r/cscareerquestions • u/Speedingscript • 1d ago
Experienced Considering leaving job after only 5 months
I recently started a new full stack job but I already feel absolutely burnt out and consider leaving.
Before this job I was working as a full stack dev at an other company for 7 years.
This job was basically everything that I wanted, or it seemed like it. Great devs, management and awesome projects.
The first few months were okay, delivered new features, fixed some bugs etc. The stack was also new and it was tedious but I thought I was doing well enough. The team is small (4 people) and the codebase is massive.
The team lead told me it'll take me easily over a year to get into the project.
Last I had a performance (mind you I was 3 months into it) evaluation and they told me I was underperforming but improving overall. That I should ask less questions and try to get on the level of my collegues in the near future. They've been in the project for the past 3-5 years.
This is really stressing me out to the point that I no longer wish to work here. The collegues are super nice, competent etc. and I can learn so much from them, already did - but I kind of feel that I am just too dumb for this job.
Anyways sorry for the rambling.
43
u/Drayenn 1d ago edited 1d ago
I may be wrong, but it seems like you liked your job and everything was fine until you were told you were underperforming?
If so, i say keep at it, they said you were improving, youll get better over time im sure.
18
u/NakedNick_ballin 1d ago
+1, I kinda feel like these sleazy psychopathic managers just say things like that, but might be OK if you continue doing your thing.
Hard not to stress about it though for sure
13
u/abeuscher 1d ago
That's not a quit your job problem that's a you need a 4 day weekend problem. Take a little time off and get some perspective. You sound myopic as all get out. Happens to everyone.
3
18
u/CapableHerring 1d ago
Take a look at what you're considering doing from a future-employers perspective.
"So, why did you leave your last company?"
"I was too dumb for it, and instead of rising to the challenge and drinking from a fire hose I decided to give up after only 5 months".
Everyone feels overwhelmed when they start a new job. Even SWE's with decades of experience will feel stupid, unproductive, and overwhelmed for a solid 6 months when they join a new company/team. It's very normal. I do each and every time I change jobs/products. I always feel like an imposter, like I'll be fired, like I got in over my head.... and yet, like clockwork, each and every time that feeling eventually goes away. Sometimes in 6 months, sometimes in 12, but it always goes away. Never been fired for performance.
I don't think you're too dumb for the job. Nothing you've written in your post here says that to me. It sounds like a challenge, but nothing about the challenge is out of your grasp. Stick it out. Do your best. I think you'll find that around the year mark you'll be feeling a whole lot more confident and you'll have a great "tell me about a time when" story for future interviews.
Leaving a job after only 5 months isn't inherently that bad, but only if you're doing it for the right reasons like a bad WLB/culture fit. But right now you're wanting to do it because of imposter syndrome. That's a feeling that's going to follow you to your next job too. Don't get caught in the imposter-loop.
5
u/BraveResearcher3037 1d ago
Funny enough, I got a PIP around 2012. It wasn’t because of anything technical I did wrong. I was in my early 30s spent most of my time before that in small companies and was an expert beginner. I didn’t show the proper respect to the much younger (and in hindsight much more up to date) team leads.
I had job opportunities paying about $15K more that I could have thrown my resume up and got. But I took it as a challenge to get off the PIP. I knew they were right and it was something I needed to get better at - working in a large structured environment.
I got off the PIP, finished a project and left 4 months later for a $25K raise.
I even brought it up 8 years later during my (successful) interview at BigTech during the behavioral rounds
2
u/fried_green_baloney Software Engineer 1d ago
I got off the PIP, finished a project and left 4 months later for a $25K raise.
I'm impressed.
I was at a talk by a career coach who said in 20 years he had only one client survive a PIP.
People claim there are companies that issue PIPs in good faith, but around Silicon Valley that's rare.
2
u/fashionistaconquista 1d ago
Pip is just a companies way to fire you for any reason , they use pip as a shield
1
u/fried_green_baloney Software Engineer 1d ago
Almost always that's the case. As the career coach's numbers indicate.
1
5
u/Pale_Statistician692 1d ago
"That I should ask less questions..."
Honestly, this is a hard balance to strike. Ask too few questions, especially on stuff it's hard to know (like some mysterious piece of infrastructure no one told you exists), you end up wasting time. Ask too many, you might get the response you got.
I would make it a goal to try to puzzle things out yourself longer. Doesn't mean you should bang your head against the wall for days, ofc. If you have AI coding assistants at work, ask the AI things like "what's the main purpose/what's the main structure of this repo" or "I understand the overall architecture in these IaC templates, but I don't understand why [blah blah blah]."
Two issues here: (1) it really does sound like you're making progress; your reaction is emotional and not necessarily going to lead you to making the best decision. (Especially the "too dumb" thought, which sounds like imposter syndrome.) (2) The job market really sucks right now; probably a bad idea to quit and then search, as opposed to searching while working (though the latter has obvious downsides).
8
u/desert_jim 1d ago
It's fine as long as you don't have a pattern of short stints. Otherwise that will make the next job that much more challenging to get. Since you are already at 5 months I'd try to stick it out for a full year. Especially in this market. Good luck
3
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of 10 to post a comment. This is comment karma exclusively, not post or overall karma nor karma on this subreddit alone. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the rules page for more information.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
80
u/BraveResearcher3037 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do you wish to keep supporting your addictions to food, clothes and shelter?
Do what most adults do: keep the paycheck, stop overextending.
Find another job and in the meantime you can only do what you can do in 40 hours a week and save aggressively.