
Ask HN: Leaving a company I recently joined? - whatshouldido
Less than a year ago, I was hired as a software programmer at a high-tech company which you've heard of.  I find the work very interesting, it pays well, and I very much enjoy it.<p>I've recently been approached by another high-tech company which you've also heard of about the possibility of working there instead.  While the talks are at a very early stage, I might find this position more attractive in a number of ways.<p>I wonder, however, about the questions of ethics and loyalty in leaving so soon a company that has invested in me, not to mention the effects it could have on my friendships with current coworkers, and the future impact on my career.<p>Your feedback is appreciated.
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btilly
In general people other than Jason Calacanis understand and accept that these
things happen, and are unlikely to take it personally. However if you have a
trend of jumping, some employers won't like it.

But if you're particularly concerned, then I'd suggest telling the new company
that while you're tempted by the offer, you feel you have more to accomplish
more at your current job before you're ready to leave. Then ask them to check
in with you again in several months.

Odds are that they will either sweeten their offer, or else schedule a
reminder to contact you again in a few months. Once large companies find a
prospect they want, the odds of just forgetting about you are fairly low.
Smaller companies are more liable to do that simply because they fill the
position they wanted you for, and then they don't have any appropriate
openings. But big companies usually have a variety of reasonably openings
available at any time. (Unless you are very senior indeed, which I doubt you
are.)

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mattm
Despite what others say, it is perfectly normal and rational to be selfish.

The people telling you not to be selfish do so because when you act selfishly,
it goes against their selfish interests.

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ax0n
Discard immediately any shard of confidence you have that your employer might
possibly be loyal to its employees. Look out for your self and your family.
Basically: think with your heart. It sounds like the decision's been made. And
damn the folks who think job hoppers suck. This future employer obviously
thinks you're good to go. So will the next, if they approach you or are
willing to talk. The whole "job hoppers are worthless" movement is only but a
fraction of the potential employers. Those who believe it won't talk to you.
There are plenty who think that mentality is rubbish. Do what you feel is
right.

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starkfist
Reducing the problem to a vague hypothetical and then weighing the answers of
a bunch of anonymous internet people is a bad way of making this type of
decision. You actually need to be very specific with company names, stock
prices, contract issues, names of actual people you work with, and so forth.

For example leaving Mahalo to go to Yahoo would be a no-brainer, even if you
got paid less. Leaving Apple to go to Yahoo would be stupid. Leaving Google
for Facebook... tougher call. The details make more of a difference than "+1,
Insightful" type posts about loyalty, happiness, and such.

~~~
CyberFonic
Are you joking ??? For what reason(s) would anyone leave Google to work for
Facebook?

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dirtyaura
For a lot of reasons:

 _Making a difference._ Facebook has about 1000 engineers/product people,
Google has about 10000.

 _Interesting, popular product._ Over 400 million people using, it's exciting,
once-in-a-lifetime type of product despite the issues revolving around privacy
etc.

 _Money_ If you have opportunity to get any stock options inside Facebook, you
have possibility to get quite amount of money after IPO.

I assume that you have smart coworkers in both places. Google has more middle
management and thus company politics, but it's still relatively flat for an
organization of its size.

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madmanslitany
I was in your situation immediately before the recession and chose "honor"
over reason. Have regretted it ever since. At the very least, interview with
the company that's approached you to see where it goes. No harm in exploring
the option to its fullest before you make a decision.

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ismarc
I think you're approaching this the wrong way. Without a contract, the company
you work for doesn't care about you the person, only you the worker. You can
take what advantages the other company is offering and go to your boss/bosses
boss/etc. and go "Listen, I've received X offer, and I'm considering it
because of Y, Z, A and B, is there anything you can do to meet these?" If you
make it obvious that it's not that you dislike your current job, but that the
other one looks nicer, it can play to your advantage for ended up in a better
position where you're at, or going to the new place. Just don't tell them the
company specifically unless it becomes necessary. And only give details in the
parts you care about.

~~~
btilly
Important note. The order of events that you presented matters a lot. Going to
your present employer before accepting communicates the fact that you don't
actually want to leave. By contrast if you say you're leaving then they
counter-offer, they are doing it out of desperation but with full knowledge
that they need to replace you as fast as possible because you are dissatisfied
and are therefore likely to leave eventually anyways.

The rule of thumb is to never, ever take a counter-offer. But negotiating for
one up front can sometimes work well.

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jrockway
Are you good at programming?

If so, nothing else matters. The industry is not in a position to pick and
choose based on how long you keep your jobs. If someone can get a year's worth
of good work out of you, then that is a great deal for everyone. Because 99%
of the people that interview for programming jobs have absolutely no clue
about programming.

Ignore the "job hopping is bad for your career" hype. Those people are not
interested in hiring good programmers, they are interested in having
"headcount". You don't want a job like that anyway, so there's no loss to you.
There are plenty of companies that actually want good programmers, so work for
those instead. They won't care how long you were at your last job. (I wouldn't
anyway...)

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kevinpet
My rule of thumb has been that a single rapid job change doesn't show
anything, but you don't want a pattern of rapid job changes on your resume.
That is, if your resume is currently something like 3 years at one company,
then 9 months at the current place, I wouldn't look askance at that, but I'd
be sure I want to stay at the next place for a while before leaving. 3 years,
9 months, 1 year and then looking again does look a little flaky.

I suspect the "job hoppers are flakes" bandwagon includes a lot of people with
big stakes in companies that need willing worker bees. If you get a better
offer, jump on it. If you keep getting better offers, keep jumping on them.

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chubs
I especially wouldn't feel guilty if i was headhunted rather than went job
searching. Also: what's your skillset for you to be in such high demand? I
need to get in on that!

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viraptor
Is less than a year ago same as "recently"? How long did it take you to get up
to speed and start being useful? If you've been useful for more than half the
time, I wouldn't worry about it simply from this point of view: they put some
effort into teaching you and you gave your work back. That's my rule of thumb
for feeling bad here... Now you can think about the actual differences between
those places instead.

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CyberFonic
You don't say how much skill and experience you brought to the job. You need
to weigh up what you brought to the table and what they gave you.

The other big question to ask, if your current company hit a tough patch (not
an unlikely scenario in this climate) how would they treat you? Would you be
first or the last to be pink slipped? Are you sure. For example, It's more
than likely there are managers and founders who will save their skins before
giving a rat's arse about yours.

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petervandijck
If you have a much better opportunity, do it - it's not unethical. Your boss
may have expected you to stay for many years, but they also know not everyone
does. I've done it in the past. My boss was dissapointed, and I felt bad for
about 10 minutes. I would have felt bad for years if I'd stayed.

If you're concerned about friendships at work, fair enough. If you stop
working daily with people many friendships will become less active. However,
you can still stay in touch with people. And in 5 or 10 years, when most
people have moved on from both companies, you'll hopefully keep a few friends
from both.

As for the impact on your career: don't worry about it. Nothing wrong with
changing to a better job. If anything, I'd say it will improve your resume (as
in: worked for google then for facebook, awesome.)

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weichi
The only decision to be made right now is whether to continue talking to them
until you get an offer (or until one or both sides decide it isn't a good fit
after all). There are no downsides to doing this, so you might as well do it.

Once you have a specific offer, _then_ you have a decision to make.

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Chirag
I think "I" as an individual should always be look out for better profits and
opportunities, as the companies them selves do. Main objective of a company is
to make $$ and increase profits. Then why should an individual feel guilty if
hey have a better opportunity for more money and better opportunity.

Questions on ethics and loyalty should not even arise because companies most
often than not make more money per employee than individual salaries. Do they
feel guilty?

As for friends you can always keep in touch even after you leave your job.

Finally if this doesn't not convince you, just think of it this way if there
were layoffs and your team was under the axe, will your company even give it a
second thought about laying you all off?

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dkersten
I don't know the answer to your question, but consider this: if you stay out
of loyalty, would you be able to happily continue working knowing that you
passed up a potentially _better_ opportunity, or would it affect your morale?

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vineet
Before making a decision consider the downsides...

What if the new company has problems and they need to lay you off? What if you
new boss/team mates are jerks and keep making your life at the new company
hell? ... What if you need to leave the new company a month after you join it.

New things are exciting, because they are different. But do remember that they
have challenges as well.

While the above will likely not be the case for you, companies might think of
you as not being loyal and might not want to invest in you much.

I personally would give my company 18 months at the least, and if I am getting
restless I would have a nice long chat with my boss before leaving.

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rit
Just keep in mind something that I've observed over time. It's anecdotal and
Your Mileage May Vary (disclaimers, etc etc) but I take it as a reasonable
parable when phrased as such...

I don't know if the thought/plan/idea has crossed your mind, but be very, very
careful about walking in to current company with other companies offer and
trying to negotiate to stay. E.G. "They offered me this (be it money, perks,
hours, or anything else) and I'd like to stay here but ([list of items from
previous list that are most appealing]) is quite tempting. Can you
counteroffer?".

It may be different at different companies (I'd hope so) but I've observed
friends & coworkers do this and end up in a worse situation staying. They've
signaled to people above that they're disloyal/easily distracted/however you
want to phrase it and the perception changes. The company in most cases felt
they really needed to make an effort to keep the person, but the treatment and
trust changed significantly afterwards.

TL;DR - Be careful about negotiating with company #2s offer to stay at current
company with perks/salary/etc from company #2. You may find they keep you out
of need but keep you at a distance going forward.

As for the meat of the actual question you asked - I would recommend that
there's no harm in taking things through to completion with the other company
and seeing what they have to offer. Even if you decide ultimately for
_WHATEVER_ reason, if you handle it gracefully in most cases you can prop a
door open for yourself. Assuming you get a great offer from the new company
but decide that you'd like to stay where you are for a few more months , if
you handle it professionally (maybe phrased as "finishing a project") there is
no reason that "no thank you" has to become "no thank you for now".

Most good companies who value talent and the like will not suddenly burn your
resume and curse your name if you turn down an offer in a professional manner.
The likelihood is that if they wanted you today there's no reason they
wouldn't jump at you in 6 months if your situation changes.

Again, TL;DR - Don't burn bridges on either end if you can help it. Manage the
opportunities in a way that whichever direction you go you can leave doors
open at both if your situation/opinion changes.

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allend
Your coworkers should not and probably will not feel negatively about you
looking out for yourself. Speaking from experience from both sides of the
aisle. Just how personal relationships work.

The company has invested in you, but you have been investing in the company as
well. You won't get the time you spent there back to work on something else.

If you are going to grow or be more challenged more somewhere else, then the
future impact will be positive anyway, for you and others. Just be you aren't
drinking the new company kool-aid before making a decision.

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Edinburger
One short stay shouldn't have any negative impact in future. Most people
understand sometimes things don't work out or you get an offer you can't
refuse (in a good way). If you had, say, three short stays in a row, future
employers might get nervous.

I would go where you think you'll be happiest where 'happiness' is a linear
equation comprising money, interesting work, nice colleagues and whatever else
matters to you.

A word of caution: make sure nobody at your current company finds out you're
talking to the new company until you have an offer on the table.

Good luck.

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awa
Think what's better for you career wise... Are you learning a lot in your
current job and doing interesting stuff and do you see tangible mid/long term
benefits to changing your job.

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ivenkys
"I might find this position more attractive in a number of ways" - Talk to
your boss about this, tell him why you would like to continue working for him
and see if there is something he/she can do.

If it doesn't work, walk out, making sure you honour your notice period and
have a face-to-face chat rather than sending an email.

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ashleyw
There's nothing wrong with leaving if you feel you'll benefit from doing so,
just do the honorable thing not to leave your current employer in the lurch,
make sure all your responsibilities are tied up to a standard you would expect
and appreciate if you yourself were the employeer.

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elblanco
Hiring employees takes a lot of time and effort, and generally a lot of money.
In the future, some prospective employer may see that you've jumped ship and
wasted everybody's time in the past. They would probably decline hiring you
out of fear of wasting _their_ time.

That's my advice.

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benologist
Horribly disappointed in you.

J

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mkramlich
What I'm hearing from you is you have a bird in hand and you're saying there
also appears to be a bird in a bush over there. You can't have both, but the
hypothetical bird in the bush might be better than the one you have. Hmmmmm...

I don't think you've given enough detail here for anybody to tell you with
significant confidence you should stay or go, but I don't see a strong case
for going based on what I've heard. You started off by saying less than a year
ago you started a new job at a name brand high-tech company where the work is
very interesting, pays well and you very much enjoy it. ... And yet you're
wondering whether you should leave? _sound of record needle screeching_ I feel
like something is missing.

Sometimes people really do "job hop" and for the wrong reasons. Be sure you
don't do that or you could regret it. Only you know enough details about your
situation to determine that.

