
Ask HN: When to quit company with bad engineering practices? - laaaaaaaaaa
I&#x27;ve joined a company 6 months ago and I&#x27;m having a hard time adjusting.<p>They are not a startup, they&#x27;re well funded but everyone just do their own thing when it comes to code reviews, infrastructure architecture, etc. The infrastructure is really a mess and the code base isn&#x27;t much different.<p>Teams spend most of their time doing manual things over and over and don&#x27;t seem to understand how to find root causes, do problem management, etc.<p>I&#x27;ve focused on clarifying the reasons behind certain things so I could help to develop some standards, more documentation, etc. To at least avoid creating even more tech debt. People are drowning and doing adhoc fixes all the time.<p>Well, I&#x27;ve found it&#x27;s really hard to get information out of the old timers. There&#x27;s a huge focus on saving face, job security and not much concern about technical things.<p>I consider myself to be very polite and civil in discussions. I&#x27;ve worked with jerks before and I try not to be like that because I know people have feelings, etc... But I got some feedback that I should be &quot;happier&quot; in my emails.<p>Things are hard already and management is more worried about keeping the status quo. That&#x27;s not what I was sold in the job interviews.<p>I&#x27;m close to saying enough is enough but I&#x27;m afraid this will be a mistakes, that I can still turn this boat around, etc.<p>How do you find out if you had enough?
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sosilkj
"I can still turn this boat around" \-- my limited perspective here is if
you're getting 'feedback' regarding your tone on emails, then maybe you are
being warned that people don't want to steer the boat in the direction you
want to.

Sounds like this is a team/environment where technical acumen isn't valued or
incentivized. That is, you are in a place where technical acumen is not
relevant to your success there. That's pretty common in my experience. I also
wouldn't be so quick to say that's good or bad -- it just is. Instead, what
you've got is a highly political environment I would guess. Here's a great
quote I found on HN:

"There are basically three levers of power in any organization - relationship,
expert, and role. In that order of importance. " —
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20749147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20749147)

The 'expert' lever has no power where you currently work. No one cares.
(Except in terms of tribal knowledge, which you don't really have yet there).

In the grand scheme of things, it's just a job. Why pick battles that don't
matter? Unless you're curing cancer or studying climate patterns, it most
likely that whatever this company does simply does not matter at all. So,
focus on your own career and do what's best for you, not the organization
(which is good to do in general, regardless of the organization/mission). If
you aren't facing undue stress, then you can stay and play the game (and try
to practice resume-driven programming as well, to the extent you can).
However, truly incompetent teams can be stressful due to the disorganizaton
and firefighting become very draining; I don't know if that's what you're
facing or not. Up to you if you want to stay or not, but be honest with
yourself about what kind of place it is, rather than wishing it were something
else.

~~~
laaaaaaaaaa
This was really insightful, thank you.

Yes, it's just a job and I should internalize that more. I just love what I do
and want to do my best... And I look around and I don't see the same
enthusiasm. Ive been in this industry for 18 years now and I still don't know
how to handle these differences when working with other people.

One thing I thought about was leading by example. My PRs will follow best
practices, my projects will have proper docs, I'll consult others about design
decisions and incorporate user feedback etc. But I'm pressured to deliver as
fast as possible... which is one of the reasons that the infrastructure is the
way it's.

Anyway thanks again, this gave me a lot of food for thought and I really
appreciate it.

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mister_hn
Quit as fast as you can. If your company is fostering bad engineering
practices and historically keeps failing doing so, then look for another job.
ASAP.

------
Quequau
When you have secured new employment.

