Introduction

Okay to start off, excuse my clickbaity title, but I feel that my title is appropriate (I’ll explain further down). So recently I changed my jobs after a long time of deliberation. Before deciding to change jobs, I actually had another opportunity to change jobs several months ago. At that time I finally decided to not change jobs at the time for several reasons. But the things I deliberated back then were either similar or related to the things I deliberated in my recent decision. In this blog post I would just like to share my experience and thoughts on this episode in my career

What made me consider changing jobs?

The decision to fire myself is inextricable from the considerations to change my job. So let’s start from there.

First of all, I liked my previous job’s co-workers. I also liked the product concept that the company is making and trying to iterate on. I liked my team. But there was a lack of alignment between what I felt was valued, and what I think is valuable. This misalignment turned to be the main catalyst.

I made lots of code and I enjoyed that. And besides coding I also did the following:

  1. Devops
  2. Best practices development
  3. Processes improvement
  4. CI/CD enhancement
  5. AWS Resources Management
  6. Establishing and iterating on code architecture
  7. Trying to connect technical initiatives with business goals
  8. Lunch and learns

I was doing what can be called as glue work, which in essence is all the things things that connect various aspects of the organization in order to make the software product and projects run well. I list these responsibilities not out of dislike, in fact I like to do most of them. But liking an activity is not the primary reason for taking responsibility on my shoulders. During a 1-on-1 session with my manager they asked me whether I liked to do more devops oriented work. My reply was:

I certainly do not dislike doing it. But more than liking it or not, I do it mainly because I find it necessary for the company’s quality and longevity

Necessity breeds invention they say. But while there were some level of acknowledgement of the importance of the above, there was a lack of targeted effort, attention and resources allocated to them. And for those that were allocated some resources, I felt they were lacking. It felt that that things were just barely holding on due to the efforts and attention given by a small number of people on glue work.

I understand that often resource allocation translates to capital allocation, which may or may not be feasible to distribute across so many necessities. But if that was the case, then I certainly expect management to step in and to work with the frontline engineers and business to align focus allowing for targeted resource allocation. I expect that gradually things would be given their due attention. If it was found that the business cannot shoulder the burden of working on so many priorities at the same time, then I expect management to make things feel and be manageable, even if that means de-prioritizing certain goals.

I expect all of these from an environment that aims to strive for lasting excellence and quality. And yet, I did not see the company move towards such an environment.

Firing myself

“Firing” is often seen as having a negative connotation, but my own framing of “firing” is a bit different. I had the chance to talk to my ex-CTO where I asked what skills they think are required for the company. One of the abilities they said they’d like to see from employees is the ability to fire people. What they meant is that there are going to be, for fortunate and unfortunate reasons, people that no longer align with the business. Misalignment between people and the company may include values, skills, results etc. Whatever the misalignment may be, my ex-CTO thought it is important to be able to let go of such people.

I wondered why I was unsure of whether to change jobs or not. In the end I came to realize that I was no longer delivering outputs that aligns to what the business values. I felt that my focus on tackling the challenges and tasks I listed above, clashed with what the company needed at the time. The company needed and seeked for more immediate business results that translates to clients’ success. Of course, I strived to bring success for our clients. I see my role as an engineer not to just create technology for the sake of itself, but to create technology that aligns with a greater purpose. In order to deliver those values I identified that the iterative and continous improvements on glue work were needed. Meanwhile, with the numerous projects accompanied with statically defined delivery schedules, as time goes on it became clearer that how I deliver value does not align with how the company delivers value. I knew there was a misalignment because though I often bring the topic of the need for continued organizational effort on glue work, I did not see changes materialize.

I knew that I was an integral part of the team. And I also knew that I am not in alignment with the company any longer. So instead of waiting for things to feel worse for both me and the company, I took the step to fire myself rather than prolong the situation. By firing myself I let the myself depart from the idealistic vision of what I think work should be like within the company. At the same time I also gave the opportunity to the company to re-allocate the resources and energy they spent on me towards others (potentially a new hire) that would better suit their needs.

Final thoughts

Overall, I am happy with my decision. Some may, and I did myself, argue that I should have stayed and try harder. If I really emphasized quality and really think what I did were important, then I should have aimed harder at creating buy in. I should reach further and connect people across the company. Or maybe, I should just have been a better communicator.

I do not disagree with such thoughts and I definitely see the merits of each. That’s why I hesitated to change jobs myself, questioning my own motives and decisions. But I realize that I may also be impeding not just my own growth, but perhaps the company’s growth too due to our misalignment. Additionally, by staying I may be delivering less impact than I can had I worked with an organization that aligns better with myself. Both sides have reasonable arguments depending on the situation and in the end I just chose what felt to be the best one.

While I do encourage everyone to seek to work for organizations (or even create ones) that aligns with themselves so that everyone can maximize their positive impact, I realize that the ability to fire oneself is a privilege. Not everyone will be able to nor afford to do it. I am certainly fortunate. Hence I hope employers continuously strive to onboard those that truly align with the organization but also be ready to adapt and shift to ensure that they themselves align with their workforce. It will require effort on all sides.

Thank you for reading thus far. I hope it has been valuable to you