Thinking of leaving my job, how's life in a medium/big company?

JackHeuston

Hello everyone.
I'm feeling a bit undecided on what to do with my current job. I was tolerating a lot especially at the beginning, but now it seems it's getting stupid.

The company I work for define itself as a marketing "start-up" even though it's 4-5 years it's been around. We're less than 10 employees and very little clients, just every once in a while.

It's also my first job after college, I wanted to build up some real experience on the field, and I've been with them for almost 2 years now.

First, I'm left as the only developer/tech person in the company. We had some senior devs to support me and the workload in the past but they took better offers or started their own company. We have two bosses: one CEO, one CTO. The technical one lives abroad and some of us didn't even see him personally, ever, while the CEO spend half of his time here and half abroad.

I have to report to the CTO, and it's extremely difficult. I get thrown at me projects of any type, at any given time, and there is no proper planning at all. They try to get three or four different clients at a time, promise them things, then expect everything to be done by the week from me. The few times I succeed, the CTO stops everything because he wasn't updated on my work, or didn't understand what I was doing, and doesn't agree with my solutions. This happens even if we have (useless) weekly meetings, and constant emails from the ticket system where I write comments every day on what I'm doing and all the thought process behind a project.

It happened that after a full month of work for a project with a deadline expected by a client, I had to re-do everything because he didn't approve what I've done. I've never heard anything while working and constantly reporting what I was doing. And honestly, his thoughts and ideas are ridiculously distorted and wouldn't come from any "normal" human being.

The CEO is the one who's more present, but is a total disaster at least from my point of view. I can't count how many times he scheduled meetings even with people from big tech giants, and then took a Skype call 10 minutes before the meeting and let them go away after they waited for half a hour. And everything falls on us, when that happens we try to keep the clients/VIP interested and try to buy some time, even if we didn't even know a person would come in the office and for what reason (sometimes it's to learn about our product, that's easy, other times for more biz or personal stuff, it gets awkward since they are really not interested in the product).

The company doesn't have a clear goal and he tries to generalise our services to every possible kind of industry and field, this creates a lot of mess especially in the IT side since I have to develop stuff that, after a month of coding, will hardly be used because we lost the client. I really don't approve this way of doing business, I can't see how it is possible to adapt to every field just to get more chances to get a client.

And apart from the total business disorganisation, the office environment is ridiculous. Lots of drama, my coworkers always take everything personally and get frustrated very frequently. They start a project thinking it's their child, they get stopped by the CTO because of trivial details, they struggle to finish the project and as soon as they get an insight from anyone who's not one of our bosses they get offended, scream to each other for stupid reasons and incomprehensions, there's lot of anger sometimes and I think it's caused especially by the way our bosses work.

Even simply ordering office supplies is stressful and can't be planned at all, I went on for a few months before bringing paper, pens and other things from home because it's easier this way.

I always tried to keep things civil and professional, I'm even the youngest in the company, and most of the times I take the worst of them without reacting. I received the silent treatment by a co-worker for months, calls on my phone after work with them in tears, because in some way they find out my salary and it wasn't fair that I was accepting that. Eventually things went better but I really can't go on with this sort of people.

I'm really stuck in here and I'm not growing up professionally. I'm working on a proprietary framework which was built reinventing the wheel, I'm not practicing with most open-source frameworks other companies use, I feel like I wouldn't fit anywhere else and I would start back from the beginning, even though I have two years of experience in web development.

I can't find positive at all that we lose clients because work can't be properly organised, or someone promises things out of this world without even a clear idea on what's the next step, and then looks at me disappointed.

I'm not saying I'm better than them, but after a while I developed this idea that we are doing things wrong from the real basics and I'm just trying to make them work the best I can, without support or directions. Maybe I'm just seeing things wrongly and the fault is all on me.

How would be life in a medium/big sized company? I really want to leave to look for something better, but I'm scared to find worse than this.

For example, I've never interacted with an "HR department", I would have no idea how to behave in a workplace that will require a lot more professionality than the one I'm used to.

In my current job I have 20 days off and I can work from remote for a couple of weeks near major holidays (Christmas, Easter, ...), and with that I'm able to visit with my family back in my home country in Europe. I don't know if I will be able to do the same, and I don't know if it's something to say in the interview process.

Or for example, when I'm sick. Sometimes I'm able to work from home without going to the office without issues, sometimes I just don't work because I'm too sick (but it happened only once and for two days). I've read on this forum that in some places even a sick day must be backed up extremely well. Now I just say the same morning "I'm sick", and I try to be as much responsible as I can.

Basically I'm scared to lose this kind of small "benefits", but I also don't want to get used to this way of working. I'm 25 and I should give the best of me right now.

It's a huge wall of text, I could have avoided some details, but I also needed to vent a bit I'm just wondering how well I will fit in a "normal" place of work, maybe in bigger companies, were office dramas should be a bit more contained and things are more professional (hopefully!)

bee06

Well I'd say you get office drama everywhere, it just comes with people spending so much time together. I suppose in larger companies it's easier to ignore or avoid though.

Working from home or working remotely really depends on the company or even individual departments. I've worked for a company where they were very flexible with that kind of thing but it's not really done at all in my current company and these are two large multinationals.

I'd weigh up the pros and cons of these flexibility benefits against the stress and lack of progression in your current company.

Eoin

I'm able to visit with my family back in my home country in Europe. I don't know if I will be able to do the same, and I don't know if it's something to say in the interview process.

No, it's not really something to bring up. Try and do a bit of research before the interview to get a feel for how flexible they are - it's something you can ask about when/if it comes to an offer.

There are pros and cons to big companies vs small ones. I just made the opposite move, as I got a bit sick of all the processes and delays that came with working for a multinational and wanted something a bit quicker paced. But on the plus side, there's normally more perks such as pension contribution, educational assistance, healthcare, training budgets and all that sort of stuff. I know training shouldn't be considered a "perk", but you know what I mean.

But there are many companies that are in-between the two - tech companies that are established, but still have the good parts of the start-up environment, but have implemented sensible processes around HR, engineering and all that. And there are start-ups without all the kind of crap you have to deal with!

I really want to leave to look for something better, but I'm scared to find worse than this.

Don't be! At the very least start looking around and do a few interviews to see what it's like out there. There's a lot of options out there for good developers. Start testing the waters...

JackHeuston

bee06 wrote: »

I'd weigh up the pros and cons of these flexibility benefits against the stress and lack of progression in your current company.

Yes that's what I'm trying to do every once in a while, but of course whenever something happens I feel the urge to just leave and think that anywhere would be better than that. Then I think at the current pros and go back on my steps.

Eoin wrote: »

But there are many companies that are in-between the two - tech companies that are established, but still have the good parts of the start-up environment, but have implemented sensible processes around HR, engineering and all that. And there are start-ups without all the kind of crap you have to deal with!

Don't be! At the very least start looking around and do a few interviews to see what it's like out there. There's a lot of options out there for good developers. Start testing the waters...

That's the best thing to do of course, I'll try to work up some courage and see around. I already receive messages almost every week from recruiters, but I've always been scared about making the leap and landing somewhere worse than this.

shane9689

It sounds like you dont really believe or trust in your company, and you arent learning anything from them so if you stay what are you going to gain? there doesnt seem to be a future in that company anyways, from the way you describe how they deal with clients so what is there to lose from moving?

Diziet

OP, you should not be afraid to make the move. There is plenty of work in IT, worse that can happen is that you get some experience and move again.

I have worked for both startups and multinationals. Large organisations (esp technology ones) in my experience treat their employees well and have good procedures in place. Individual working arrangements are between you and your manager. The odd sick day is not the end of the world, most employers prefer you to work at home (i.e. not take it as a sick day) and not bring your germs to the office. 20 days holiday is the legal minimum, some times you may get more than that.

I must say that working remotely for a couple of weeks to visit family abroad is unusual - I would not make this a condition or even mention it at interview. Not that it is impossible, but it very much depends on the role. I have known people work remotely (myself included) but it was very specific roles.

All companies have pros and cons. I think that comfort zones are over-rated! Get out there and look for something better. You have gained good skills (flexibility, responsibility, responsiveness) working for a startup. there are very useful skills. A large company is not so different - just be professional and learn what the culture is. And of course do an excellent job. Benefits tend to be much better, too.

JackHeuston

So... just to update this old thread... almost a year passed from the first post, and I'm finally going to make the move After a few new negative changes, working there has become really impossible and unhealthy for me. I'm going to hand my notice in at the beginning of May.

I must give at least a month of notice, so I'll actually quit at the beginning of June, closing with a nice round two years of experience at that company.

I don't have any other option at the moment, I only planned to take a few weeks of break in June or maybe July where I'll travel Ireland and maybe Europe, before starting to look for another job. I'll also be able to finally finish some personal projects on GitHub.

Currently, my boss doesn't have anyone to replace my position, which is fundamental in the company as I was the only developer working in the main web service. How should I go with this? He'll definitely take my notice pretty badly I'm guessing. I could offer to help them find someone else, but I don't really have a network of other developers here who are currently looking for a job in that position

I'm also thinking to ask him to sign/write a reference letter before I actually stop working there, as I think if I ask for it in a few months he'll just ignore me. Hopefully everything's gonna be fine and I won't leave the company in a bad way.

I took this decision today and I couldn't be more happy than this, there's no amount of money to justify wasting the best years of your life in a place you don't like anymore.

Enigma IE

Honestly OP, you don't owe the company anything. Give them your notice as per your contract and go off and enjoy your holidays. It's the companies problem on how they replace you, not yours.

They have no reason not to give you a reference, would be handy to get something in writing when you leave.

the_syco

JackHeuston wrote: »

Currently, my boss doesn't have anyone to replace my position, which is fundamental in the company as I was the only developer working in the main web service. How should I go with this? He'll definitely take my notice pretty badly I'm guessing. I could offer to help them find someone else, but I don't really have a network of other developers here who are currently looking for a job in that position

From what you've written, I wouldn't try to get a mate into the position.

Regarding how your boss will take it; it sounds like he didn't replace any of the other main coders, so he's dug his own grave in that regards.

As for a reference, I'd be unsure how reliable a reference he'd be from what you've written.

Do companies care about letters, or would they still ring the person?