Because I fucking hate the interview process. Video interview, phone screen, take home test, management interview, team interview, dozen technical interviews. It's a full-time job to look for another job. So the slightly annoying job I have is way less annoying than searching for another one.
Have an upvote, was going to post the exact same reply. The tech interview process is so irritating, so friction-filled, and ultimately so random in outcome that it doesn't seem worth it for maybe a ~1% bump. Grind leetcode. Apply at 100 companies. Get 10 call backs. Go through the whiteboard hazing rituals and ghosting. Maybe get 1 offer. Back when I was 25-30, maybe I'd expect a double-digit percent bump for all that work, but now, I'm pretty much at the ceiling, and the great pain of interviewing just doesn't seem worth it.
I had one unforgettable experience where the company strung the process along for 3 months. And then they forgot about it. Called me back to restart the interview process. I tagged their emails as SPAM (accidentally, but in retrospect correct) and moved on.
The last one was 2 quick phone calls the same week. The third call was what laptop I wanted and where should the send it.
Exactly that. Interviewing has become so ridiculous, it's not worth it. One has to wonder if there isn't collusion among larger companies to make the process so painful to reduce employee turnover and consequently also salaries.
I was working in tech in the 90s and interviewing was just a chat on what I'd like to do, what they need done and if it looked like a match, let's do it. And I'll argue that jobs were more technically difficult then (assembly language, C, kernel work, attention to optimization since hardware was slow, etc) compared to the typical job these days of gluing AWS components together for yet another CRUD app functionally identical to every other.
Interviewing at top tech companies hasn't changed much in at least 30 years.
One of my first job interviews, in the early 90s, I had to sit in front of a computer and write some assembly. Probably did it in on the computer because the company didn't have a whiteboard.
Personally I've been suspicious of any company that just did a chat for an interview
That's very different from my experience. In the 90s I interviewed for a top research labs organization (Bell) and for the highest flying tech company (Sun) and both interviews were very casual chats about interest and goals. Got offers from both, accepted both.
Full-time job to look for another job...while you work your full-time job might I add. I get home and gag a little when I look at my computer. The last thing I want to do is paperwork when I get home from slave labor. cough I mean work*...
I want to give a different experience, been through job interviews recently in Europe for a software development job, and it was a breeze, I just put the #opentowork tag on LinkedIn and applied for just one job.
At the end I got 5 offers to choose from out of the 8 companies I was doing interviews with, and I would've probably got all 8 offers if they didn't give a time limit to get back to them.
All of this took me about 2 hours a day of work, but I have to admit that these are all startup/medium level companies, if you're looking to get into FAANG that's another story.
Inertia and/or fear. Health issues mean that if I leave my position and I find out my new position is more demanding, I'm fucked. I have a mortgage to pay.
I am getting kind of sick and tired of the pressure though. Partly put on by myself, partly put on by expectation of continued excellence in face of stressful deadlines.
Seems like my story. Also being in a country (middle east) where you are dependent on the employment visa gives you little room to experiment or take chances. One wrong move and your life changes. You'd have to go back to your own country and start over again. Nevertheless the fault lies with me for not trying as well.
I can't find a better job. I can easily find a job that pays more money, but I can't find a job that checks all the boxes.
1. Not an immoral business. (My moral standard is extremely high.)
2. Pays more.
3. As much or more PTO as I have now. (I have a lot, relative to the US at least)
4. No more than 40 hours of work a week under any circumstance.
5. Stable business, not some startup that will disappear in two seconds.
6. Needs/wants the skills that I have.
Recruiters contact me off the hook. It's extremely rare that any job posting even passes the morality test.
Not the person you asked, but for me: fintech, adtech, anything trying to track people or coerce them into doing something they don't want. Anything that enables rich assholes to get richer and more assholish. Anything that helps companies get away with being dicks to the planet or to poor people. Anything cryptocurrency related.
Although even with that list, it's not that rare that jobs pass the morality test. For me it's more about the fact that virtually every company in existence is just plain boring. They're doing boring payment facilitation or a boring knockoff of another boring product. They're just not contributing anything to society at all, have seemingly no reason to exist, and just feel like something an MBA came up with by filling out the "start a company Mad-libs" book his archaic business school gave him upon graduation.
IMO a worthy poll option would be the modern developer interview process. Even if I was interested in looking for a new opportunity I wouldn't want to go through that unless I really had to.
I applied at 3 jobs at once last year, two sent me take home coding tests, one just asked questions during the interview. I took the offer for that one.
I know a tech recruiter, one person he was interviewing refused to do a further interview with the hiring manager because there was no technical test as part to the role he was recruiting for...
I feel stuck. I am a C-level executive but dread every day of my job. I want to change careers at this point but have a family that depends on my income to get by. However, the company I work for is actually really great, I just happen to be burnt out.
I doubt they depend on your income as much as they are used to a certain type of life. Do you think your family could get by with less in exchange for a happier family member?
Most definitely. It feels selfish in some ways to make my family change their lifestyle just because I'm whining that I hate my job. On the other hand my wife tells me this exact thing all the time.
Listen to your wife here, the subtext of that comment might be that your employment is straining your relationship. I had to learn the same lesson recently, and with three kids, you have too much to lose to ignore any warning signs there. Have you ever sat down and really taken a look at what lifestyle compromises you'd have to make? It might be fairly superficial. Cook at home a few more times a week, make it a family thing. It isn't all downside living a bit more humbly.
Wish you best. Grass is always greener, but, as crap as it is, income and savings can be greenest.
Edit: Saw you deleted your post...
Long ways to go but you're crushing it... I'm not sure your location, income, or potential equity pay-day opportunities, but your monthly overhead is quite low for the family of 5 - congrats that is so huge.
A long time ago, I used to work as a cashier at a grocery store. I did it because I was in college, but for most of my co-workers, it was their permanent 9-5. As ruthless as it sounds, in their world, these minor irrelevant/annoying day-to-day things such as a SKEW/PLU not in the system, running low on bags, or someone being slow for a cash drop became these world-shaking miserable events that could totally make or break their day. I guess what I'm trying to say is people create these boxed realities and define their own problems on what makes the day great or not. I remind myself often to "realign" what matters. The easiest route? Stop caring and take things a little less seriously. Your day will get exponentially better and your day-to-day stresses can become less important. The world is not going to stop spinning.
Obviously there is no good answer on burn out or you wouldn't be here. I personally found having a super passionate hobby helped (you can force something for you to obsess over every single day and week that is not work or even family related). Then find budget to outsource as many other things in your life as possible to make your plate tiny (e.g.: stop looking at bills for a year if your wife can wrangle solo, long-term financial plan go yolo blind with a trusted advisor, annoying chores like cleaning or maintenance pay for, etc...). You can't control it all... so just make your world as small as possible for what you can personally manage. Then of course working out and go cold-turkey on pr0n. Getting on a super strict schedule if you aren't already too can help. It sucks, but no late nights and no missed early mornings.
Change in my experience is always good, even if you are making the wrong choice. Just changing a setting on where you work from in the office or at home can make the world of difference. You could just say F that job and just do something else even if it's the same role somewhere else, and I promise you it will be 100% better. Maybe try that before blowing it all up to a less-paying job or doing a complete industry bail.
Burn out is like an injury of the mind and took me a full year to recover and "realign". The passionate young-buck mojo mindset you probably compare with is never coming back to a full 100% so get used to it and be reasonable about your injury.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. Your words got to me. I promise it will get better and easier. Best of luck and hope you see this and helps just 1%.
Sorry for deleting, after I posted I couldn't decide if it is good to put that out there or not so I decided to pull it back, but it looks like you got the info needed out of it.
I really appreciate the kind words. I was thinking similar things about the people from the grocery store - when I worked menial jobs I would get stressed over silly things. I think that is just my personality type. I think I need to quit taking the job and myself so seriously.
I really need to start working out, I'm sure that would make a huge difference in my mental health. I'm sure going cold-turkey off prOn would also help with some mental health healing as well.
I'm bipolar to boot which makes these decisions harder to make since I can't decide if I am being rational or over-reacting to something. I think trying somewhere new could be beneficial. I've been at this company for nearly 7 years which is a damn long time in the software industry.
Did you really raise your lifestyle to some kind of regular 7-figure burn? Seems insane to me to do such. Outside of a mortgage - I feel like most things at that level are… extremely nice to have and not really necessity. I know many who do the private schools, exotic vacations, nice cars, etc etc. Their burn outside mortgage is still not anywhere near 7-fig. So… what ya doing that’s so insanely expensive? Buying a new GT2RS every year or something?
I get up each morning excited to go to work, and this is after being here for 6 years. I keep waiting for the honeymoon phase to wear off, but it keeps going.
I'm doing important work, I'm surrounded by smart people, and I have the support of the company to grow my career in the direction(s) I'd like to take it. They'd have to pry me out of this job with a crowbar.
WOW. I envy your position and am happy for you. I miss that so much. Only thing keeping me around is flexible hours, but even that wears off when the meaning of my life’s work looks: purposeless.
I know I've got it good, and I don't take it for granted. One significant downside of being at a small company is that we don't have FAANG salaries. I'll absolutely settle for a really good salary plus an amazing work environment over ludicrous salary with the downsides of working for a giant corporation.
We have regular evaluations where each employee is matched against a career ladder document we have. If you meet all (or most, with no red flags) of the criteria, you get a promotion. We’re going through a process with a consultant now to compare our salary ranges for each level with other companies like us, with the plan to adjust everyone’s comp to match the new levels.
I’ve gotten substantial promotions and raises as I’ve worked my way up the ladder, and I’m pretty sure most/all of my coworkers have, too. The last thing we want is to have someone feel that they’ve hit a cap here. If someone’s awesome and growing in their career, that’s exactly the kind of person you want to stick around.
I work for amino-dot-com, a healthcare/financial wellness startup. Elevator pitch: big companies contract with us to tell their employees which doctors they should go to and how much it'll cost, and we'll even book the appointment for them.
I can easily get a job 3x my existing salary. But I do the work of someone 8x my salary but nobody is ready to give my that jump because that would disturb the "industry standard" (read HR KRA).
Also, the low pay in my current job gives me a freedom to do what I want how I want it done. Because even they don't want to pay 3x salary to someone else either.
In return I get massive work-life balance. And I get to pursue my hobbies and interests apart from getting to spend quality time with my family.
Other: I'm preparing for the interviewing process because I want the ideal job so I don't have to do this again for a long time.
Current state: overall decent job with fair compensation, good group, semi-interesting set of problems to solve. Ultimately, though, nothing outstanding (Canada-based thus compensation could be more competitive, field itself is not interesting). I'm also not greatly experienced (barely intermediate).
Regardless, I'm ambitious and want a dreamy job so I can focus on learning important stuff (not leetcode solutions) and build cool stuff.
Aside: the interview process, particularly based on the monthly "Who's Hiring" threads, is pretty disparate, so prepping is a broad task! I swear it's more than just code puzzles and a portfolio.
There's also "accumulated trust built up with coworkers" (perhaps a subset of "enjoy coworkers"), "don't want to reset the parental leave clock", and "have family and hence no time to learn a whole new problem domain".
I'm absolutely god-awful at technical interviews. Avoiding many hours of tedious interview practice is the one and only thing keeping me from finding a higher paying and more satisfying job. Which is too bad, because otherwise I am a fantastic interviewee and I'm very eager to dive into a new role somewhere interesting.
My wife and I will have our first child this year and my employer offers 4 months of paid parental leave, so I guess that is sort of a golden handcuff at this point.
Joined somewhat recently. Don’t feel like interviewing again so soon and giving back sign on bonus. Part of me feels like I might still be able to get something out of this experience - as it’s my first larger tech company rather than startups and what not. That said - I feel management people are a whole other level of toxic within SV. Nothing but lies and deception in almost every company I join. It’s very obnoxious when you’re hungry AF.
I will leave either late this year or early next year. I will likely need to figure out if I am really going to stay in SV as well. After my last company’s IPO busted (stock lost 75% of value) - I’m feeling super deflated about staying since my hard work basically imploded.
I’m in my 30s now and recently single. I know my chances of getting a partner here are infinitesimal. I just don’t know where I’d go - tbh. As it seems culturally, a racially ambiguous software engineer isn’t exactly a hot item in any dating market. I need to start lying about my job - I swear it’s off putting in itself. Another reason to consider a career change - tbh. I can’t stand the stigma anymore. I get too much prejudice immediately. Everyone assumes I must be autistic if I’m a software engineer before I even say a word. It’s a damn annoying profession.
I really love my job. I believe in the product (it's open source), coworkers are great, management and leadership are excellent. Compensation is competitive, and I enjoy the problems I'm solving. I have no plans nor reason to leave.
I imagine for most people it's an interplay between most things being at least "good enough" and the effort/risk (things don't always work out) of job hunting and starting in a new place in a possibly new role.
I work in newsgathering for a major international news organisation, I have oodles of flexibility, great work-life balance, massive variety, the ability to do all sorts of things that I wouldn't be able to in a different job, no responsibility other than what I put on myself, a great team, pretty much unfireable, and the bulk of the problems I (and the rest of my team) used to have with work a few years ago have all been solved.
However the flip side is that pay is relatively terrible. It's good for the UK, but not great (top 15%), and pretty terrible for tech.
Just had a recruiter knock me up for what seems like quite a junior job, fully remote (like my current), but offering a 40% pay rise.
I'm fairly confident I'll be able to stay where I am until I retire - I'm about in mid-career, but expenses are increasing, and there's no way I'll be able to keep even a cost-of-living raise in this industry.
If money wasn't an issue I'd stay where I am, I think there's some interesting challenges coming up in the next few years, but ultimately money is a big issue.
There does come a point where you start to look at the size of your savings account even if you really like what you're doing. I was in a job that I mostly really liked--at least until latterly. But between dot-bomb and other things it was not great financially. Fortunately, where I went from there got me back to where I wanted to be.
Interviewing - as others pointed out, going through the interview rounds can be exceedingly and unnecessarily daunting and stressful since, as an employee, there's a massive imbalance in power between yourself and your potential employer.
Inertia - things are good so far, why upset the apple cart? They could be better, but not without initial (or long term) headaches: adjusting to a new culture, new colleagues and management, different rules, re-establishing social boundaries etc.
Remuneration: OK money, better than being a nurse, a teacher and plenty other, more useful and more important jobs than mine. So it's mixture of gratefulness and other, not so positive feelings.
Financial stability: being employed and doing something I know how to do well beats being a freelancer in terms of regular income, especially since I'm not great at finding clients and doing business. They require different skills and it's one of the main reasons many brilliant people (which I most certainly am not) can't start their own thing: being an excellent engineer / scientist / writer / carpenter doesn't make you good or patient enough with people in order to actually do business.
Some degree of freedom: my employer doesn't measure every aspect of my work or transforms social relations into KPIs (a dystopic thing, to say the least), doesn't actively spy on me and, because I work from home on my own machine, I don't need to go through an infantilisation process whereby I have to ask IT Dep to update a piece of software or install something new just because I want to try it. You know, like an adult should be able to. Say what you will about risks, they are all observed from the business' perspective; I find it extremely difficult and infantilising to accept that I am unable to control my own machine and everyday tools because the business can't cope with risks. My needs as a human being should not come after the needs of the business, because the only reason we have businesses is to make life better for human beings.
Changing jobs right now would mean navigating - yet again! - this complex reality where one is forced to research, apply, seduce, negotiate and maintain professional relationships. Which I'll have to do anyway sooner or later.
I choose "Believe in product" & "Other". I really love the product I work on. I've had a lot of friction on my team, a few issues related to comp, but in the end of the day I'm really passionate about what I get to build and this product is only really viable in a company as large as the one I work for. And, this brings me to the "Other": brand recognition. When I used to meet people and say "I work at X as a programmer" people had no idea what I worked on. Inside of companies when someone had no ground to stand on for a technical argument they'd say "My friend from $FAANG said my way is better" and it was basically pointless to try and argue from there because I didn't have FAANG on my resume. Now I get to skip all of that and people actually attempt to evaluate me, and my technical propositions, based on their own merit instead of tribalism. Or... at least the tribalism works in my favor.
It’s the first time I’m working somewhere that is doing something I don’t mind talking publicly about; and people may see a point to it.
When I first started developing I loved it all on it’s own. Coding was fun, no matter what I coded. That short lived joy was the entirety of my decision making for my first job. I got an offer in a location I liked and I took it. I didn’t really fit with the company, or the industry; even if I liked the folks I interacted with just fine.
Then I changed jobs as a way of just changing jobs hoping I would fit better. Again didn’t work out like that. Enough iterations and I landed somewhere I fit better in.
I like what the company does, and I can fit within this industry. But comp could be better; and I have concrete reasons in real ways that a better comp could improve my life. But I would be terrified of changing jobs again, and risk not fitting and not liking what the next company does.
I suck at interviews. No one wants to hire me for the roles I want. I don’t have the skills yet to influence how I want people to perceive me so that I can get a job in another role. I don’t like my current role, so wouldn’t want to change jobs just to stay in the same role.
I'm finishing my second year at my very first programming job. This is the only real employment I've had in my career path and I'm proud to have gotten it. It's a small/medium sized company, I think we're around 60-70 people. I wouldn't say I'm being compensated as equally as engineers that live in the same place I do, but I enjoy the people I work with most of all. I'd rather have that then go to a bigger company with more salary, with a possibility of not enjoying the people. Devil I know is better than the devil I don't I suppose
I seem to be the only guy in our company who can spell 'BGP' correctly. This makes me nigh unfirable.
Since, on a technical level, the network is pretty much 'done', and generally doesn't break randomly if you design it with a modicum of care, I spend my work days attending meetings where I get to explain IP to colleagues across the whole org. Actual workload is maybe four hours a day, and as such, I would need a total comp increase beyond 100% for a job change to even make sense.
Because my purpose in life is to "crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their women". Doing my job satisfies that life path.
The only 2 I didn't hit was "Started recently" and "Golden handcuffs"
I'm VERY lucky to be where I am. The work, the people, the company, nearly everything is VERY good. I'm not retiring SOON, but soon enough to think I'm not really interested in starting over again unless I must. Hoping I can retire from here!
I might be able to make more someplace else? I'm not even sure. But it would need to be A LOT more to make it worth to even consider moving.
The company I work for is one of the top employers in my country/region.
Top in terms of pay/culture/getting recognized/opportunities for growth/benefits.
There are maybe 5 other companies that can compete on everything, except maybe culture. I'm very happy where I am, and risking moving to a new place for basically the same thing seems pointless.
I was laid off a couple years ago and thought about retiring. I ending up spending my time sitting in front of a computer monitor making no money. I would rather spend my time sitting in front of a computer monitor making money. Not really a strong preference though at this point.
I chose "Retiring soon anyway", but it's more complex than that. I've been here more than 30 years where I work, and I can retire with full benefits soon. But I have no reason to because I like what I'm doing and my retirement will only be better the longer I wait.
It offers unconditional full tuition remission for a masters degree I just started. Other than that - I dont know what else to pursue and I dont seem to gel in any work environment other than the one Im in. No pursuit is interesting when I depend on it for income.
I am in a role now as a Director of Engg. I see my tech skills dropping and not as sharp as they used to. I am focusing more on managerial skills. So, my opportunities are also less outside with Immigration as an added bonus.
The only real complaint I have about my job anymore is the commute, but considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to switch jobs I'm just going to let it slide.
Adequate compensation, people are generally kind to one another, and many colleagues hold themselves to a very high standard and do excellent work. I like it here.
Because I promised I would and I want to see it through to the end. I had an offer on the table. Same work, same level, little better pay. Current job convinced me to stay. They made a huge effort in giving me what I asked for, some up front, some goal based. They WANTED me to stay, which was a first in my career. It's a shit show for sure, but we're working on fixing it. I want to see that through. They committed to me; I'll commit to them.
1. It hasn’t been a problem for me. My skills are still current and I have a fairly deep knowledge of how things work. If you can say both of those things, getting a job isn’t hard.
Other. I'm not looking for work because I'm already retired. :-P Before I retired (just over a year ago) my main reason would have been that I enjoyed the problems I was working on and my coworkers. Even though I've barely touched a line of code since I quit, I still miss both.
Also, I'd have to echo some of the other comments about modern tech interviews. I would have run the gauntlet again if I had really needed to, but I strongly preferred to avoid that need. It's worth noting that it gets worse as you get older. Every year, your knowledge base and that of most interviewers will diverge. Sooner or later some poorly-trained interviewer will judge you because you don't know a two-year-old algorithm that they still remember from school, which neither of you ever has used or will use in your day-to-day work, but nobody will ever ask about the ten things that you do know ... even when the lack of that knowledge locally is your value-add and the very reason why the company should hire you. They're the "unknown unknowns" and even if you bring them up yourself their value will be dismissed for lack of experience and context. It's intensely frustrating, but frustration is another thing you don't want to show in an interview. Gotta put on a happy face and stroke the kids' egos. It's no wonder senior people are leaving the industry even faster than natural "aging out" would suggest. I put up with a lot of crap in my last year just because the alternative seemed even worse.
Mostly because nobody at product companies wants to interview people from a consulting background. I do a lot of consulting in the product dev space, I just haven’t worked at a product company since much earlier in my career. I make plenty of money and my job prospects are fine within the consulting industry, but I would kind of like to get out of the rat race and into something more stable. But every role I apply for in product / engineering management only gets hits at places I don’t want to work (e.g. Amazon, Facebook).
Because I fucking hate the interview process. Video interview, phone screen, take home test, management interview, team interview, dozen technical interviews. It's a full-time job to look for another job. So the slightly annoying job I have is way less annoying than searching for another one.
Rant over.
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