Ask HN: What job offers have you turned down and why? - keyboardhitter
======
itamarst
Work/life balance issues are something I care a lot about it (in fact, I wrote
a book about it:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)).

So I've walked away from jobs where it was clear I wouldn't have work/life
balance.

E.g. one company told me: "We don't _want_ to, but we're working 50/60 hour
weeks. We had everything planned out and then a big customer had a big feature
request and it blew through our schedules."

Good planning involves setting goals, but also making sure you have time and
resources available to deal with unexpected problems, because there will be
unexpected problems. To lose one weekend to an emergency may be regarded as a
misfortune; to lose all of them looks like carelessness. And I didn't want to
be working long hours because of what was clearly bad planning.

(Sometimes you can catch warning signs in advance:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont-
hate/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont-hate/))

~~~
bernardino
I definitely agree. As I plan to find my first software engineering internship
then my first entry-level software engineering gig, work/life balance comes at
first priority. While it may seem untraditional or odd particularly for those
working in tech, after work, I would like to do something else than sit in
front of a device or even think about new technologies, code, etc. Which is
not say I don’t enjoy the latter. I just find life is too short to have
dedicated my life to a certain job, neglecting other aspects of my life, and
only to find at the end of my life that ultimately all my labor amounted to
nothing.

A high school friend of mine just graduated from Berkeley this past fall. He
starts a finance job in San Francisco in July, where he is working 60-80 hours
a week. I haven’t asked him if he cares about work/life balance but I assume
he thinks this what people do. I’ll have to ask him.

------
tapvt
One that stands out from some years ago:

Through my network an opportunity had come up for a "next move" in NYC.

Went for lunch with the CEO. He was less than pleasant, bordering on rude,
with the waitress and left a poor tip. Both unwarranted from my perspective. I
found the service to be just fine.

While the compensation and the work I had to look forward to both suited my
requirements, I opted to look elsewhere after observing this red flag.

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pmulv
I turned down an offer at a large agency in NYC after learning that they build
what is basically malware for the browser. Toolbars for IE, weather widgets,
etc. I thought the compensation and perks were good for a first job, and the
work was full-stack which is what I had been looking for, but I couldn't bring
myself to work for a company that builds products that I spent my childhood
removing from friends and families computers.

~~~
partisan
What is an agency?

------
reefoctopus
I was offered a salary. They waited until the day I started to explain that I
would be paid an hourly wage based on a 50 hour week with time and a half for
the overtime. I would have to clock out for lunch. I walked straight out of
there and went home.

~~~
burfog
Unless you were expecting 40, that looks like a good deal. Most places
wouldn't pay you 150% of normal for overtime. They'd pay you 0% of normal and
expect you to like it as a "team player".

~~~
jboles
Not necessarily; working after the 8th hour in a day you get 150%, and given a
quoted annual “salary” that takes this into account, it means the regular 8
hours’ pay is correspondingly lower.

------
Jemaclus
I've turned down a few.

One was an early stage YC company that lowballed me, offered me 90K + 10,000
options (or something equally worthless). I attempted to negotiate (I was
making 115K + vested stock in public company at the time) and the CEO told me
I was an idiot for not accepting it "because the equity was worth way more
than the salary." They're still around, but as far as I can tell, not making a
ton of progress on their exit. I see their job ads on here all the time. I
wound up turning down the offer because it was a lowball and also because the
CEO revealed himself to be a total dick. Really glad I missed that one.

Another was a company where I applied for one position. I walked in the door
for the interview, they started asking me questions, and I realized they were
interviewing me for a different position. At that point, I kind of mentally
checked out and decided I'd use this as an opportunity to practice my
interviewing skills and instead of being interviewed, I pretended I was
interviewing them. Halfway through, I told the recruiter (who came to check up
on me) that I had to leave early, and she convinced me to stick around for one
more interview. They knocked everyone else off the list and brought in the
CTO, and then halfway through that the CEO comes in and says, "Look, we like
you, we want you to work for us." They made me a pretty solid offer (about 20K
more than I was making at the time).. Unfortunately, it wasn't a position I
neither wanted nor was willing to take. I declined politely. They thought I
was negotiating, but I really had to put my foot down and say "thanks but no
thanks."

I initially felt bad about turning it down, but after I declined the offer,
they told me so many blatant lies about the position that I quickly realized
it wasn't the place for me.

I once got two competing offers from two different companies. One of them I
liked a lot, the other paid more. I countered with the first one, and he said
he'd match salary but couldn't match benefits (no health insurance). He swore
up and down that if I got the job, he'd get health insurance, but I just
didn't believe him, so I wound up having to accept the second offer. That's
not the kind of perk you spend company money on because one employee asked for
it.

Finally, I got another offer from yet another company. I was prepared to
accept the offer, when I heard through the grapevine that the manager that
hired me had decided to quit and his last day would be the day I started. I
noped out of that one, fast.

Fun times.

~~~
jtchang
I'd be curious about the early stage YC company. Maybe PM me if you'd be open
to discussing if it is same one I am thinking of.

------
zapperdapper
I've turned down quite a few over the years. _In addition_ to those already
mentioned I would add:

* Excessive commute

* Lack of flexible working

* Lack of remote working

* Poor office space

* Lack of free parking

* No showers (important if you cycle in)

* Gut feeling was not good

It's not usually just one of the above, but some combination of weighted
factors.

Funnily enough I don't think I have ever turned down a job because of the
money, or taken a job just because of the money, I'm far more interested in
work-life balance - cutting out the commute has always added massively to my
general well-being.

------
the_jeremy
I'm on my first job, so I've only turned down offers once, and I had competing
offers.

Ended up taking a job in Denver as a software engineer. The other options were
applications engineering positions, one for Seagate and one for Western
Digital.

WD wanted me to work in California for only 1k more than I was offered to be a
software engineer in Denver. I countered by asking for 20% more and they said
no.

Seagate wanted me to move to Minnesota, which was lackluster for other
reasons, namely winter temperatures.

------
yamyam1
I have turned down 3 offers so far. To this day i am not sure if they are the
best decision but i am sure they are not the worst. I don't really have much
mentors to guide me, most of time i have to make my own decisions. I can reach
out to some folks but not some one who is in good sync with me.

First Jump.

I was with company A which offered me 9 L INR. I wanted an opportunity to work
in USA or hit the 12 L INR in India.

<TURNED DOWN> I got 11L INR from B.

<TURNED DOWN> I got 12L INR from another flight ticket management company
(forgot its name) (product based company).

I got 9L INR from a IT services company and they promised to process my H1B in
the upcoming cycle.

I picked the H1B one.

Second Jump.

I got 105K USD from a telecom giant in USA on 2.5 year contract and my
employer was a major staffing company in USA and they promised to process GC
immediately after joining.

<TURNED DOWN> I got 125 K USD from a small consultancy and client would be an
Airlines. It was a contract to hire position. In Texas, but i din have good
reviews about the consultancy and they may compromise on visa and may not be
able to take my GC thru and i had doubts if they can even pay properly.

I picked the 105K USD one.

What do you folks think, am i making good decisions of totally horrible ones?

------
AnimalMuppet
They said that they typically started their engineers out on the (assembly)
line, then moved them into engineering after a few months. Um, no. I wasn't
that desperate. I was looking for something _better_ than my current job.

And I found out later that this was kind of a scam, where they tried to have
engineers working on their assembly line. It wasn't easy to get moved into
engineering off of that line.

------
therojam
In the last month since September I had many opportunities to work in IT-
Support and local in Stuttgart positions which I declined. There were also
some very interesting positions, but there’s a company who actually interested
in me and where I think I can get the most personal benefit from. So I mean
not the money, but more the things that they’re working on.

------
table-delete
I turned down an offer to work in a living time capsule.

The company was decades old and hadn't changed tooling or technology for most
of that time. The senior developers were actively fighting the adoption of
modern FOSS tooling. Several were still using CRT monitors.

No amount of money would have made that position look attractive.

------
mcv
I've turned down a very interesting job because they wanted me to work 5 days
a week. I had a kid (now I have two), so I wanted to work a maximum of 4 days
a week.

It's sad. It sounded really interesting, and they were very understanding, and
yet, for whatever reason, they wouldn't budge.

~~~
zapperdapper
Fascinating isn't it? So much for flexible working!

It seems to me like there are many companies out there who pay lip service to
flexible working, but when it comes down to it they don't really like the idea
of it. I actually think flexible working is something they FEAR. It could be a
control issue. It could be the notion that if they give _you_ 4 day working,
then they have to give it to _everyone_!

Another thing is if you have a forty hour week and you want to work 4 ten hour
days a lot of companies won't allow that either. Why? It's still a forty hour
week!

It's funny because one of the most productive developers I've known only ever
worked a four day week.

Would anyone from HR care to comment?

------
Raed667
I was offered a job and the final "interview" after they gave me an offer,
they explained in detail how their app worked. It was an old PHP app and the
code looked like a horror movie.

~~~
keyboardhitter
Ah yes, the surprise legacy skeletons in the closet. I am curious -- would you
have accepted if the salary was higher than necessary, or if the social
environment/work life balance (or any other benefits for that matter) were
subjectively better than from other potential employers?

~~~
Raed667
I would have accepted if the salary was higher. What they offered was higher
than what I'm making now, but if they went even a lot higher I would have
justified suffering through that pile of...

------
sirkarthik
I had turned down a lot of job offers till date for one/more of the following
reasons:

* Poor work culture

* Lack of opportunities to learn at work

* Not a competitive pay

* Dated tech-stack

* Sensing toxic work atmosphere

* Company ridden with ivy-league grads that it boasts of during the course of interview. Sure-shot path to 2nd grade treatment should you join such place because it's not your knowledge that they see but only your certificates. [Confession: I learned this a hard way :(]

------
SirLJ
The biggest reason: location, location, location and relocation...

Living in a big, private house, on a small island with only one traffic light
in a multi million city, in ground heated pool, etc... and working from
home...

No money/stock options can compensate for this, if I have to move elsewhere in
North America...

Last offer was to move to NYC :-)

~~~
hacalox
It sound awesome. May I ask where are you located?

~~~
SirLJ
Sorry, but I rather not say in a public forum...

------
newfoundglory
They made an offer that was below what I’d given as the bottom of my range (it
was about 20% lower than my current salary!) and tried to argue that the tiny
equity portion outweighed that gap. When I said I couldn’t take that, they
said they could add $5k to the salary by reducing the equity offer by 25%.
Wtf.

------
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