Ask HN: Why did you resign from your last job? - julienreszka
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72deluxe
Skilled developers but unlistening management who didn't understand software
development or how the software itself worked, coupled with proliferation of
non-developers taking the helm and dictating deadlines, "procedures" and
illogical mandatory time-consuming processes where "designers" were separate
to developers but didn't know how to write any code, leading to dead-end
development that had to follow said mandatory illogical procedures.
Dysfunctional testing "department" that didn't know how the software worked
despite being there for a decade and relied on "technical support" for basic
computer tasks relating to the software being written, eg add an ODBC
connection. Lack of any formal technical designs, specifications or
comprehensive documentation. Constant criticism of developers for taking time
actually doing their job or wanting to improve things versus the spreadsheet
army surrounding them. Minute micromanaging and justification of all time
spent doing anything. Lock down of development machines because someone
somewhere once ran a dodgy exe they were emailed. Code reviews involving
sarcasm and belittlement. Most over-complicated code ever known to man with
focus on prior optimisation (eg ordering of class members to stop any
padding). A billion COM objects. Confusion that developers never ever stayed!

I went part-time elsewhere. Who cares if I earn less. At least I'm not shouted
and sworn at all day any more. I do miss some of the devs though.

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potta_coffee
Engineer CEO was fired and replaced by a marketing guy. Marketing guy starts
pushing aggressive deadlines on projects that he doesn't understand, because
he's trying to look successful for the board. When the results blow (I told
you it wasn't ready for deployment), I am blamed. If only I were "senior
enough" this wouldn't have happened. The company now employs no developers,
they're on the foreign-contractor pain train, and I'm working on an awesome
team with a great company, making more money, with less responsibility. And
nobody ever tells me I'm not good enough.

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thecleaner
could you drop hints as to which company (the one where you're at currently) ?

~~~
potta_coffee
I'm at a medium-sized cloud services provider with offices in Washington.

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apcyyn3b7qipz5i
Got recruited to a job by the CEO…CEO was then pushed out by the board.
Manager made it clear there was no ongoing role for me, but could I stay until
end of quarter. Two days before the end of the quarter, he pulls me aside and
tells me he's having difficulty finding a replacement for me, and could I stay
on on a week–to–week basis until he does. By then I'd already lined up new
work, and he'd poisoned my reputation across the company. So I resigned the
next day, agreeing to work an additional couple of weeks. From hire to
Schroedinger's termination was under six months.

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CameronBarre
I worked for a university.

I worked remotely half of one day without asking permission and was
essentially scolded for not sending an arbitrary email request that would have
been approved.

During that scolding I stated that if I really couldn't do what I thought was
best for my productivity, for the good of the organization, that I would have
to have a think about the environment.

My boss couldn't hold back sneering laughter when I said that.

... I had been working part time 1099 for a company for a few weeks and formed
a great working relationship with the guy who hired me. The same day as the
scolding I asked if there was enough work for me to come on full-time,
naturally there was, and I put in my two weeks the next day.

I started out as a remote Clojure engineer and never looked back. The only
other interesting part of this story is that I was a PeopleSoft developer at
the university for the fun of it, my heart was obviously with more modern
technology the entire time.

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danbolt
I worked at a game studio that was contracted to help with an AAA military
sci-fi first-person shooter. The protagonist in the games has usually been
lionized for using technology in war, and I didn't feel comfortable working on
something that would impart those sentiments onto teenagers. Someone else can
elect to do it and other game studios were hiring for games that had different
themes.

~~~
tucaz
Even though I completely disagree with you I have to congratulate you for your
coherence.

Instead of blaming the company or tell bad things about them you just decided
to leave and find something else that worked for you.

The company has the freedom to work on whatever theme they want and you have
the freedom to not work for them. This is great!

Kudos

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seanrrwilkins
Got tired of building businesses for someone else and decided to finally go
out on my own.

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nunyabeezwax
Was hired to do a difficult job, when the job was completed the management
moved me to another team, with a new manager. The new manager was/is
incompetent, and cared only about hitting their personal KPI's and taking
credit for any team success. They refused to listen to senior engineers advice
(new manager was a mid level engineer internally promoted to management when
someone else left and always knew better). All of my advice was ignored, the
end result of which was massive technical debt and inefficiencies across the
board.

I managed to last about a year before I could take it no longer.

I quit two weeks before head office canned the entire project and fired half
the studio.

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mceachen
When I look back at my career, I've found I'm least proud of my work when I'm
most comfortable with my job or role.

Comfort, at least for me, seems to be tightly coupled to how much I'm learning
and growing. The more comfortable I am, the less likely I'm extending myself
into new roles or learning new things.

I've yet to work in a company where this didn't happen in 3-5 years. The last
time I left, though, it was specifically to build my next startup:
[https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-
photostructure/](https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/)

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thedevindevops
It was a legacy product where documentation had drifted from reality so far
that marketing did not understand and were blatantly mis-selling it, this led
customers to raise 'bugs' that were projects in themselves.

Coupled to this everything was estimated by senior devs, everyone else was
'junior' and not to be consulted, even if that junior was the only person
who'd worked on that product in over a year. The senior devs probably could
have done it in the timescales they gave but no-one with less than 5 years
experience there could find the responsible line of spaghetti.

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throwaway338888
Job 1: Founders not present in day-to-day activities, hired authoritarian
manager that didn't understand the business. When my salary was late for the
3rd time, I quit. Went to work for a multinational, with better pay and more
interesting challenges.

Job 2: Bored after 4 years and wasn't allowed to change teams.

Job 3: Very long commute and team lead was very unethical (lying to directors
about technical issues, abusing budget, etc).

Job 4: Infrastructure renovation project was cancelled after they were bought
by Google. It became a dead end job.

Job 5: Got offered more benefits and better pay at another company.

Job 6: Got bored after 2 years and there was nothing they could do,
unfortunately. Great people though.

Job 7: NGO. Got bored after 4 years.

Job 8: NGO (Top 5 website in the world). Sold itself as solid engineering
place. Turned out to be very political. Left after 8 months only.

Job 9: Still here. Might leave if I can't move the needle on engineering
practices (most likely for political reasons)

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29_29
I haven't quit yet, but I certainly want to build a company. There isn't
enough time in the day to do it on the side.

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theandrewbailey
The recession shattered the company, but it somehow still functioned (this was
2012). The day to day job was a step back in terms of technology, tools, and
methodology, and was not moving anywhere. Company got bought out by a huge
corporation, and I couldn't see myself escaping the "hey this ticket is for
your old company's app. it will keep you occupied until we have another one
for it" loop, and never changing anything.

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breakerbox
My org was constantly behind the “business” deadlines, leaving developers to
work nights and weekends often. Bad personal growth (boring C#, tightly
coupled, extremely complex enterprise app) due to doing the most lame bug
fixes, and copying code to add a new UI. No fun! Tired of making pennies -
needed to get out on my own!

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dmitrygr
My list of "things i want to do, but ... work" got too long. Taking vacation
wouldn't make it better since the finite nature of it killed the feeling of
freedom. Quit to go do a few of those things. Eventually missed having a job,
so I got a new one.

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scohesc
Boss/Owner had no idea what was going on, wouldn't listen to our networking
area, and asking the network team (2 including me) senior anything would be
like pulling teeth from a chicken.

Found another job that paid 1.5x what I was making then and jumped ship
immediately.

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arbol
Product was not helping society. Only fuelling increased consumerism of
pointless crap. I was on 3 days a week by the time I left, with a pro rata
salary that sustained my life comfortably. Still couldn't justify the work to
myself.

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Datenstrom
Better pay

I loved working at my last job mostly why I even stayed so long. I asked to be
paid fairly and nothing happened, after a few weeks of looking I was offered
10x as much. Still miss working there though.

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sethammons
10x?! For that to not be an astronomical amount, you would have had to be
making around minimum wage, no?

~~~
Datenstrom
It wasn't much above minimum wage. I really don't care about making a lot
personally, I had access to interesting projects there and a lot of resources
I could never afford personally, as well as the freedom to pursue what I was
working on however I wanted. Also, everyone I worked with was brilliant and I
learned a lot.

I just couldn't afford to live.

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codegeek
Started my own business. Had enough of the corporate Rat Race after 10+ years.
Now I am in the entrepreneurship Rat Race :)

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GoToRO
Management does not understand software.

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orangeshark
Part burnout and part fed up with their development process.

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dlphn___xyz
burnout from dead end job

~~~
iamnothere123
Hey, me too

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dlphn___xyz
how are you doing these days? less stressed?

~~~
iamnothere123
Indeed :)

