). And how much you can support a family on snow leopard photography is a good question!
Dude that hurt. As a Business Intelligence / Data Engineer with more than 10 years of experience. Those are questions that I think about every day :(
@@HealthyDev I'm afraid an average programmer merely supports landlords and banks on his IT job, giving out most of their wow bow salary. Life is much cheaper in mountains.
I left my last job because there was rarely any appreciation and constant whining from the Scrum Master. The environment promoted doing things in a haste and spend multiple sprints on fixing bugs (I strive for making things work right the first time, slashing a lot of extra QA and bug fixing time).
The hardest part was to switch because the constant stress of work (read: the stress of showing progress to someone who is more interested in getting a ticket closed than the feature getting quicker to the customer) rarely left me with any time to prepare for interviews.
I resigned from the job before this one due to multiple things: office politics, timid annual increment and the management forcing back-to-office in the middle of the pandemic.
It seem blunt, but you also want to ask your co workers, whether they are happy working for the company. In a healthy company this is perfectly normal question.
Sometimes it's not cutting corners but instead adding more tech that's not needed and just changing them kater 180 deg.
I would say the role on your company might be not right for you. If there is no alternatives inside and you don't wan to work in the same role in the other place, time to go.
For me it is that, also work life disbalance, and the quality of work from people who provide the requirements (really a struggle to understand what they want completely). Looking for the opportunities, yet I am too deep in legasy and there is a lot new things required to apply. So it seems the only way is to quit and learn new things, as there is no time to do in in my current place.
If you are 35 and under, you should absolutely be looking for a new job every 2 - 3 years regardless of whats going on with your company unless you own the company. Reason being companies simply do not update their pay for current employees and you can make 10% - 20% more with each move which all adds up over time.
Nah. He talks about why that is a bad idea in the long run in one of his latest videos.
I was in a big tech corporation that promoted the most lazy, useless and parasitic people to management positions. They were comfortable by invoicing the s%!= out of the customers up to the point they made a big customer file for bankruptcy. Tasks that should take hours took days, task of days took weeks or even months. Management was there to delay everything and sometimes they were called out from higher management to show something and then we delivered a quick cheap non maintainable software that could appease the higher ups in order to keep doing nothing. Politics 100%, hard professional work 0%. It’s like watching a dinosaur go extinct, you knew that eventually that had to die and start with mass layoffs.
If you clicked on this video willingly then your answer is yes
Seventh sign that your tech job is toxic : There are better opportunities elsewhere. Hmm..?
Be ruthless. Your employers in the end don’t really give a damn about you or your family despite their magnanimous rhetoric. If they don’t put their money where their mouth is, don’t fall for it. Fool me once shame on you… fool me twice shame on me.