When Should I Quit? How Do I Know When to Move On?

When should I quit my job? How do I know if my work environment is toxic or just normal? Should I stay for a certain period of time? These are the questions we will answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.
Website: www.iamtimcorey.com/
Ask Your Question: suggestions.iamtimcorey.com/
Sign Up to Get More Great Developer Content in Your Inbox: signup.iamtimcorey.com/

[@oritatchi7715]

This video couldn't have come at a better time for me. I was going to go into why, but instead I'll simply say thank you.

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@nsedwards]

Great advice as always, thanks Tim :) It's always nice to get confirmation of your own thoughts on these topics.

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@ranaislam2921]

Thanks Tim very good discussion

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@nvnYT26]

Your timing is always amazing. ❤️

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks!

[@davindersra]

you are just amazing man thanks for sharing you important and valuable throughs

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@faisalalhoqani6151]

Great episode, dear Tim yes health and family are our top priorities.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks!

[@codefoxtrot]

Nailed it, thanks Tim! Though you have many important videos, this will surely be a popular one among them.

[@codefoxtrot]

I had recently quit a job myself, for two reasons. First being for my career growth. Legacy code and poor design are fine challenges, but an organization deciding that any kind of modernization 'must be done on your own time', is not a good sign. Second reason, for non-technical people (thinking of themselves as highly technical), making key decisions that will only result in disaster. Combine that with an unwavering ability to oppose any recommendations or not listen to the developers, and that was the end of that story for me!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks!

[@niksatan]

Thanks!!! Again, timing is amazing! "What is normal", human alltime question

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@vivekdesai8500]

Thank you!

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@mostafamahrous8187]

Very nice .you share the video is very wonderful and very helpful thank you for sharing ❤❤❤

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@richardhaizenberg9352]

Great video, thanks

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@ld8778]

This is really spot on, Tim. I currently work remotely, but was offered a new position back in an office setting. With a significant raise. The flexibility I have to do all things with my son is amazing in my remote role. That all would change in the new role. That's my boundary. I was struggling to find whether I should stay. Thanks for putting this out there. It's a really important topic to cover.

[@IAmTimCorey]

That flexibility is really valuable, especially when you are a parent. When I first started working from home long-term, I started to see just how big of a benefit it was. I vowed not to go back.

[@Ivana9910]

@@IAmTimCorey combined with the unpaid hours of commute and car costs, the monetary value is technically at least 1.25 a standard salary. Add on top of that the car costs, and it is likely at least 10-20k per year on top of that. That said, time is priceless. There is also time saved from not having to pack a lunch or prepare work clothes or change routine just to drive in and plan around driving into an office. There is no drama to deal with and stress saved. It's my line as well. I think remote-first companies have weeded themselves out as mostly healthy environments, for me.

[@News_n_Dine]

I love your shirt Tim. Where can i get one?

[@IAmTimCorey]

I believe it was a limited run shirt. Sorry.

[@dzllz]

Which microphone do you use? Another great vid!

[@IAmTimCorey]

It is a Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic.

[@andywalter7426]

There is one other case where its time to quit that was not mentioned. My first job out of college, I actually quit after around 4 years. What happened was I was running out of things to do so I would come to work and be completely bored. That was over 20 years ago but still realized it was for the best because I did everything I could there and wrote all the apps I could write for the company as well. Even though I had no other job lined up, I quit anyways. I even was able to collect unemployment since they realized I had a good reason (no work to do). I keep hearing about working too much. I always had the opposite problem of no work to do.

[@runtimmytimer]

I left my first job out of college after 18 months. There was no path for growth and I felt restricted. The company moved at the pace of an iceberg in technology and I was bored out of my mind. They kept throwing me on these projects I didn't want to do and the only way I was challenged was by volume. It went from a somewhat fun job to something I absolutely hated. They wanted me to go into management and I am anything but a people person. I came to the realization looking at the job description of the next level in the company I wanted to do the 5% portion of the job. It didn't help it was a forced union environment and this wasn't a right to work state. I enjoyed writing code at home after hours more than at work. It became toxic when I wasn't being listened to. They wanted to do this auto updating feature in the software I knew wouldn't work. I proposed an alternative they said wouldn't work. I wrote it at home and installed it in the test lab for my internal business customers. Magically, all the support issues stopped. Eventually word got out about my smiley face app (the icon was a happy face because it made the internal business customers happy) and I had to break the bad news. That solution I proposed you said wouldn't work...well it works awesome. That's when I realized it was time to go.

[@IAmTimCorey]

I would highly recommend you not quit a job without having another lined up just because your current job is boring. That isn't a wise career move.

[@runtimmytimer]

@@IAmTimCorey I never do, however, I’m 100% debt free, house and everything, with 9 months expenses in cash in the bank. It wouldn’t matter if I did.🤣

[@MusicByJC]

I have never had a software job where we were running out of things to do. Please provide me info on the company. There are times where I would like to be bored.

[@runtimmytimer]

@@MusicByJC Don’t confuse boredom due to lack of being challenged with boredom due to lack of work.

[@Kevmoens]

Love the shirt where did you get it?

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks! I bought it when it was offered as a limited-edition option.

[@DaXiS1987]

Haha I thought this meant "quit being a developer". I would never quit that, love it too much. Thanks for video Tim!

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@codefoxtrot]

Tim has another video on that subject, "Quitting Software Development". They sound similar, but this one is job-oriented, and the other one is career-oriented.

[@mohitnagpal]

Hi Tim, please give me some advice. I'm stuck in a Tier 3 City in my country and all of the jobs are in Tier 2 and Tier 1 cities. I have two job offers right now. One is in my present tier 3 City. They provide a monthly salary of 22k but they have a service agreement in the job offer which says that I should work for them for at least 2 years or I have to pay 80k (local currency) if I leave before it. The second job offer I have is in Tier 2 or Tier 1 City but it is uncertain that when i will get the date of joining. The company sent a mail that tentative month of joining is April 2023. I don't know what to. I'm stuck in a toxic home (I live in a joint family) as well as in this tier 3 City where there are negligible software development job opportunities and all of them have a service agreement. I have worked as hard as I could in my life. But still I'm stuck. I am literally left with nothing else in life. Please suggest me something.

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are going to have to make the best choice for your situation. I will say that locking into a guaranteed commitment sounds like a bad option, but I can't say don't take it because I don't fully know your situation. I would just say that if you have better options, I would recommend pursuing them.

[@andywalter7426]

One question is if a job is impacting your relationship, is it best to quit even if you have no job lined up? Because otherwise, you could lose the relationship before the next job is lined up. Even if a person knows its time to move on, it can take at least 5 years to get anything else though.

[@IAmTimCorey]

That's a pretty broad question, so "it depends". For example, working 12-hour shifts at a job an hour away can put a strain on a relationship because you aren't home most of the time. So should you quit? Well, not necessarily. If you are out of work, you aren't providing for your family. That will also put a strain on your relationship. And, as you are pointing out, you can't always "quit" being unemployed very quickly. So, maybe the solution is to look for better employment while sticking with the current job. By the way, this is the exact situation my father was in when I was growing up. He ended up staying at the job, providing for his family, and we all got through it.

[@webluke]

The job-seeking process is what gets me. You apply for a job that looks good, you have all the skills they want, the experience, and then your application goes into a black hole with no feedback for months. Then you get a canned "Sorry, you're not considered" email. You do that 50 times, and you get stuck just staying longer with your current job.

[@mikhailvasyutyk6770]

This is part of the reason why I recommend keeping an updated LinkedIn profile and an update resume. If you have relevant keywords on your LI profile it will allow for recruiters to reach out to you and find you more easily. This can help you to get interviews easier.

[@IAmTimCorey]

I get that. I've been on both sides of that equation. Let me help out a bit. First, work on your resume and portfolio (you have both, right?). Make sure that they are as clear as possible. Get friends and family to read them over and get their feedback. Ask them questions like "what are my biggest skills" and "what did I accomplish at my jobs". If they can't answer these questions without knowing you, then neither can a hiring manager. Make sure your resume is short and skim-able. I know people feel like they are missing out when they cut out parts of their resume, but if there is too much content, nothing gets read. Next, customize your resume for the job you are applying for. I know that takes time but it makes a HUGE difference. If I'm hiring a person who is good at Microsoft Teams and your resume mentions Zoom but never Teams, you get passed over. If you can mention Teams, even to say that you've used it and are experienced at hosting web meetings, that's better than saying Zoom. On the hiring side, you get a flood of resumes. Even worse, there will be a ton that don't even have a shot. So, the first task is to sort people into buckets. Those buckets (at least for me) are the "excellent candidate", the "possibly good candidate", and the "not right for the job". My first goal is to just start throwing people into those three buckets as fast as possible. For instance, right now I'm in the process of hiring an Executive Assistant. In the past 48 hours I've processed 238 applications. Of those, 163 were not a good fit for the job. Now because I've been on both sides, I let them know right away instead of letting them hang. However, that also means that 75 are still hanging in my other two buckets (but they don't know that). So now I've got my small list (excellent candidates) and my larger list (possibly good candidates). I further refined my smaller list into an even smaller "elite candidates" list. I will start with those individuals. If the interviews go well, that may be as far as I go. However, if not then I'll go to the rest of the excellent candidates and work that list. Finally, if none of those work out, I'll go to my possibly good candidates and work that list. I rarely get to that level. However, I can't communicate much to anyone until after I work through that process. Only then can I let everyone know that I've chosen someone else. When you get to that stage, the issue isn't that your skills aren't good enough necessarily. The issue is that someone else had better skills or that they were better at showcasing their skills. I can tell you that of the people in my elite candidate list, one person got in specifically because they customized their resume to what I was looking for. They made it easy for me to see how they were a great fit. That doesn't mean I didn't pick others that didn't do that, but the key is to stand out. Finally, and this won't work all the time, but when you do get a rejection, ask for feedback as to why you were not selected. Most of the time you probably won't hear anything. However, you will get a response from some employers (like me). I've had two people out of 163 that asked me for feedback. Both got multiple paragraphs of information to help them for next time.

[@webluke]

@@IAmTimCorey Thanks for the lengthy reply lots of great information in there! I will try to apply these tips. Another thing when reading this, I was thinking about when you mentioned the large number you had to sort through: when looking for a job, we end up with many jobs to apply for on many of the listing sites. That large number gets many kinds of jaded to the process, so they push their standard response hoping for at least something. The sheer number for both sides creates a cycle that overwhelms both. And the rejection is hard to take, and the not good for the job group will be a large number that a hiring person would feel like those are spam wasting their time. Some of it would be how large a reach the internet can bring, some of its job websites wanting to have many posters and seekers, and some of it could come down to spam (mainly recruiting companies).

[@codefoxtrot]

There's two ways you can find a job... applying to companies or leaning on recruiters. In my most recent experience, I spoke to more recruiters than I could remember. Ultimately, I reached interviews, only for the jobs I directly applied and not via a recruiter. There was one exception to that rule, and after taking that interview, I withdrew my application because for lack of a better description, the hiring manager appeared dead (maybe exhausted), and so did his team. Not a looker in the bunch. So in my experience, I generally try to avoid recruiters. Notice LI has a jobs portal, which typically takes you right to an employer's career portal to apply. I would recommend this approach, or use Google to try and find medium/large companies in your area (or really any area for a remote job), then search for that company's career portal. There you can directly apply for a job. It's a bit more time-consuming, but it has always paid off for me. I feel like recruiters are working with volume, and getting hired via a recruiter also costs the end-company more money, since typically a percentage of your salary goes to the recruiting agency.

[@mikhailvasyutyk6770]

@@codefoxtrot Interesting. Every single job besides my first one has been through a recruiter. My first job was through word of mouth i.e. I knew someone who worked there and they connected me directly with the HM for the position.

[@carguy-xv2cl]

Any tips for interviewing while working full time in an environment where you work overtime and people never take time off?

[@IAmTimCorey]

Start taking time off to normalize it. If you can't, then take a personal day when you need to interview. If that won't fly, take a sick day. I don't advocate lying, but you also don't need to tell them why you are taking the time off.

[@CarrigansGuitarClub]

When your normal workload is BAU\Support....and your not enjoying the challenge - then it's time to move!

[@tomaszandrew3428]

I wonder how it is possible to be a great developer, teacher and smart/reasonable guy at the same time :D

[@IAmTimCorey]

I'm going to assume you are talking about me (thank you!). If not, this is awkward. 😆

[@lassel1644]

Its always hard to quit when you are making good money

[@IAmTimCorey]

Yep, but you have to weigh the other parts of the job as well, including personal life impact, level of frustration, etc. I've found that after a certain point, money becomes less important than the quality of life impacts.

[@kylekeenan3485]

Its time to quit when your contemplating the idea of it at all. If your happy and in the right job you won't be thinking about it.

[@IAmTimCorey]

That's a bit too simplistic of a view. If you don't have prospects for another job, you could go from a bad situation to a worse one.

[@webdeveloperninja9220]

I wish I saw this earlier in my career

[@IAmTimCorey]

Me too!

[@andywalter7426]

There is one part of the video I disagree with. There can be cases where you have a toxic job and there was truly no good parts to it. My first job out of high school was like that. In that case, I did not quit because the one who got me that job told me I would end up homeless if I quit so I stuck it out. Eventually the location went away so I had no job which was a good thing. What happened was I worked as a silverware roller which I really hated. I assumed I would have to put up with it for around 6 months but after 4 months, that was it. That job did actually make me sick since I hated it so much.

[@nsedwards]

Do what I did when my life went to shit and start your own company. After 33 years as a commercial software engineer/developer I promise you the advice that Tim has given here is totally sound!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Well, if a job keeps you from being homeless, that is a benefit. I would recommend that you look for a job before just quitting if you can.

[@une6two943]

if it's bringing out the worst in you, it's time to leave

[@IAmTimCorey]

That can be true. That's also a good opportunity to grow as an individual.

[@chezchezchezchez]

WASM loads to 98% with no good error message!! ARRGGHH!

[@marcusmaunula5018]

When you lie in the wooden box :). Ah you meant the workplace, okay then :).

[@IAmTimCorey]

lol

[@abhijitdash4410]

Hi , 1st viewer

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for watching.