Episode transcript

Ryan Burgess
Welcome to another episode of the front end Happy Hour podcast. We've all decided at one point or another to leave a job that we're working at. In this episode, we will talk through reasons that lead us to making that decision for new opportunities in our past jobs. But before we really jump into that episode, we also have some really exciting news. A long time regular guest has officially decided to join us as a permanent front end Happy Hour panelists. Surely welcome as a full time member. Yeah. You're officially on I think you've just had been a guest too many times. We have to keep you on forever now.

Shirley Wu
Yes. So excited.

Jem Young
Speech, speech, speech,

Shirley Wu
speech speech. I just come on this show because I want to hang out with you guys. So this is all part of my plan. And it all worked it just a few years that

Ryan Burgess
we had to test you out as a guest just enough times, like, Wait, why aren't used on here?

Shirley Wu
And then I don't think I even let you finish the sentence. I was like, yes,

Ryan Burgess
it was. Alright, well, let's go around and give introductions. Maurice, you want to start off? Sure.

Mars Jullian
Hi, I'm Mark Julian. I'm a senior front end engineer. Working in the Bay Area and all thoughts are my own.

Stacy London
I'm Stacy London. I'm a senior front end engineer at Atlassian. And all my thoughts are Mars's,

Augustus Yuan
I guess this guy assists you in software engineer at Twitch tv early.

Shirley Wu
Hi, I'm Shirley Wu, and I am a data visualization, designer and engineer for myself.

Jem Young
Jem Young Senior Software Engineer at Netflix. All thoughts are in my upcoming book, Secrets of friend and happy hour behind the scenes, murder, lies and mystery.

Stacy London
Murder.

Jem Young
You'll have to buy the books.

Mars Jullian
I'm still here for long.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix, eagerly waiting my signed copy of Jem's book and likely don't want to read it. But I will wait for the Netflix original to come out after the book as in each episode of the front end happier podcast, we like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. And what did we decide today's keyword is opportunity. Opportunity. All right, if we say that word opportunity, we are all taking a drink. All right, I figured the good way to start this episode is we could start to share reasons why we would typically have left jobs. I'm assuming you've all left a job at some time or another. And yeah, why would you leave a job? What were some of your motivations to find a new opportunity?

Augustus Yuan
years,

Jem Young
this one's pretty, pretty straightforward. For me. What typically prompts me to leave a job is money. It's true, like all sorts of reasons. But I think generally it's salary. And it's not money, it's what money represents, which is how much you value me and what my skills bring to the company. So if another company is gonna value me more, it's not personal. It's just, I'm gonna be with the company that says like, Hey, you have the skill set that we value in here. Here's a token of that value in terms of money, and that's what it represents.

Ryan Burgess
I think that's well put though, is it's not that you're like, I need more money. It's that the fact is, you're like this company X is saying that I'm worth this and you're not saying that so goodbye. I'm gonna go to the one that's paying me more.

Jem Young
Exactly. Yeah, it's not greed. Like there's there's a certain amount if hopefully, if you make it far enough in software engineering, where you're like, yeah, like I'm making good money I could live on this and never have to switch jobs again, like this is fine, I'm comfortable. But you're still if someone's gonna offer you more money you're still be like Well, that is that is a proxy metric for how much do you value me as an employee and this company values me twice as much so I'm gonna go for there and it just makes sense. Yeah, I don't want to come across as greedy because I am but

Ryan Burgess
I mean, Jeff, you got to fund the valley silicon.

Jem Young
I try to afford my own picks

Ryan Burgess
for that gold toothpaste.

Augustus Yuan
I don't want to come off as what I clearly am just let you all know.

Jem Young
I'm straightforward. I tell you.

Ryan Burgess
Anyone else other reasons other than money. I mean, money is a good motivator, but there's got to be other reasons. I feel

Mars Jullian
like many reasons. But kind of piggybacking off of what Jem said like It does come back to the value and it's not necessary. I mean, at least the reasons I left before don't necessarily have to do with like, oh, this other job is offering me a higher salary. But more like, I've been fighting to just even be recognized in my own role and valued, whether that be a promotion, or a salary increase, or equity or whatever it is, when you like, if you're fighting for so long. What's the point? After a certain point, you're like, really not getting recognized or valued for the work that you're doing? And that can cause like, in the past has caused me to look for another job, which coincidentally leads to more money. You know, not necessarily like drawing me away from a job.

Stacy London
There's like, there's so many factors like that you can, you can choose to leave a job. That was kind of what we were starting to talk about. But you know, a lot of people Yes, especially right now, with the pandemic and the economy being in the way it is a lot of us have lost a job just because of the company not doing very well, or I'm sure I've talked about this on this, on some past episode, I've probably talked about a lot of my jobs and circumstances. But one of my first jobs that I got where I worked at for a very long time, and I really liked working there. They just they ended up deciding that, like they were spending too much money on on tech. And so they like, outsourced or offshored a huge number of jobs. And yeah, you know, you got laid off, and you had to figure out the next thing. So that's that's a thing as well.

Ryan Burgess
That's, that's tough. That's like you don't have the choice.

Shirley Wu
I've only ever left two jobs quite early in my career. And one that was a year and a half out of college. And that one I left, mostly because there wasn't, I could tell that there wasn't enough work for me that it had gone from, like a pretty small or it's it wasn't small, but it was like a 400 people company to like a 1200 people company and the year that I was there. And there was like large growing pains. So I think the moment I realized I needed to leave was when I spent a whole day watching binging some series. And then I had one bug to fix in the morning and one bug to fix in the afternoon. did both of them in 30 minutes. And I was like I need to get out of here. Like why that's like, you will get great stock options. You get great benefits, like you got a good salary. Why would you leave? And I'm like, because I'm 23 and this is the time for me to hustle

Augustus Yuan
searcher No, I

Ryan Burgess
think surely you just got so pissed off at at all you're like screw it, I'm just work for myself.

Shirley Wu
That was the second that was talked about the second. The second place I left was, um, that one was because I had realized that I have worked so long on a part of the product, I was maintaining it instead of building and I realized that I was like very much a building sort of person, I get like the most excitement joy out of like that first three to four months of building something and then fleshing it out and seeing it launch. And that's that's essentially why I went freelance because I wanted to I wanted to kind of do a bunch of those sorts of projects and really figure out where my fit was. And there was there was a lot of other reasons tied in there, too. One of them was realizing that I was working nights and weekends because of my personality. I was working nights and weekends at a startup and I realized that I was helping build someone else's dream. And what I wanted to do was build out kind of my own dream

Ryan Burgess
for I like that, that's actually a really cool reason to quit a job

Augustus Yuan
I like in school.

Ryan Burgess
Thank you. For me, I will agree with the value part. It's always great feeling valued. But another one that I've found myself and even looking in past like throughout my career, I often leave around the like, one half years, two year mark. And almost every time it's a mix, but it's mostly comes down to not being challenged. Like I'm not I don't feel like I'm growing in or being challenged. It's like I kind of know everything, which is probably not true. I don't know everything, but it's just like not getting challenged enough and finding new challenges, which is really funny. I've been at Netflix for five and a half years, but a lot of it is because I'm continually challenged with new things and things I'm dealing with all the time. So I like that I'm surprised no one has brought this up. And I'm going to bring it up is I have definitely left companies for because of my manager like that is something that is really, really tough if you don't like your manager that can make your life really difficult. And so there was one time in particular I was actually writing up by resignation, didn't finish that letter or email or whatever it was, what happened was, my manager got let go that day. So it was I didn't end up having to leave. So it kind of worked out. But I remember that day being like, fed up, I was like, I'm done. And I started writing up the email, my Mandarin and his boss, and probably like HR, but I never hit send the, like, my problem was gone. But I will say there's one thing I learned from that, or when I reflect on that, and I think it's a good message to remember is like, when you have problems with a manager is like, one, let the manager know things aren't going well. But also, if they're not improving on those things, it's like, you've got HR you've got, you know, their manager to go talk to. And I think that's really important. That's something I didn't do, I was kind of like I was suffering in silence. And so it was so bad that I was I'm out, you know, when I could have probably just started to surface some of these issues. And luckily, the problems were there enough that this manager got let go. But still, I think that was a good reminder for me that I always need to remember that

Jem Young
I disagree slightly with the round, which actually doesn't happen that much. But I think we we solve it over fears later. I think we speak from a position of privilege, where like, you were my manager before, and you're an amazing manager, and I can always come talk to you, if my current manager is amazing. I can talk to that. But that is not true. Historically, the case for most people, I think there's a lot of egos and tech. And if someone comes to you, someone comes to their manager says like, hey, you know, I don't think we're clicking this isn't working out, you're just as likely to get let go. And they're like, Oh, they're a bad fit. They're a bad culture fit. And I remember those days when you didn't, we didn't have the experience. And the I guess the notoriety that we do now. Like when you're just a junior developer from nothing, you might have beef with your manager, or like, they're just terrible. And there's nothing you can do about it. There are a number of jobs that I just sucked it up, that I'm like, You got to pay your dues. This person sucks, this company sucks, but you just got to put the work in so you can

Stacy London
move on. And also you in you, you might witness people, where they don't feel comfortable bringing up to a manager, but then they try and go to HR and HR doesn't help them. And it makes things worse, like that. There's there's a lot of cases where that's That's true, too. And that sucks because they're supposed to be there for you. But it's it's scary.

Ryan Burgess
Why that you both kind of highlighted that, though, because you're right, like absolutely right is that it's not always easy to maybe speak to your manager like that. And so, yes, like, you can try that. But I think that, and unfortunately, sometimes you're right, HR fails us too. But honestly, that's what HR is there for. I mean, it's better to say something to someone right, rather than suffer in silence, or maybe I'm wrong. They're like, I mean, that was what I did. And it just worked out for me. So maybe that's that work. So but I think it's like it would have made me leave. And that was my reason to leave. And I don't know if that's the best. I don't like a lot of people quit jobs because of their manager. But I don't think that should be the case. And yes, jam, if you said, Hey, Ryan, you're not doing good, I would listen, and I want to improve on that, I would definitely hear that out. And I'm not going to hold that against someone for telling me I encourage that. And I know not all managers do that. But I think that's also where we have HR or I have a manager that, you know, my team can go speak to and say hey, like, Ryan's not doing great. And he's not listening to my feedback. And like I want I actually encourage that, if that ever happens, but yeah, it's tough. I realized that, yeah, I

Shirley Wu
think there's a lot of gradient of good to bad managers, because this is one of my biggest pet peeves for tech, were like, good ICS get promoted to manager and they're not necessarily good managers. And that's my, like, I read or bad ICS that I get promoted to manager and they're like, even worse managers. Those are my pet peeves. But, um, I think one of the there's, there's like a few pieces of advice that people shared with me that I wanted to share today. And one of my favorite ones was when I was in a situation where I did not get along with my manager. And I think there was just like, a lot of trust issues that like neither of us really worked on from the very beginning. There was like, also some problems with teammates, and they got so bad at a point that I really did not want to stay and I think, um, but then I kind of worked through it because I liked the project that I was like I basically suffered through it, like you said, because at the very least I really liked the project and the product I was working on. And when I was leaving, and I really liked what someone said to me like a mentor in that company said to me and she said something along the lines of surely I'm really glad that you're leaving because you're going towards something and not because you're or you're running that you're running towards something and not because you're running away from something. And that that would like, you know, that would make my next experience better than if I was just running away.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, that's true. Like it is. It's better. It's always better to be like excited about the next thing rather than just feel like I need to get the hell out of here.

Shirley Wu
Right? Yeah. Although I wouldn't recommend suffering the ruin. Especially like it's for me at least I had the like, technical project side that really kept me going. Like, I wouldn't recommend suffering through it if there's like, absolutely nothing keeping you there. But if, I guess if you are in a situation where you could I guess that advice was really helpful to me.

Augustus Yuan
I actually kind of want to talk about that. Because I feel like a lot of people who love their jobs like if you're one of the fortunate people who is exploring data, the done opportunities, years, golly, cheese, cheers. Yeah, if you're, if you're in that fortunate position, it can be really hard to want to leave, you know, you have you have this new job offer and you but you love your company so much. I feel like that's why actually I stayed at my first job Evernote for so long. It was just like, so hard to leave, because he like you love the product. He loves your team. And that's like, what kept me there for so long. But so I love that you brought that up, really, because I think one of the reasons why I left which is kind of, I don't know if it I don't know, I don't regret it. But it was just like, I wanted to try something new. And I wanted to explore something totally new. I like Evernote was the only infrastructure that I was really familiar with. And it's like their process of doing things as just like, really exciting to like, see, like, hear about Twitch, it's acquired by Amazon, they use AWS every now use Google Cloud Platform. So it's just like, I just felt and it was it's crazy because at Evernote, I don't for people who follow me on in the podcast, I got promoted to senior and I, I got reevaluated as a normal software engineer. But in my mind, like the career growth that I can get from trying out a new company and exploring a new tech stack, a new process. Like that's, that's really what led me to leave

Ryan Burgess
Augustus now looking at that decision, since it's still like fresh in your head a bit. Do you think you stayed too long in Evernote and should have jumped sooner?

Augustus Yuan
Oh, that's so tough. That's such a tough question. I feel like that's such a tough question. I personally, I don't regret how long I stayed at Evernote. I cuz, you know, Ryan and I, we used to work together a marketing website. And I really stuck through it. And that's what allowed me to transition to Evernote Web client. So that's what really gave me like more experience to work on a web application, which is very different from marketing websites. But the The truth is, like, if I left earlier, maybe I could have got the experience somewhere else. So that's why it's so hard to say, you know, I'm really torn. If like, I should have left earlier, whatever. But no regrets is my takeaway.

Ryan Burgess
I asked because I sometimes wonder like, you know, when do you start to realize it's time, right? Like, it's like, there's these signals. And you may know it, like, even for me, like going back to the example of like, hey, this manager is so frustrated. It wasn't like it was just like one incident, right? Like, it wasn't like I'm done. It's like, it's a build up of all these instances. And at Agustus. You're like, I need this new challenge, or I need these new, like, try something different. And it's probably been stemming for a while. And like Mars, it said, like, I loved what you said, too, is like, something prompted me and I started looking. And then it was like, Ooh, I saw what was out there. And it's like, a shiny new thing. And I jumped for it. I always kind of wonder like, how long does it really take? Like, I feel like, I've never really thought about it. But I feel like it's probably it's not just like a week that you've now decided you're on to the next role. It's probably building up over months.

Mars Jullian
And I would have to say like, I completely agree. Like my gut says it probably takes you know, at least six months, I think there's one there's the like step where you actually realize what's going on, you're like, Oh, I am unhappy, or I need to look for new career growth or something. There's the like point where it goes from kind of not exactly knowing what's going on to like being aware of what you need to do to change your circumstances that would make you happier. And then there's the whole which, which takes a while sometimes. And then there's the whole search itself, which you know, could take could take months.

Jem Young
I think it's generally like six months a year. It's like, it's enough time to figure out Mars like you're saying it's enough time to figure out the system in the company and what you're doing and you're not. You're not just like deer in the headlights running around, like, Oh, what am I doing? I'm an imposter. I don't belong here that you figure it out. You're like, Oh, I do belong here. I got it down. And this isn't for me. It's in writing, just like you said earlier, it's about a year year and a half to two years is usually, I think what most people fail, because that's the amount of time you're like, Oh, I figure this out, then we'll see how it goes. And then it takes another few months find a job, then you're on to the next one. That's, I think it's pretty common.

Mars Jullian
Yeah, I guess I was thinking more six months of like, the actual leaving process, and have been there for many years beforehand. But like, it takes you a while to realize like that you're not happy, wherever you are, however long you've been there. And then actually moving on to the next opportunity. Cheer.

Jem Young
years, really, it's all a balance, right? It's, it's pros and cons, and you're constantly balancing them every day. So for instance, say say you're at a company, and the work is really interesting. But your manager is terrible. So you're like, um, but felt like, Hey, we're gonna give you a raise, you're like, Okay, I'll stay. But the manager gets even more terrible for some reason. And then, and you're just like, constantly balancing this. Fortunately, even now, it's like, well, I like this company in the works interesting. But do the company's values aligned with my own? No, then then you leave. And that's pretty much what it always is. It's it's not just money, like money, it will keep you there longer. But it's just another side of the equation along with growth, potential work, management, style culture, just tech stack, even. Just lots of different things go into it. It's not. It's not one thing. And I joked about money in the beginning, because I think that's the way a lot of managers see it. It's like, oh, no, this person just wanted more money. When it's like more than that, I've definitely seen people that were worth a lot more stay at a company because I really, because they really believed in the company and they liked the work. And I'm like, do you can go work for Google, or something like that and make four times this? I'm like, No, I like the work. It's good. Money's not everything. It's like, it's so reductionist to, like, boil everything down to that they were greedy, and they wanted more money. When there's so much more to granted, money is important. Like you got bills to pay.

Stacy London
Yeah, like one time, as an example, I wanted to leave because it was there's no work life balance whatsoever. It was like on call all the time getting woken up every night, things were breaking, no sleep. Tons of overtime, like weekend's night, you know, and like, basically no, you know, just burnout burning out, like in the, in the sense of just so many hours and not getting good sleep. And so I had enough and I was like, and then over time, it was like, it wasn't just a, you know, a couple of weeks of that, where it was like, a very extended period of time and seeing that the management and leadership, were not going to address it, they were not going to get hire enough people or address the root causes of the problems that were causing these things to happen over and over. So like with all of those things, like not being addressed. Eventually, it was like, No, I can't I can't do this. The worst part was when I put my notice in one of the leadership folks that I've met with, on kind of like, exit interview kind of stuff that like, well, you know, is it more money? Do you just did you need more money? And I'm like, no amount of money will keep me from not sleeping anymore?

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think it's, it's funny, as you both mentioned, like the money aspect, too, I think you can always go get more money. Like for real, like, let's just picture that is like, you're even if you're paid really well, at almost at like the top of market. I do think you can go to the next company, they want to sweeten the pot a little bit, right? They're gonna bump your pay, like, if you're like, I get paid X, and they're gonna be like, well, we're gonna give you x plus 10, you know, like, they're just gonna sweeten the pot a little bit. So I think there's always you can go around chasing more and more, and but I think it's like, it can't just be about money. Like, I think it is, like more, you need all the factors. It's like, you need to feel valued, which could be the money aspect, you need to be challenged. You definitely need good co workers and good manager, good culture. And you gotta like, like, what you're building working on. Like, there's a lot of things that kind of go into that, too. So I wonder a little bit.

Shirley Wu
I'm totally, like, agree with what you're saying. But I do wonder a little bit if this is kind of the privilege of being in Silicon Valley, like not just the privilege of being a like engineer, like a software engineer, because that's already like such a huge privilege. Sometimes I think about like my parents work. And the complete disconnect we have because they like were like why? Like they didn't fully understand why I would choose a career that I like, enjoy versus just like, make money. That's a huge disconnect. But like not just the privilege of being a software engineer, but the privilege of being a software engineer in Silicon Valley, where there is quite a lot of jobs and I I get the impression that that might not be the same everywhere.

Jem Young
Yeah, that's a good point. Surely we we often drift into that we forget our own privilege here. In just working, or having worked for good tech companies and making good salaries like, yeah, it's hard to remember the early days when we were all scrambling, and we didn't know if we are going to make it. We didn't know if we were even supposed to be software engineers. So yeah, thanks for everybody. So that's always good to keep us grounded,

Shirley Wu
I actually have a follow up question of, because I've been basically out of out of like, full time for four years now. And so and I haven't, well, I did one job interview and the four years that I been freelancing, but other than that, I haven't, like looked for any jobs. One of the things that I feel like really, it's, it's not a real reason, that keeps me from going back to a full time job. But it is like something that I feel like the weight of which is, I always, and maybe this is because I was only ever a full time job when I was quite Junior. But I always feel the weight of feeling like I had to start over, like hustling for the first year and really like building up my reputation for the first year. And to then, like be able to get the kind of projects or like the report that I would need to like, feel comfortable in, like a company. And I was curious about whether you feel that, like, do you feel that way, when you're like thinking about leaving when you're like interviewing on a new place, like when you're starting, because that that kind of actually is one of the reasons that keeps me from going back to a full time job. I'm like, I don't want to, I'm too old to put in that those hours.

Ryan Burgess
You've gotten used to the freedom.

Shirley Wu
I really like the freedom and I Sorry, I shouldn't say that it's the number of hours, but it's like working like on best behavior working really, really like working out like 110 just to like kind of build my reputation.

Augustus Yuan
I totally like resonate with this. Like, I think that was like such a huge fear for me, like, have a very nice, have an amazing team. I I like click well with them. Like, and I'm not sure if I'm going to click well with this new team. And I'm going to have to work my butt off to like, you know, show that I you know, I was worth hire, you know, like when it's like, like, a bunch of people interviewed you like, yeah, this person is great. And then they're like, Oh, God, this guy just Stack Overflows everything, which I still do, right. But I think I but I think like that's why the interview is so important. Like when you're interviewing with them. Like I like, like ask ask good questions, when you're interviewing to, like, really get a sense of like, what the team culture is like, I think it was nice, because when I interviewed, like, like, I could feel like the people were kind of excited for me to come on, you know, like they were excited to have like a new team member and stuff like that. So I think

Stacy London
one nice thing about working at maybe a company that is a little bit bigger, or where there's like, a lot of other teams that you could possibly move to, or maybe the company has many products is that it's a little bit nicer, because you've already built a reputation. Like you people can see all your code, let's say it's like internally hosted code. So like, you can they can see your code that they you've worked with a lot of people so they know how you work. They know like what kind of worker you are. People can vouch for you, they can say that you know that stuff. So it makes it like nice, where maybe like the one team that you're on, it's not working out. But if you go to a different team, it makes it so much easier to transfer inside the company because like people can Yeah, vouch for you, I guess. So it's a little bit easier. You don't have to rebuild that reputation from scratch where it's like, yeah, you go to like, some brand new company. You don't know anybody. Yeah. It's it doesn't matter how senior you are, how many years you've been doing it, you still kind of have to do that a little bit.

Mars Jullian
You brought that up? Surely. Because I think I always forget about the startup cost in a sense. And like you move to a new role and you go in and excited but also like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, you know, why am I here? I'm, if you're, if you're in a place where I don't know, you just like a fish out of water. And you always forget about that because a year and you're like, oh my gosh, look at all the things I've learned. I didn't realize I had to learn and you look back and you're like I shouldn't have come in with all of the excitement on that excitement, but sort of maybe the, the energy that I did at the beginning, not realizing that there was all this context that you're still lacking. So yeah, it's not something I would know, I normally think of changing roles. I guess it's just sort of baked into the, you know, the full time sort of cadence as opposed to thinking about, you know, a different type of opportunity like freelance, like your, what you're working on. Cheers.

Ryan Burgess
Cheers. I also like what Stacey was mentioning to you don't necessarily need to leave the company, right? Like if you're looking for new challenges, or just like seeking something different is in some of these larger companies. There's a lot of opportunity, cheers. You can try different roles within a company like you can move and that's happened to you Have you like I know that like you've stayed in the company, but move to different roles. Augustus even just mentioned working on one area of like a marketing area to like the web application. Gem had ran away from his manager as quick as possible, which is always Yeah, he was terrible, you know, and now he's doing more infrastructure work. Stacy, thing, word on the street is you might have just moved into a new role.

Stacy London
This is true. Oh, so yeah, I started working on BitBucket cloud when I was at Atlassian. I started Atlassian. I moved to a front end platform team. And then now moving to Trello in November,

Jem Young
congrats.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, no, congrats. That's exciting. But like, I think that's really cool, too, is sometimes even just moving into a different role or a different team in a company and really get at some of those things. Like I said, challenges like, it's just like, uh, but I love what you said, DC is like, you don't necessarily have to prove yourself from zero.

Mars Jullian
Yeah, it's also beneficial to the companies as well, because it's easier for them to think to hire internally than it would be to hire externally in terms of you have sort of a history with the company, and you have like, a lot of majority of the context too. So that's one way I guess they might try to, like, if you've talked to someone about leaving, they might suggest Oh, but have you just considered other opportunities within the same company? Oh, cheers.

Jem Young
Yes, Mark Mars, this is this something I brought up over the years, it's still drives me bonkers, that this is still a thing we sell to tell people about this. But yes, it is so much cheaper to give the existing person their a raise, and a new opportunity or a new a new role or something at the company than it is for them to leave and you hire somebody else that like the math doesn't make sense. But still companies will let let you go for, I don't know, I'll keep it low for like $20,000 or something which in the Bay Area software isn't that big of a variance. But you'll lose someone like I guess it's over what is not a lot large amount of money to the company. And just because they don't want to give you a raise, they're like, well, these are the salary bands. And these are the roles. And it just it just makes zero mathematical sense for what it costs to hire someone to replace the Gustus and his years of knowledge or any engineer. But like companies still do that this is still a thing. That like we just don't see the value in it doesn't make sense. To be fair, I don't I've never run my own company, I don't do the books, I don't see the numbers. But from an engineering standpoint, yeah, just just pay your existing people more or find a new opportunity for them rather than them leave,

Ryan Burgess
it is definitely very expensive to go through recruiting process, when I go from ground 02 hiring a new engineer on the team. That's an expensive process, I can't give figures because I actually don't really know, I just know, it's expensive in the sense that you've got my my time, you've got engineers, time to interview, you've got recruiters helping, there's all these things, that's a costly process. And it's not like you just do that for a couple hours, and you found the right person, it takes a long time. So now that's costing the business because you're having to find this person and you know, to fill a gap that you're needed for a while, right. So I think it is really important, not only

Shirley Wu
not only all of those hours, but like the, the the person's role that like, isn't there anymore, and then the onboarding that you have to go through. And I always feel like it's that the company has like a weird sense of pride that's like, Oh, if they didn't want to stay here for this amount of money, they wouldn't want to stay anyways, no matter what amount we give them is like how I read into those situations.

Ryan Burgess
To be fair, though, is when I'm hiring, I want people who want to be there to I don't want them to be underpaid. But I also don't want them to always be chasing that, you know, whatever, like $5,000 raise or whatever it is, I want them to enjoy the work and I want them to be bought in the team. But I also understand they need to be valued and paid appropriately. So it kind of goes both ways. I don't know just trying to speak from that the company side a little bit. I agree with you surely,

Shirley Wu
I think I only have purely the IC perspective. And I don't have the manager perspective. And so I'm just speaking from the IC perspective of like, every time I interact with those sorts, or like hear stories about that, that like feel I get it,

Jem Young
this has been like such a good discussion because Ryan, you're bringing the manager's perspective, which we often don't hear it's easy to say from nicey. It's like yeah, pay us more and all these things, but your your job, part of your job is retaining the people you have. So you've thought about this a lot over the years about like how to provide the people that are under you the best, the best chances going forward to be their best selves. And I that again, you're my friend and a manager and a good manager, but that's why you're a good manager, though. You're not instinctively hostile like surely you're saying Companies have egos and they're like, Oh, if they're leaving, it's not me. It's obviously they're getting paid more to go here or something else. Whereas Ryan, your perspective as a good manager is, well, what can I do to get them to say, can we create these roles? And can we find the salary increase if we need or what can we do to get them to say, rather than, like, okay, they're, they're already gone. And sometimes

Ryan Burgess
it doesn't work, though. Like, that's okay, too. Sometimes, maybe there is a better opportunity, cheers somewhere else. And that's, that's fine.

Shirley Wu
I, there was another piece of advice I got early on in my career that I wanted to mention. And I think this is a place which is I had a really great manager for my first job out of college, I'm like, really grateful that I had that experience. Because then now I know what like a great manager is like, and when I was thinking of when I was considering, and it's kind of like the relationship that you've described, like Jem and Ryan, like, where it was, like, very friendly when we had like, weekly one on ones where we didn't even necessarily talk about work. So we have like, built a great amount of trust. And when I was considering leaving, I felt comfortable enough with him to tell him that I was considering other opportunities. Cheers, cheers, cheers. And the thing that he said to me was, he said something along the lines of as your manager and the representative of the company, I'm I, I'm like, obligated to say, like, stay, you know, like, or at least give me the opportunity to counteroffer. But as your friend and mentor, I want to say, like, you know, you don't feel you don't need to feel any sense of loyalty to any company, because a company will never be loyal to you. Which I feel like, was such a saw, like, the company as an entity, not like individuals and, and that that was such like a, like a mind blowing kind of like ground. Like, it was such a mind blowing piece of advice to me, because I feel like, especially in Silicon Valley Tech, we get kind of brainwashed into the whole, like, your company is family. And like we got great culture and don't portray us like loyalty. And so for him to tell me, like a 23 year old me like fresh out of college without knowing anything that like it's okay. Like, you don't have to feel a sense of obligation or loyalty, like you should do what's best for you. That's really helped me kind of make my decisions. Like really helped me since.

Jem Young
Yeah. Oh,

Shirley Wu
so can we celebrate like great managers? I like it just makes such a difference in your daily lives.

Augustus Yuan
Yes, yes,

Stacy London
I'll tell you just like right now, my current my current manager, I haven't switched teams yet. But my current managers, like, he's a really good manager. And think about the managers that you've have during this pandemic time. And during times of like, a lot of like emotional and psychological stress that are outside of the company, there are unprecedented things that we've never really gone through before. To have a manager that not only like, recognizes that work can be stressful, but it was recognizing that out things outside of work can also be really hard and be empathetic and check in on you all those kinds of things like those are the best managers that they actually care about you as a person.

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I actually stayed and I still in contact with that manager. I think it's been eight years now six, six and a half years later. And like every once in a while, like every year or so he just like check in and be like, hey, Shirley, how you been? Like, um, do you want to catch up? Like, it's just such good genuine? Yeah, like he was just so good.

Ryan Burgess
So before we get into pigs, what advice would you give someone who's maybe in that, like Morris said that six months, maybe they're like, one or two months into that six months where they're thinking about leaving? What advice would you give someone that's in that state of mind where they're possibly thinking about looking for new opportunities? Cheers, cheers,

Stacy London
cheers. Cheers. I think sometimes you can always you can think that the grass is greener, like, that's such like a silly phrase, but like, you just assumed it's going to be better wherever you go. And I guess, to kind of like, think, think that through a little bit like a lot of problems are universal problems wherever you go, companies, a lot of companies and politics, a lot of companies have bureaucracy, a lot of companies have bad managers. So it's, it's really good to like, I guess, think through that. And then maybe when you're interviewing, make sure the things that are really bothering you about what's happening currently, that you want to try and get away from. Make sure that those are the things you ask about in the next interview to make sure that you're not going into the same set of things.

Jem Young
Yes, have you plus one say well said well said also If you're leaving, if you go to a bunch of jobs, and you're like, Oh, I keep quitting jobs, because you know, it's just a bunch of dickheads working there. And you do that over multiple jobs, maybe you're the introspective. That was the the less kind way.

Mars Jullian
Yeah, kind of like, I don't know that I have like a concrete piece of advice. But very similar to what Stacey saying is just involves like a lot, what do you figure out that you're not happy? To sort of just reflect a lot? Like, why aren't you happy? What, like, you really need to identify sort of like the source of the problem. And then for me, it's always been like talking to a lot of people. And maybe that's just how I process but it's like people at the company like, you know, can didn't, can they provide another perspective or another solution, whether it's like change roles, or talk to your manager or talk to HR depending on the situation, and talking to people outside the company to who have no perspective on it, like really close friends who might know you who might recognize patterns, you might be like, Oh, you say this, but you really mean this, like, you know, that kind of thing. So that are super concrete piece of advice, but just like spend the time really reflecting and figuring out like, what it is that was really going to make you happy in the next in the next role and what it is about the current one, that that's not working correctly,

Ryan Burgess
I mean, I definitely plus one, the idea of speaking up or sharing with others, like I think too often, or maybe it's just me personally, sometimes I hold all that data and just kind of bottle it up. But I think it's really helpful to lean on, you know, a fellow colleague, maybe your manager, like Jem said, maybe you can't trust them and can't say that. And that's, that sucks that, you know, you should question that in general, but have those conversations with people that you trust it? Yeah, like Mario said is like they might know you really well. And maybe it's it, they can help you through that. I think sometimes speaking it out loud can really help make the decision come to light my

Jem Young
advice, or I'll keep it short, sweet, because you know, I tend to get loquacious. My advice for quitting, don't quit until you have another job. Like, I know you like it's so much. It's probably like really cathartic to RAGE QUIT sometimes, like, I'm out flip the burger manager and walked out. But like, be smart, be rational about it. Don't quit until you have the other job already. I know. It's silly advice. But I still have to tell people this. I actually

Mars Jullian
think something you said in there is really smart, though. Like, whatever everything you say is really smart. But one thing that sticks out is like be rational, like taking your emotional response to something and like, you know, give it a little bit of breathing space, whether you know, like, don't rage quit. But also, like, if you're having an emotional reaction to something, like figuring out why you want to leave, like take the time to figure out what the logical reasons behind that are.

Shirley Wu
Ooh, it's like the Jobs version of the rage email, like if you write a really emotional email, you should sit on it for like a night and then send it's

Augustus Yuan
what advice that I'll give his Yeah, I think for me, leaving my first job was really, really hard. And I was, whenever I went to interviews, I was really torn about juggling work. And like, actually spending time to like study for interviews. And I was talking to my manager, one of my old managers about it and his talent. And one piece of advice he told me was, it's important to know that like, looking for a job is like a full time job. And you're gonna have to make some sacrifices, you know, especially like in tech, I feel tech it's like, there's so much opportunity, but it's also so competitive. So like definitely like, you know, be willing to like make the commitment like once you've like I definitely plus one everyone else like really understand why you want to leave the job, but once you do, it's a commitment you know, like don't slack on it don't just think you know what, I'm just gonna take this call do this interview CFA F it for works out it works out or something. He's like, No, if you want that job study for it, like really work hard for it.

Shirley Wu
I kind of echo what everybody's saying. And especially kind of what Jem was saying about like, but instead of having another job lined up, having a plan lined up with especially financial planning, cuz that's, that's the thing that I think makes it really makes or breaks the like quitting a job to do your own thing. If you have the runway or not.

Ryan Burgess
Yes, one thing to add to it, sometimes you do need that job lined up because like, unfortunately, sometimes like I'm American now, but like I've been on a visa, right? And like that actually makes things harder to when you're an immigrant and you're on a working visa. That makes it a lot harder. And there's there's stipulations to that and it does make things a lot harder when you're looking for a new role. I guess I should have said opportunity there instead of role cheers. Cheers, cheers yours. In each episode of the front end happier podcast. We'd love to share things that we've each found interesting and I'd like to share with you all. Let's start off and share them surely since you're officially brand new to the panel what's what kind of pics do you have for us as an official panelist?

Shirley Wu
Oh my god, I'm a panelist except I think the last episode is the episode that I was a guest on. And I shared four because I thought I wasn't gonna like come back for another year. And there was like how we just got to get her on. So I have a measly two today compared to my four last. So the first one is, I pre cleared this, I asked if I could share something of my own, which is I just last week published a new project called make my vote count dot party. That's the URL. I did not know that dot party was an extension URL. I love it.

Ryan Burgess
I know I love it not know that. I really want it now. Yeah,

Shirley Wu
I didn't know that. But it is my latest self motivated or what I now call self inflicted project. And when where I am, I'm visualizing data around voting and participation and voter suppression in this upcoming election, and also for a few weeks after, and I'm really proud of it, for many reasons, personal and also from like a data perspective. And also from like a citizen perspective, I didn't not know how elections worked before this project. And that was, that was one of the big reasons why I was working on it. Um, but I, I, the premise of the project is bite sized chunks for bite size actions. And so is a lot of tiny little data stories with tiny little recommended actions at the end. And so very proud of it. So I had to share. And the second thing is, I think I'm really late to the game, but we just finished watching the good place. And oh my god, it was so good. We benched the whole four seasons in like two weeks, wherever we could sneak it in, and I bawled like ugly cried on the last episode. And I did not expect this comedy to make me cry so much. So that is my pig. It was so good. So well written

Ryan Burgess
Mars, what do you have for us?

Mars Jullian
Oh, let's see, the first thing I have is an article called The widening responsibility of front end developers. And I know we've all seen many articles that are like front end development is, you know, the response, the responsibilities are widening, you know, essentially. But I really liked this one a lot. Because it did a really, it had a really succinct way of describing sort of like, where we as front end developers, like sit in between users and, and sort of like the rest of the technology and the platform, and sort of just talking about how like we are on the front lines between the things that we're building and the people we're building it for. And not just that we have to deal with so many browsers with so many different permutations. But also like all of the users that we deal with, we have this like a large landscape of users, it's like kind of the wording anyways, it was it was really good because it goes into sort of like the philosophical like, this is why we do front end. And then also goes into the technical later on about like, this is all the technology we have to deal with now and introduce some new acronyms I hadn't heard before. So like mean, which was, I can't like Mongo, express, Angular and node. And then the second one is, is the I probably recommended this before, but it's a mask company called Happy masks. And I really, really like them. They're super comfortable. They're in 99 and they like have a nose bridge and they just I don't know, they they look pretty cool. And I like that they protect other people and they also protect you and they fit really well. So just putting that out there.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, um, what do you have for us?

Jem Young
I have three picks a day my first pick is a show I've been watching with my wife on Netflix called Cobra Kai it's interesting because what it tells the story it's like the backstory or it's more like the backstory the what's like post movies called you know if something's pre season, PL SQL, SQL is there though. Yeah, that's that's what it is. So it follows the events of the Karate Kid roughly the first movie which is like a film I saw growing up much later obviously because you know, I'm young but it's it's a delightful not delightful that's that's probably the wrong word. Good places delightful season one was delightful Cobra Kai is it just follows the story of life. But bad guy protagonist from the first film and kind of like spins that out into its own narrative, and it comes back to the main character. But what's really interesting about Cobra Kai is, it was originally a YouTube show. It was a YouTube original, it was their first one. It didn't do that well on YouTube. And so Netflix picked it up. And it turns out, it's pretty popular. It's it's season three is coming soon, which is really exciting. Which is amazing. It just shows like, you know, different platforms have different audiences. It's an all around like, just really compelling show to watch. I'm surprised I didn't think I'd be in any shows about karate. My second pick is my valley silicon pick. That is the part of the show, where I highlight things that only exist because we get paid. That's really pointed out too much money in Silicon Valley

Ryan Burgess
is why Jem wants to get more money. That's literally

Jem Young
why I leave companies I come across my own picks. I'm like, I can't afford that. So I'm just gonna keep working my way up until I can. So the question I have for you today is what's in your drink? Yes, there's some sort of hard alcohol or something but what keeps it cold?

Ryan Burgess
Is ice Are we are we going to fancy ice? Oh, yeah, it's fancy ice

Jem Young
time. But yeah, I haven't done it in like two years. There's there's a, a luxury ice company. I feel like I've picked this one before but I couldn't find it. I love that there's

Ryan Burgess
luxury. I

Mars Jullian
I don't even understand this concept. Looking at their website. I'm sorry. I had to explain it to me and like really dumb language.

Jem Young
I mean, it's called Glass say I don't know how to pronounce uhm, loud over the over the A but I'll say it's glass say it's luxury ice and for I think it's 25 cubes of oh, sorry, G cubed pieces of very clear ice. It is a measly $325 I mean, but can you put a price on frozen water? Can you? Yeah, you can put water in your frigerator but it won't be a luxury.

Shirley Wu
This is worse than when people bottled air from mountains and sold it for $10

Ryan Burgess
I'm not sticking up for any of this because I think it's ridiculous. But there is a technique to getting that full clear ice but so this point I'm ordering paying that price one time and then using them and I have nothing to show for after the fact normally you would buy a train that would make the ice continually This is weird i don't know it's literally

Stacy London
just ice that disappears after you use it

Shirley Wu
there's a tab that says responsible luxury

Jem Young
Nothing says responsible luxury like freezing some water and then paying a bunch of money to get shipped to you because that's something you don't have the capability of doing that's

Mars Jullian
what what are the logistics around the shipping like how do they make sure that ice doesn't melt then like shipped in more ice like drop

Stacy London
shipped in the luxury dry ice frickin sites

Jem Young
anyways that that is my pick ride you Silicon Valley your Valley silicon yourself by to saying just buy a machine to do it for you.

Ryan Burgess
A machine there's trays, you can buy trays. I've seen them I don't have them. But this is hilarious like the fact that you're buying this and it just disappears and then basically you got to go back to them and buy them again. It's like the lazy way of getting nice.

Shirley Wu
And you don't talk about sorry, I sorry I'm ripping into this website so much but for such a luxury website their Buy Now button is so what do you play? Oh.

Ryan Burgess
Oh, nice.

Augustus Yuan
Oh, honestly, I thought that was a donate button. Is that

Ryan Burgess
stuff right now?

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I'm looking at their products page. Oh, man.

Jem Young
Everybody send send surely money so she could boxing?

Shirley Wu
Oh, yes, please. For us out of this whole panel.

Ryan Burgess
Alright, I guess this. What do you got for us?

Augustus Yuan
Yes, so for by pic. So recently, I went to Crater Lake. I did a little road trip in Oregon. So Crater Lake is my first pick. There's just like not really. So, so. So I so so it was just like a trip that we planned. And I highly recommend it. It's just so gorgeous. There's like national parks like your 70 and Clearlake is just so beautiful. So yeah, definitely check that out. And then I have two more pics that I did during the road trip because it's like a six hour drive from the Bay Area. The first one is this podcast called in the dark. It's this investigative podcast that really talks about these murders or like these cases and it's interesting because they're not like murder mysteries. You know, they're not like mystery cases. This podcast goes into like the investigation and talks about, like, what went into the investigation and talks a little bit about corruption of law enforcement. So I thought it was just like very fascinating, like, what is happening in the world? So definitely check. Check that out. And my last pick is this Netflix show called Queen's gambit. It's so it's just so well done. Not to spoil anything. It's about this girl prodigy who's brilliant at chess. I think it's based on a book. And it's just such a well done. Show. So yeah, that's where I'll leave it.

Ryan Burgess
All right, Stacy, what do you have for us?

Stacy London
All right. First pick is Soufiane. Stevens came out with a an amazing new album, recently. And limitations is one of my favorite songs on that. It's a very different genre, from all of it. I mean, all of his albums are pretty different from each other. So it's like electropop, put some headphones on and go for a walk outside, listen to the whole thing. It's really good. He said that he wanted to respond to changes in the political climate and changes in human engagement, influenced by the internet and technology. So it's, it's a very topical topical album. Second pick is a book called solutions and other problems by Ollie Bosch. It is you probably are familiar with her work she up forever girl had one of the first like comic blogs called Hyperbole and a Half. So she's the one that the like, all the things mean, that's, that's from her. She kind of went quiet for a really long time on the internet. But she came back and publish this amazing comic book. It's really, it's, it's very wonderful. So it's also one of the heaviest books I've ever physically heavy, like, it's just so full of color, and like comics and everything that it's just like, actually extremely heavy. But anyway, my friend David recommended that to me and bought me that book, and it was it made me very happy. And then you can buy that book on my third pick bookshop.org, which you can pick a local bookshop in your area. And so then the pros, some of the proceeds will go to that. And so it kind of helps independent books, booksellers who include an author's so I highly recommend ordering if you're going to buy physical books, like do it through that and help keep some of these, these small, independent bookstores a live show during

Ryan Burgess
this time, honestly. That's great. All right, I have two picks. For this episode. One is topical, by the time this episode comes out, it will be after the election. But the this documentary called The Art of the protest is so good. I really, really enjoyed it. It's a documentary that is very relevant because of the political climate that we're in right now in the United States. But it's it's around the collective graffiti group called in decline that produced it. They interviewed a lot of really big name artists that are very familiar if you follow a lot of street art, graffiti, even some of like punk music. There's there's just a ton of different people that are interviewed in this documentary. But it's really interesting how they talk about how the art can really influence change, especially in a political climate. So I think it's really, really worth watching. It's like an hour long. It's not on any of the major streaming platforms, but they have it available on Vimeo for free to watch. So I highly recommend going and checking that out. And then my second pick is a Apple TV plus or apple plus, I can never remember, but it's one of their originals. It's called home before dark. It's a murder mystery show that tells the story through a 10 year old girl who is an aspiring journalist. At first, I thought the concept might be a little bit cheesy coming from this perspective of a 10 year old just kind of seemed a little bit weird, but ended up being such a really cool way of telling the story. And it's this whole murder mystery. I think it's worth checking out. Really good show. Alright, well thank you all for listening. Today's episode. You can find us at front end, happy hour.com You can subscribe to us on really whatever you like to listen to podcasts on. And you can follow us on Twitter at front end H H. Any last words?

Stacy London
Do you know what the best fruit for opportunities is?

Ryan Burgess
I'm so curious grapes.

Stacy London
If you get a bad one. There's another opportunity. That's a joke from Dimitri Martin. So good. Cheers.