Wrong career move?

NotMyRealName · 2011-01-17T10:41:52

So, it's time to put your careers guru hats on. I've been working as a professional developer in one form or another for about 12 years now. The first 8 or 9 mostly in C++ and the last few in C#/.net. My last few roles were as a "senior developer". At the end of last year, I was offered a role as a technical lead. The idea was that I would have the main responsibility in a small company and have more opportunity to make the bigger decisions. The company was redeveloping their legacy MFC app in .net. My last company, while sometimes frustrating, was a good work environment and I got on well with most of my workmates, so I was reluctant to leave, but it was a pretty decent payrise and more importantly, more responsibility/autonomy. So I took the new job. I've been here 3 days now and I can't help but feel I've made a huge mistake. The work environment is awful, the existing codebase is worse than anything I've seen and I don't see any of the "technical lead"y stuff happening in the near future at all. In short, i now dread getting up each day. Do I "tough it out" and hope it gets better? (yes, I'm aware I haven't given it much time, but I've hd enough jobs to get the feel of a place). Or do I cut my losses now and just quit (there are other potential roles I could look at)? Thoughts?

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by NotMyRealName January 12, 2011 02:56 AM

27 comments, last by d000hg 13 years, 3 months ago

leiavoia

960

January 12, 2011 08:47 PM

'leiavoia' said:

I was in a similar situation and i did improved the… well, no, i completely scrapped the old code and started over from scratch. The old code was TheDailyWTF worthy. The new code was much much better. Doing everything from scratch was hard

Eeew, doing from scratch is a horrible plan. Then the next guy comes along and doesn't like your code, and decides to rewrite from scratch… meanwhile your competitors have shipped 2 new versions of their software based on "terrible" code and you are losing business.

He he. Actually, in our case it was virtually the only option. Let me say it like this: The previous "programmer" was using a separate database table for each user account... there were 10,000 tables... Do i need to go on? :-)

zer0wolf

1,022

January 12, 2011 09:53 PM

I'd talk with the people who hired you about how you are feeling about the differences between what you thought the job was and compared to what the reality of it appears to be. Open communication goes a long way.

laziness is the foundation of efficiency | www.AdrianWalker.info | Adventures in Game Production | @zer0wolf - Twitter

Antheus

2,410

January 12, 2011 10:41 PM

I'd talk with the people who hired you about how you are feeling about the differences between what you thought the job was and compared to what the reality of it appears to be. Open communication goes a long way.

Assuming that is desirable.

Management can always pull the troublemaker card. He does want to be a team player, right? And putting one's own interests in front of the project is not very team-like. As for leaving - nobody wants to leave with a mark of "refused to do the job" and "not a team player".

It's very easy to twist someone into submission.

zer0wolf

1,022

January 12, 2011 11:14 PM

Assuming that is desirable.

Management can always pull the troublemaker card. He does want to be a team player, right? And putting one's own interests in front of the project is not very team-like. As for leaving - nobody wants to leave with a mark of "refused to do the job" and "not a team player".

It's very easy to twist someone into submission.

If that 'card' was pulled then I'd immediately start looking for a new job. The OP was hired for a reason. If there is a conflict of interests then that needs to be known right off the bat. If the management doesn't give a rat's ass, then says a heck of a lot about the company.

laziness is the foundation of efficiency | www.AdrianWalker.info | Adventures in Game Production | @zer0wolf - Twitter

frob

46,223

January 12, 2011 11:34 PM

'zer0wolf' said:

I'd talk with the people who hired you about how you are feeling about the differences between what you thought the job was and compared to what the reality of it appears to be. Open communication goes a long way.

Assuming that is desirable.

Management can always pull the troublemaker card. He does want to be a team player, right? And putting one's own interests in front of the project is not very team-like. As for leaving - nobody wants to leave with a mark of "refused to do the job" and "not a team player".

It's very easy to twist someone into submission.

He's a new hire with less than a week on the job.

It is highly unlikely that "management" would go through the trouble and expense of hiring a new lead for an existing team and then intentionally set them up for failure.

Communication is important. It is one of the many necessary skills to become a leader.

AndyEsser

395

January 14, 2011 06:57 PM

'Oluseyi' said:

Also look into whether you can return to your old job.

That's an interesting suggestion. I do wonder though, has anyone here ever managed to pull that off?

I managed to do this 18 months after I left the company when I got so fed up with my 'new' company that they didn't take my opinion's seriously because of my age and were still using antiquated technology (VB6!!)

frob

46,223

January 15, 2011 12:36 AM

'Tachikoma' said:

'Oluseyi' said:

Also look into whether you can return to your old job.

That's an interesting suggestion. I do wonder though, has anyone here ever managed to pull that off?

I managed to do this 18 months after I left the company when I got so fed up with my 'new' company that they didn't take my opinion's seriously because of my age and were still using antiquated technology (VB6!!)

18 months is certainly a long enough time that the damage of leaving has healed. If you boomerang back in a few days or weeks, it is very different than getting re-hired 12+ months later.

AndyEsser

395

January 16, 2011 09:12 PM

And thankfully I left on good terms so the new (old) company welcomed me back with open arms. It's best to burn as few bridges as possible when you leave a company, never know when they might be required later in life.