Ask HN: How did you like your job in 2017? - aennyta
======
twayamznacct
"Awful" would be the first word that comes to mind.

I've spent three years at my current position at one of the "big 5", and after
the first 9 months there were reorgs and I haven't been doing the things I was
hired to do since. Instead I work on things that I have zero interest towards,
and can feel my soul being sucked out of me daily.

It has gotten to the point where I cannot even imagine heading in to work each
morning. My entire body and mind rejects the notion. Somehow I manage to make
it in on autopilot, and pretty much autopilot throughout the day. Any acts of
sentience on my part while at the office are immediately doused with reminders
of how much I hate all of this, and I quickly retreat back.

Unfortunately, this has done nothing but cause an ever-amplifying depression
spiral. At this stage I can't even imagine trying to get another job as I
don't think I'm capable of passing the whiteboard-hazing at any tech company
given my current state of mind.

I'm just going to wither away here until the end I imagine.

To be fair: it's not "awful" by any traditional metric - I'm not being
overworked, yelled at, treated like shit, etc. But acknowledging that doesn't
help my thoughts, any.

~~~
steve_adams_86
Is it really disappointing to get hired at one of these places so many people
admire and desire, only to find it's nothing special at all? Or is the problem
something else?

I've wondered about that. My job isn't spectacular, it's pretty good. I used
to want to strive for a spot in a bigger/high impact/significant company like
Amazon or Apple for example, but eventually came to realize I'd probably never
do anything interesting there, even if I was capable of it. I don't know. I
used to feel like I missed the boat and my career would never be as rewarding
because of it. These days... Starting to feel like I'm actually doing alright,
making the most with what I've got.

I stopped pursuing that career direction because I'm geo-locked, so to speak.
I can't leave this city.

Anyway, sorry you're having a terrible time. I've been there. I hope the
situation improves soon. Maybe you should bank everything you can, take time
off, then get back to finding work with a fresh mind. Good luck.

~~~
twayamznacct
For me, at least, the problem is something else. I never expected it to be
"special" at any of these places...I'd likely be exactly this unhappy doing
the same meaningless work I'm doing here, elsewhere. I just took the jobs
because they paid well and, at least at the beginning, I was going to be doing
things that were of reasonable interest.

I tried the "take time off route" once, and while it was alright, I was
consumed with thoughts of whether or not I'd ever be able to get a job again,
to the point where I couldn't enjoy it simply because I worried about the
future (and it wasn't because I only had a few months of runway - living
frugally I could have likely stretched my savings to two years or so, but the
panic got to me after half a year).

I, quite frankly and totally honestly, don't see any way out at this point. I
live life in an aimless fog, with no drive towards anything any more (which
also makes it very difficult to do things like study for whiteboard-hazing).

~~~
zapperdapper
I would talk to someone directly. You sound very unhappy.

I wasn't quite clear if the problem was the work or the company? It's
something that needs to be dived into and had a good look at because there
could be imbalance in your life leading to depression. So you need to look at
things like diet, sleep, exercise, relationship etc. It's possible you need to
rebalance - it's possible you need a new career. A career break should never
be a hindrance to a new job, and should often be a selling point, as long as
you've used that time sensibly.

So in short, talk to a career coach or counsellor. Try and get some more face
to face help. You say you work for a big company - they often have help lines
for employees run by third parties - use it!

~~~
twayamznacct
> I wasn't quite clear if the problem was the work or the company?

I honestly don't have a complete answer for this. I mean, I _know_ the work is
a major problem, but it's not the only factor by far. It's definitely the one
front and center, however.

As for other "life" things, I believe I do well there. I get 8 hours of sleep,
I exercise 4 days a week, eat healthy, etc. No relationships but I'm
antisocial to a tremendous degree so there's not much helping me there.

I appreciate the comments. Thank you!

~~~
zapperdapper
> No relationships but I'm antisocial to a tremendous degree so there's not
> much helping me there.

That may be partly the issue. Studies into "happiness at work" often show it's
not the work itself that necessarily determines happiness, but the quality of
the relationships you have at work. For example, some work that may seem
tedious and dull can become quite interesting if you are working on it
together with someone you like and respect - and it's even better if you can
have a blast with them. On my last gig for example I was doing dreadfully
tedious work, but it was made better because several people I worked with were
just awesomely nice people and we tried to have some fun too. Perhaps there's
someone at work that you can buddy up with, and your manager might be able to
help you there.

Having a relationship can be an important factor too - apart from anything it
helps you get out of your own head and relax. Do you do any social activities
on the weekend? It might be worth joining a cycling club, a running club or
even a Crossfit box - you say you like exercise, something where there are
other people to talk to. Just being around other people and talking to them
will help - I know this is like hell on Earth if you are basically shy, so
this is something you are going to have to ease into gently and get support if
you need it - it will get easier.

Having said all that this is a difficult thing to diagnose and remedy via HN!
As mentioned before you might find it worth talking to a career coach or
perhaps even a counsellor. Feel free to email me if you want.

------
mod
6/10

It's not the job's fault. Good atmosphere, coworkers, and immediate
management. I just want to be doing my own thing.

We have had a lot of turnover, though. Perhaps it's not as good for others.

Edit: I think the job deserves 8 or 9/10, it's my own attitude affecting how I
answer the question as-posed.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Yeah, I know that feeling. I've concluded that I'm simply not a very good
employee.

Don't get me wrong, I perform! And they've let me make a lot of changes that
fix many of the problems they've had.

But my mind's always on my side jobs and how fast I can grow them into a
business that can support us full-time. The inefficiencies at a mature
business just bug me so much.

~~~
troycarlson
You may find those technical inefficiencies are what enabled the business to
mature and sustain itself...I know several people whose “business” has
extremely “efficient” tech but zero revenue. I.e. customers don’t care how
efficient the tech is so long as they can pay you money to solve their
problem...and putting too much energy into the tech prevents you from other
revenue-generating activities such as lead generation, sales, etc.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I said absolutely nothing about _technical_ inefficiencies.

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csnewb
1/10\. Constant mass layoffs, most subject matter experts have quit, the code
is a legacy pile of bugs and where changing one line of code is incredibly
painful. Also new college grads are making 20k+ higher than my current salary
despite having 2 years of experience in the bay area. I've been trying to find
a new job but I'm so exhausted and stressed out at the end of the day that I
don't have the energy to grind leetcode/algorithms problems to prepare for
technical interviews, and those whiteboarding/system design interviews are
brutal.

~~~
aennyta
Sorry to hear that! Couldn't agree more tech interviews are long and difficult
and require lots of preparations. I had some that lasted 4 -6 hours, man that
is long! I also find that you get to speak about the company and the role only
at the very end, when you already spent a fair bit of yours and theirs time.
Wish you best of luck in job hunt this year!

------
ryanchants
I went from a huge bank with excellent engineering that never shipped anything
to a small startup that is constantly on fire and a product that needs a lot
of work.

I love it. I'm excited about the company, there's a lot of room for me to
grow, and it's small enough that I can have a lasting impact as we solidify
our engineering culture. I report directly to the CTO, though I believe we'll
be getting a director soon that will sit between us. It's still better than
the 7+ layers of management at Giant Bank.

~~~
aennyta
Cool! What do you find is the best advantage and what is the biggest downside
working in a small startup as opposed to a big corporate?

~~~
ryanchants
Biggest downside: a lack of established process. Big corporate had too much
process at times, but there was normally decent enough tooling around
everything. And there were teams to do everything, which really allowed you to
focus.

Advantage: More control over what tools I use. Always something interesting
happening, and knowing that the growth of the company is directly influenced
by your work.

I am also terrified that being able to impact the company/culture means that I
will lead us down the wrong path.

~~~
aennyta
That's an interesting worry to have! Sounds like fun, you definitely won't be
bored at work.

------
dacracot
I've 34 years of experience in software engineering. Since about 1986, I have
been either hired as the team lead or eventually been appointed the team lead
at each of the six employers that I have worked for. Due to circumstances
beyond my control, I am once again starting over as a team member in a new
group. I wasn't given much choice in the matter as my attempt to apply to an
open position that I thought had potential, was squashed by my management. At
least, knowing my desire, they offered up two choices of becoming a team
member of a couple of projects with funding, openings, and years of internal
customer base. However, it was a choice for me between the least of evils.
Something that I could not convey to my management since I was already
apparently "in the dog house" for having applied to the position of my
choosing earlier. So now I have the psychological dilemma of trying to act
like I am joining the team by my own choosing because I do not think any
existing team member has any idea of the way I was collared. Whats more, the
technology stack and engineering practices of my new team are poorly thought
out if not completely random (and this is the better of the two choices).
There was no mention of me being added as some sort of white knight to fix it.
As far as I can tell, management has no idea of the cruft that is this system.
So my spouse urges me to have patience, that I will eventually take over, as I
have done in the past. But I struggle to keep my head up day to day, being
assigned feature and bug tickets and instructed on kluged up solutions that
match the overall product. Meanwhile, I fantasize how I could rearchitect and
rewrite this system into a much better product. It isn't healthy. It isn't
fun. I hate it.

~~~
aennyta
Might be the time to move on? Sometimes waiting pays off, but not if it takes
long time and makes you so unhappy.

------
SirLJ
I love it! which is actually bad for me, because otherwise I would retire
early and travel the world... maybe next year :-)

12 years and counting at this position...

~~~
aennyta
Wow, must be a great job:) I always get surprised when I see someone at the
same company for 10+ years in IT.

~~~
matt_the_bass
I have a small company and have found that in general 5 years is the
_shortest_ stints for our technical employees. Our dept managers have been
with us for over 15 years. Our college interns also report hands down that
their internships were the best of their peers.

I’ve taken this as a compliment to the environment and culture I’ve fostered.
My “secret”: treat everyone the way I’d like to be treated and work the way
I’d like others to work.

I’m always surprised when others are surprised at our retention. To me this
seems like an easy accomplishment. Maybe this is only possible at a smaller
company who’s doing interesting work?

~~~
SirLJ
Great stuff, it is also possible in big corporations, you just have to work on
interesting projects with like minded people, be flexible as a manager and
lead by example...

Essentially you can turn your team into small company with it's own culture
within the corporation, threat the rest as customers, etc...

------
Adamantcheese
3/10, of the 10 months working here I did maybe 2 months of actual work. And
then about 2 months ago the company brought in a developer from the company we
get part of our software from to basically do my job, so I don't know why I'm
here anymore besides some sort of political puppet. Did I mention I'm a temp
still by the way?

~~~
wolco
You are in a strong position just keep doing what you are doing.

------
neofrommatrix
Not too much; The job was oversold to me during interviews (or I did not ask
the right questions) and that means, I've gone from working on massive scale
distributed systems infrastructure to network automation configuring a handful
of devices every now and then. I think my skills may have atrophied even
though I have been keeping up on the side - not sure how I can sell this in my
next interviews. What's keeping me here? An awesome manager (learned how to
lead from him, just by observation), and my green card application is in the
final stages.

------
drakonka
7.5/10

It was very interesting, and I shipped another game. I was in a fairly new
position and fought a bit with impostor syndrome at first, but got to learn a
lot and contributed quite a bit back to the engine. Just as I was feeling
pretty competent and settled into the role I was moved to a position with more
responsibilities, so now I have to adjust all over again. I guess it is good
not to be entirely comfortable and keep pushing yourself, it just means a
little more stress to deal with. I think it'll be fine though; I am used to
working on things that feel challenging and push me to learn and develop more.

~~~
aennyta
I hear you, getting comfortable at job sometimes means you might get bored too
quickly :) Depends on the person really, wish you best of luck!

------
api_or_ipa
8/10

Improved my code quality by becoming more aware of code style and becoming
more nuanced in the approaches I take when solving problems. Enjoyed getting
back into Python work, but async programming in python is still somewhat
awkward.

I'm alarmingly bittersweet about living in the Bay Area and not living closer
to home. On one hand, I miss seeing my large and wonderfully close family and
friends at home; on the other, the Bay Area weather is wonderfully mild and
always sunny, and of course, salaries are better here. So I've wrestled with
re-calculating the costs of where to live.

~~~
aennyta
Improving coding skills is a lifetime work :) Does Bay Area work out for you?
I heard salaries are high, but so are life expenses.

~~~
api_or_ipa
Salaries are high, but taxes and living expenses really take a bite out of it.
Nonetheless, I feel I've saved more money than I would have living in my home-
city.

The perpetually mild weather has done wonders for my mental health, I hate the
cold, dark winters in Vancouver BC. I keep telling myself it's only a 2 hour
flight away, but I never seem to go back enough.

------
goodmediumbad
In the beginning, it was nice.

In the middle, it came with some interesting career changes and challenges. It
was a good personal experience, but ultimately it didnt work for the company.

In the end, we changed management and it -might- be good for the company
depending on what the new owner wants with it. But people are fired en masse,
and people are quitting en masse. Project management sucks, we didnt have
things to do for months and around both christmas AND new years, we got 2
supposedly CRITICAL issues that HAVE to be done. Except not really.

Looking forward to 2018. Mostly because I'll be looking at new opportunities.

~~~
aennyta
You had the whole spectrum throughout the year. It is interesting how a
company can change from great to complete opposite in a year time. It reminds
me a bit on my 2016, I left eventually after one more merger happened, it was
hard to follow which companies joined ours, which systems are going to be
ditched and so on.

------
lordCarbonFiber
Went from a start up with a garbage fire app chasing VC money to sell the last
of their dignity to the world of big business working on real software; so
50-50 on terrible soul crushing experience and fantastic year.

~~~
aennyta
That is something now, hard to beat that.

------
anonymous2018
I'm really happy in 2017. I'm at the same job for a year (big accomplishment
for me). I got a large hourly raise; they sent me to react and rails training.
I took 6 weeks to go to europe and I can work from home a few days per week.
I'm working the dream.

------
the_jeremy
7/10, defense contractor doing projects no one cares about until I get my
security clearance. Tired of "rudimentary python scripts", want to work on a
real code base and with other people (I'm the only one on my project). First
job out of college.

------
duiker101
I really enjoyed it. My first year fully remote. It's been quite the change
and while I will leave this job at the end of the month I think it's been a
great experience.

~~~
aennyta
Congrats on your first year fully remote! I was thinking of switching remote
as well. Did you encounter any challenges that you normally wouldn't have? If
I may ask, why are you leaving it?

~~~
duiker101
I crave a bit more of freedom of travelling and I will try and focus on some
personal projects. At least for a while and if I see it's not working I'll go
back to a "proper" job.

I haven't found many challenges other than taxes and stuff like that. Many
countries I find are not ready to welcome people that move around a lot.

As for the job itself I keep a pretty strict regime on myself so I still try
to do all office hours and keep in touch as much as I can. It is true tho that
you do get "cut out" a bit and it's probably not the best for people that want
to climb the ladder. For me it really helped the fact that I worked for a full
year in the office with the same people so I knew them pretty well.

~~~
aennyta
That sounds very cool, thanks for the answer. Enjoy your adventures in 2018!

------
awa
7/10.. Changed end of 2016 and got a good raise. Got to learn a lot of new
things and adapt to the new culture. Its nice to shake up things once in a
while I guess.

------
seanmcdirmid
It was great! A dream come true! Then it all ended pretty quickly. Ah well.

------
leekh
7/10 One job sucked and found a new one. New gig is okay. I think my
expectations for work has decreased.

------
searchencrypt
10/10

------
hatsubai
7/10

Work as a contractor for one of the largest govt defense contractors in the
aerospace and land vehicle field. Lots of opportunity here to work on pretty
much whatever you'd like. You can jump on any project ranging from low level
embedded devices to application code to virtual reality. Coworkers are
pleasant, albeit their skills can be a bit atrophied due to them being in
maintenance/bug fixing mode for the past 10+ years of being here working on
their own little section of code. Managers are great and leave you alone. My
actual team lead only holds meetings once every few weeks, as we mostly use
SMS for any instant or urgent information (nothing I work on is classified,
and my core team consists of about three other people who do actual coding). I
got a cube, and if I need more alone time, I can head to six or more different
silo areas where specific hardware is kept for testing, and I can ssh to any
machine and just pick up where I left off. They're usually not busy until a
release is coming up, which is only a couple times a year.

Downsides include the location of the company (lower income state compared to
others), weather, and an aversion to change - which I guess kinda comes with a
fortune 100 govt contracting company. Computer hardware given to us is
atrocious, getting competent new people in is almost impossible due to what we
work on and location, and devs don't even need to show they can code. Nepotism
is very real, as is having to "know people" in order to advance here. If you
are a direct employee, promotions are rare and usually only occur once every 5
to 10 years. IT infrastructure is some of the absolute worst I have ever seen,
and it prevents you from getting real work done (imagine having to wait four
months to get your favorite free IDE installed or six months to update Cygwin
packages, for example. In fact, our IT group still can't figure out how to
upgrade a Cygwin install on a shared folder).

Pay is decent. As a contractor, you get straight time for every 40 hours
worked, and you get 1.5x pay for every six minutes after that. Overtime is
basically never mandated or requested, but you are free to work as much OT as
you'd like without anyone saying anything. I have personally worked 70+ hour
work weeks just for the extra cash, assisting everything from a new GUI,
adding new objects to a VR demo, and implementing new functionality to Linux
kernel drivers. Even got a pay raise (13% increase!) for all the extra hard
work I did on top of all that extra pay, so that was cool.

All in all, it's a decent place (especially if you like living in the Midwest)
with long term stability. However, you won't really be challenged with truly
hard problems if you work here, and growth is stagnant. You'll really need to
make the most out of it yourself by pushing management to allow you to
implement new stuff, which isn't terribly hard, thankfully. They're willing to
listen and implement new stuff, especially if it is a newer product. Harder if
it's a legacy project, obviously, but it is still possible.

~~~
anonymous2018
How can I get a job there?

~~~
hatsubai
The company isn't really hiring for software devs right now, so unless you
already know Ada/vxWorks or current architecture, it might be hard to get
into.

------
John_Cena
I spent 3/4 of 2017 trying to land a job. I've been at the company for a
quarter. Its a big corporate monstrosity and they literally made me "train"
for a month on how to do sales, customer service, and technician roles... Yeah
I sat on a phone for 2 straight days taking phone calls with an engineering
degree from the best school in the SE USA. Just trying to put that in
perspective. I overlooked it because the opportunity brought me into a place
with a lot of job opportunities.

Its hard to describe without spilling the beans on who I work for. I was hired
to do embedded programming work but I do nothing of the sort and just
fix/cleanup code in C. My team is being broken up and I have a chance to work
with someone who has a project that actually needs embedded work.

He is abrasive as hell and corrects me all the time. I have tried to engage
with him as much as possible over the last week. I am afraid even though his
behavior is exactly what I envisioned as my best fit (I have worked with such
a man before and I grew alot). I am also afraid because the CEO is moving to
our building and the project is directly linked to whether or not the business
is viable after the next 3 years. I know I can do the work as I have literally
done the same kind of project before with a different standard (Project is a
proof of concept), and I want to do this work as opposed to playing Barney's
cleanup game with half assed projects. I liked doing Barneys cleanup song with
that at my old job, but that was new frontier for me (CUDA).

I have done all I can to make sure this man understands exactly what I am
capable of doing on my own, what I will need to bug him about, and things I
have no experience in. Trying to cover all my bases to make sure I am a good
fit for him. Yet I cannot shake this feeling of whether it is a good fit for
me. Its like trying to sleep before the first round of engineering exams but
constant.

In the end I decided to join his team because he used to subscribe to
"embedded system design" magazine which is a resource I used to prepare for
interviews. (Can someone point me to a company that will actually test me on
embedded principles in a interview for an embedded position? Literally every
interview asks things I learned in first year or a thought puzzle.)

Maybe I feel to paranoid about all this because I went from producing 50x more
at a startup to here where a simple change can get deadlocked for a week.
Believe me I work frantically. I spend 80% of my time researching and taking
notes since all the domain experts have quit (terrible benefits) and nobody
seems to want and be able to assist me in a proper training rampup period
(y'know instead of having me work a fucking call center).

Everyone seems to barely know the part of the code they live in and honestly
as I walk around productivity/attention is literally the lowest I have ever
seen in my life. To this I try and convince myself its just the change of
employer type and that other people are literally watching movies at work so I
should not fret so much.

Sorry for the wall of text, but the first thing I learned is that at corporate
you have to cover your own ass. So it is cathartic to be able to express
myself here. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I have no idea what I am
doing.

~~~
aennyta
If you don't mind me asking, were you actively looking for a new job for 3/4
of 2017, without being employed anywhere? Finding a job in tech shouldn't be
that hard, I would think.

Your situation sounds quite like any other big corporate. Lots of people not
doing anything or working very little and manages that can be really picky and
hard to get along. I am not sure what I would do, getting into that team seams
like a way to go, but working with that manager sounds very difficult. Maybe
give it a go for few months to see if you get along with him? If not, start
looking for a new job, while you are still at your present one maybe.

It really depends on your character, I might not give the best advice cos I am
tired of working for ineffective managers.

~~~
John_Cena
I appreciate your time to give me your advice. You may not think it matters
much but I benefit greatly from hearing it from another human. If you have
anything else to add I will check back

