Is it worth sacrificing your career and personal life just to stay in the company longer?
In taro there are tons of great resources for Job Switches, like:
- As Alex explained here Job Switching has some caveats
- As Rahul said, it is a red flag for recruiters when you switch jobs within 12-14 months.
I understand the point, but what if I choose the wrong company? It's well-known that not all companies can offer the opportunities that we wanted initially. In this case, should I stay longer even if I know that I won't grow there due to factors such as the company structure or lack of opportunity?
I have a goal of reaching senior levels in my career, but to achieve this, I need to gain expertise in certain areas, like
- Strong domain knowledge to make an impact on the product side,
- connections and collaboration
- software craftsmanship.
Currently, my role does not offer me an opportunity to gain experience in the first two areas. As the product is well-regulated and the entire engineering team works on-site, it is difficult for me to connect and collaborate remotely.
On the other hand, this is making me lose my confidence and my ability to make an impact, even though I have gained hard skills and knowledge from my previous experiences in software craftsmanship part.
I am seeking advice on what to do next, should I even care about those red flags in my particular case if I switch the job?
Discussion
(3 comments)- 1
22 days agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroThere's indeed a very large cost when it comes to switching jobs quickly (time/energy for interview grind, looks bad on your resume, need to go through onboarding again), but sometimes that cost simply has to be paid. Work is such a big part of our lives, so if your job is making you miserable, you should 100% quit. No job is worth your mental health - At the end of the day, I just want everybody within the Taro community to be happy ☺️
What I will say though is that you should thoroughly try to make things work if you can. In this market, staying at a job is much better than switching jobs (at least in a vacuum). Hopefully something from here can help: [Taro Top 10] Growing Fast With Remote Work In Tech
If you still really think switching is the answer, Taro is here to support you as well and I recommend this course: [Course] Ace Your Tech Interview And Get A Job As A Software Engineer
Side note: If you haven't been at your current job for very long (2 months or less), just leave it off your resume entirely and pretend you never did it.
Best of luck!
- 122 days agoSenior Software Engineer [OP]Taro Community
Thanks Alex for the advice 🙏
- 02 days agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
In general, if you see major red flags in a role, you should leave. If your time at the company is < 6 months, you can exclude it from your resume, so you don't need to answer questions about that job.
what if I choose the wrong company?
How many times have you switched jobs within 12-18 months in the past? If you have 1 or 2 instances where you left after a short tenure, you can "explain it away" as a bad culture fit, a change in the direction of the company, or something else innocuous.
However, if you've picked the wrong company 5+ times in your career, that's where there will be doubts about your judgment and ability to persevere through something difficult. I made a YouTube video about tenure within a company here: When To Properly Leave Jobs So Your Career Doesn't Get Punished
