[mlthoughts2018]

> “ Don’t like your new boss? Just quit. Enough people do it, and their boss will fix it. You don’t like your company’s policies around privacy, diversity, inclusion, human rights? Quit.”

This is psycho advice. It ranks up there with the crazy myths about just being able to instantly get new software jobs (when the actual time of job searches is usually longer than 6 months, despite the tone deaf wave of gainsaying comments this is sure to incite).

Voting with your feet rarely leads to organizational changes, especially if you don’t give clear feedback or spend sincere effort trying to fix the issues you’re having prior to quitting. More likely, you quitting is just tacitly reinforcing power and control by the shitty people who made your experience shitty.

When you need to quit, by all means, absolutely do it. But don’t kid yourself that there’s any “voting” going on. Do yourself and others a favor: give feedback and take responsibility for your own job satisfaction. Nobody can help you if you won’t try to get help.

And don’t count on a fast job search. This topic is so tone dead on HN. Some cacophony of commenters will swear you can get a million jobs from all your spam LinkedIn headhunters and be re-employed in weeks, but it is emphatically not true and the selection bias of those examples has to imply just ignoring them as inapplicable to the vast majority of software engineers. Interview prep, finding a good fit and getting what you want in a position and in compensation is really hard and takes a long time in software.

[bitwize]

> This is psycho advice. It ranks up there with the crazy myths about just being able to instantly get new software jobs (when the actual time of job searches is usually longer than 6 months, despite the tone deaf wave of gainsaying comments this is sure to incite).

Well, everyone I know who's any good as a developer can just waltz into a new job on Thursday after being fired on Tuesday.

/s, if it weren't obvious, but I've read enough straight-faced comments of this type on Hackernews.

[mgkimsal]

The text ran the same section below that said "have something else lined up first" so the advice wasn't "quit at the drop of a hat".

And I do agree that it's rarely going to lead to any sort of corporate change. I worked at a place with around ... ~20 IT folks. New CEO came in, and within 9 months, 8 of the 20 had left or were leaving (I was one of them). I'd reached out to the previous CEO (who still owned the company, had interviewed me, and was one of the reasons I'd taken the job) and said "something's wrong here". "I don't want to hear it - talk to New CEO". "New CEO is the problem..." "Don't want to hear it...". So... loads of people left. It wasn't until New CEO tried to get rid of one person in particular did alarm bells finally go off, and owner/CEO came back and booted New CEO. So... change happened eventually, but not in reaction to 40% of the IT staff leaving in less than a year.

[leetcrew]

recruiter: based on your impressive linkedin profile, I think you'd be a great fit for a full-stack role with my client! let me know if you have some time to discuss opportunities this week.

my linkedin profile: literally just desktop c++ work in a completely different domain.

yeah, something tells me these messages are not likely to lead to a real job.

[otagekki]

But have you ever tried? Back in 2018, less than 6 months into my new job I tried and got a solid offer (and found a client) that could be bumping my salary from €41,000 to €47,000. For reasons unknown I turned down the offer, and I retrospectively kind of regret it.

[leetcrew]

I'll respond if their initial message sounds like they actually read my profile and thought about how I could bring value to their client. this almost never happens. usually they are hiring for a mid-level role for which I have zero relevant experience. I have a hard time believing that's what they really want to do.

in any case, I really like my current team and manager. it would take a lot more than a €6000 (~$7000) salary bump to make me consider a different job.

[emteycz]

Actually, I tried, and it does.

[throwaway98797]

You know you could search for a job while working at one you don’t like.

Not all advice is literal.

Also, not everyone’s goal is to foster organizational change some are trying to help themselves first.