Ask HN: When should one leave a company based on learning stagnation?

24 点作者 starlord大约 10 年前

I had quit a corporate business analyst job and joined a tech startup to pursue programming full time instead of hobby. Joined as front-end engineer (as first few employees), within a few weeks due to other backend guys not joining picked up backend and wrote the whole web app from scratch. Now have experience with full-stack, deciding architecture of the app and other devops stuff. It's been great learning experience for almost 2 years now.I see 2 red flags now: 1. I am not seeing people smarter than me joining (startup got $1M+ funding) i.e. I end up teaching stuff instead of learning stuff from others (I am pretty sure I don't follow all the best practices, so have a lot to learn). 2. recently learned the equity vesting will start few months later than what was initially agreed upon... so even after 2 years, i will have much lesser vested stock :( Also strategies around growth by other team members haven't been much successful as yet either... so can't evaluate how valuable the stock will be eventually...Would appreciate if you could share opinions if this is normal in most startups or if I should actually start looking out specially from the perspective of learning opportunities in the early career years...PS: I am single and in 2nd half of 20s. This is just my 2nd company out of college.

4 条评论

crpatino大约 10 年前

1. One way of learning is to apprentice to a master craftsman. Another way is to figure out things on your own. Yet another way is to take stuff you think you already know and try to explain it to people that knows less than you. None is better than the other, and each has it's unique insights. Maybe you currently don't have some greyback to follow and learn from, but when you find your teacher, you will be able to pick up more of what he says by virtue of having experienced first hand what he's talking about.2. Kid, life's a marathon, not a sprint. It is pretty much irrelevant if your options will vest now or in a couple of months. What you really need to be in the look out is for dishonest leadership. If this is a one off event, all is OK. But if it is a trend of the founders failing to respect previous commitments to employees... you don't want to waste your time around that kind of people.3. Assuming healthy leadership, it sounds like you have earned a key role in that company. You probably want to part in good terms and maybe work with those people again, so please speak with your manager about your concerns. Maybe something can be arranged, maybe not. Maybe you can negotiate a better deal if you feel your responsibilities have grown faster than your compensation. But whatever is the end result, your creed as a professional will be much better if you speak beforehand than if the first time your boss hears about your dissatisfaction is the same day you give notice.

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throwaway230315大约 10 年前

I'm in the same situation, and to be honest, I'm not really sure.First thing first, for all practical purposes, startup stock is useless -- and especially if you're already thinking of quitting.In my situation, I joined the startup right after college, and it has been almost 2 years for me as well. I was the first technical employee, and except one other employee (the second hire), I'm not seeing other people better than me joining either. That said, there are a few things to keep in mind:- Startup is NOT the place to be learning technical skill, especially early stage startup. The big 4 will serve you much better than that (and I know this going in). However, one of the things I've learned over the last year is that there are more to it than just technical skill. I have no doubt that I haven't been learning anywhere as fast as I could have in term of tech skill, but I've learned other stuffs that might just be as valuable: from dealing with (less than ideal) team member, dealing with expectation (mine and others), being resilient, and a gazillion things that probably make me a better human. Startup is emotional, for better or worse.- I remember reading a quote that if you can only learn from people better than you, it's gonna be awfully hard to learn anything. As you eventually get better, you will have to learn from everyone around you.- Since both of the previous points are extremely personal and subjective, I think that the one most important point to consider would be this: do you think the startup have any fighting chance? If the startup grows, both of those previous problems will fix itself. If the startup have no chance, well why would you stay there anyway? In my case, I can't answer that question with either a straight yes or no, so I can't decide.

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brandonlipman大约 10 年前

I have been in a similar situation. I was a co-founder at a company, I was not joining with technical skill. I had more marketing and business development background. I had some knowledge but was just starting out.The opportunity was fantastic and I learned a lot (things todo and not todo). However, as you stated I felt the exact same things you did:A. Learning Was beginning to stagnate - I was no longer able to continually learn and develop.B. Company was not growing and my confidence in the rest of the team plummeted. We were focused on the wrong things and promising things to customers and partners that we knew we could not deliver on.These two things alone where enough for me to know that my time was done. There is a post on Medium, "Rate-of-learning: the most valuable startup compensation" (link at the end) this is why I had to move on. I knew that for me to continue progressing and learning the best option for me was to leave.In regards to equity and raising capital. I learned two things (1) people can become extremely greedy when equity and raising capital come about and (2) greed can easily lead to ethics and values being compromised. I don't know your exact situation but I would keep these things in mind.Hopefully this helps. Best of luck!Link: <a href="https://medium.com/@KyleTibbitts/rate-of-learning-the-most-valuable-startup-compensation-56dddc17fa42" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@KyleTibbitts/rate-of-learning-the-most-v...</a>PS: This is another post that may help you by Ryan Hoover. Great post! <a href="https://medium.com/@rrhoover/knowing-when-its-time-to-move-on-6c5b8f6e6908" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@rrhoover/knowing-when-its-time-to-move-o...</a>

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nabaraz大约 10 年前

I was on the same boat. After working for 2 years delivering over 5 projects, I decided it was time to move on. Not to sound too arrogant but I was fed up teaching and guiding others. I was doing over 80% of work by myself and it was a hectic period. Since then I have moved to a different company. So far the experience has been really positive.