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Some of you that read my blogs a year or so ago might remember that i had some trouble in my previous company and decided to call it quits because of a burnout. Well, now, almost a year later, i'm recovered enough to get back into employment and so i started to apply for jobs a little more than a month ago.
After a hectic friday with two job interviews on different sides of Hamburg and a job interview this morning i now have 3 programming job offers and i have trouble deciding which one would be the best for me:
Company A:
Pros:
- Good development mentality (Fix bugs before adding features)
- Nice boss, a programmer gone manager type with the right ideas
- Market leader in their small but very stable niche
Cons:
- Very small team, just 2 other programmers
- Small market niche, might suddenly go bankrupt when one or two customers switch to another software provider
- I'd have to move to Hamburg, away from the few friends and acquaintances i have
Company B:
Pros:
- Big team, about 40-50 programmers total
- Good development environment with QA and such
Cons:
- Open plan offices, i.e. everyone can look everyone on the screen and i might end up with a place with my back to the door. I hate it when others can look on my screen.
- In the job interview, it sounded like the boss really, really believed thatScrum is a silver bullet, which conflicts with my opinion
- I'd have to move to Hamburg, away from the few friends and acquaintances i have
Company C:
Pros:
- Just outside of the town i live in, so in range of friends and acquaintances
- While i want to leave my flat anyways, i could delay moving until after a few paychecks, making the transition easier
Cons:
- Small team, 3 other programmers
- One of the other programmers is a former colleague who is nice and all but due to his heavy vision impairment was very, very hard to work with
- I don't know how financially stable the company is.
- Website is ancient. If a company can't even keep their website up-to-date, what does that say about the company?
I'm currently trending towards Company C, mostly because they are in the area. However, Company A looks good, too, because the manager seems to think the same way i do. Company B would be an option if i get a guaranteed office place with my back to the wall since i would prefer working in bigger teams/companies with a structured development progress (QA).
So hard to decide and if i make a mistake, i might be stuck with it for a while...
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To be honest it sounds like your cons outweigh the pros on all those jobs. Especially C which you seem to be leaning towards (2-4). Take the risk on A, risks are great when they pay off.
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Go to company B and say you have massive anxiety issues which means you wouldnt be able to work optimally / comfortably without being notified of an intrusion on your private work area (briefly) before hand (make sure you tell them you are 100% fine as long as you are notified for gods sake). Slyly mentioning you have had other offers but much prefer to take this job if your request is met. This could land you a nicely placed booth in a quiet corner of the room.
If they cant accommodate you go with option A. The leader on a small niche is unlikely to suddenly go bankrupt if they know their shit, you are working with 2-3 other people, so if you know your shit, they wont go bankrupt. Its like carrying a game of doto, you carry the mediocres with your awesomesauce.
Option C seems pretty shitty, you dont know where the company is at financially (they could be even closer to bankruptcy then you percieve A to be) you will be forced to work with someone difficult day after day (he isnt at fault with his impairment but it would cause you added strain) and their website seems to confirm my first point and show a lack of caring / professionalism / knowledge or a mixture of all 3.
You're only gravitating to Option C as its easiest in the short-run, think long term dude. A few extra paychecks to smooth over a moving transition and being closer to what you know is nice and all, but what happens when you're working a hellhole that goes bankrupt because of reasons stated and suddenly you're without a job and homeless.
A or B for sure, C sounds like shit and you just want it so you can be close to what you know and avoid a big transitional period in your life.
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Of the 3, A sounds the best, B sounds good, C sounds horrific. If you could, I would wait and look for other offers since I think it seems that you want to be close to your friends right now and A/B aren't attractive enough to kick you out.
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On July 29 2013 19:10 Blisse wrote:
Of the 3, A sounds the best, B sounds good, C sounds horrific. If you could, I would wait and look for other offers since I think it seems that you want to be close to your friends right now and A/B aren't attractive enough to kick you out.
Where i live, there really aren't a lot of jobs for programmers. It's highly unlikely to find another job in the immediate area. I also don't think there will be too many other offers anywhere else since i basically sent an application to every job offer between the danish border and hamburg 200km south, so it's one of those 3.
On July 29 2013 18:56 Capped wrote:
Go to company B and say you have massive anxiety issues which means you wouldnt be able to work optimally / comfortably without being notified of an intrusion on your private work area (briefly) before hand (make sure you tell them you are 100% fine as long as you are notified for gods sake).
I'm thinking about asking for a guaranteed work space with my back to the wall, though i'm not too sure about how companies would react to such a request. It might sound like "He just wants to browse reddit all day".
Option C seems pretty shitty, you dont know where the company is at financially (they could be even closer to bankruptcy then you percieve A to be)
They exist since 12 years, so chances are they will exist another 12 years, though you are probably right about that.
I will definitely need a day or two to decide but no matter which i think about, i always find arguments for another company. I hate those life changing decisions, i usually end up with the wrong choice.
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2345 Posts
I think it pretty much comes down to how much you want to stay at your place/don't want to move to Hamburg, because C sounds pretty bad. If you decide to move, I would personally go for A (though I'd probably prefer to work in a small team anyway, but having a cool chef is great in its own right). As for the risk, it might just as well be unfounded, but even if worst comes to worst, since you are already in Hamburg it shouldn't be too hard to find a new job.
By the way, Hamburg is a nice city.
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Hey, I remember you writing your previous blog.
Off topic but I'm just curious as to what you did for the last year and how things like that work out in Germany. Did you get diagnosed with burnout and got some amount of allowance or something like that? If you'd rather not go off topic, I understand and apologise.
On topic, none seem ideal so far, would you consider waiting a bit longer and just applying to others? I wouldn't rush into anything after how things were in your last job.
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On July 29 2013 19:26 Morfildur wrote:
I'm thinking about asking for a guaranteed work space with my back to the wall, though i'm not too sure about how companies would react to such a request. It might sound like "He just wants to browse reddit all day".
Just tell them that it is so you can browse TL all day. That should reassure them.
Anyway, I'd hate to be working in a room with my back to the door, I don't think it's an unreasonable request to have a door-facing desk, or at least something sideways.
I would go for A > B > C in order of preference. You lean towards C primarily because it's more convenient *right now*, but if you plan on staying with the company you choose for a longer period, you'll be better off just taking the hurdle of moving and settling elsewhere.
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A: Take the best job and the money now. You can still apply for another one.
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On July 29 2013 19:40 Atom Cannister wrote:
Hey, I remember you writing your previous blog.
Off topic but I'm just curious as to what you did for the last year and how things like that work out in Germany. Did you get diagnosed with burnout and got some amount of allowance or something like that? If you'd rather not go off topic, I understand and apologise.
On topic, none seem ideal so far, would you consider waiting a bit longer and just applying to others? I wouldn't rush into anything after how things were in your last job.
I got a year of unemployment benefits (75% of what you earned in average the last 12 month) since i worked almost without interruption the 5 years prior to quitting the job. For that we pay something like 3% of our wages as unemployment taxes in germany. I never went to see a psychologist about the burnout since i prefer to solve my problems on my own but it was quite obvious that it was a burnout. It would have been the same anyways, except that instead of getting money from the unemployment office i would have gotten money from the insurance company or something like that.
I basically did nothing in the whole time, I didn't even program a single line of code for 6 month just to clear my head. I reconnected with some people that i didn't talk to for a long time but most of the days i didn't even leave the house. I could probably have done more to get out of it faster, but i didn't have a lot of opportunities.
On July 29 2013 19:39 maru~ wrote:By the way, Hamburg is a nice city.
I lived in Hamburg for a little over a year about 4-5 years ago and it is indeed a nice city. I liked kayaking on the Alster or just walking around the Inner Alster. Some parts of my family live there as well, though mostly the parts that i don't really want to connect with.
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Thanks for the answer and I hope it works out for you either way.
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On July 30 2013 06:39 SliceAndDice wrote:
A
seconded
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Whichever has the best compensation package and best develops your future marketability (not a dead language or stuff like high-level security clearances). Then once you settle down, move to a family friendly place as switching jobs will be the best way to get back to market compensation.
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Well, i accepted the offer of company B now but 2 hours after signing the contract starting next month, i got an offer for a job interview at the end of this month from Company D which is just a few hundred meters away from where i live at the moment and they look decent, i.e. good sized team, professional looking website, appear financially stable and it doesn't look like just another website development job...
I'll go to the job interview either way but if it goes well, i'll have to quit the other company again during probation period. Feels weird.
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EPT
