A Third-Year Employee's Honest Review 3 Months After Changing Jobs
I moved for a 15% salary increase, but looking back now, there really are things more important than money.
There are definitely things that got better. My previous company had almost no documentation, but this one has a well-maintained wiki, so I got up to speed quickly, and the code review culture is well established. The pace at which I learn is definitely different.
On the downside, I had to discard almost all the domain knowledge I built up on my previous team. What I learned over three years didn't carry over at all to the new company, so the first two months were really hard.
While preparing to change jobs, I realized it's a good idea to polish your answer to the interview question 'Why are you leaving?' in advance. At first I honestly said, 'Because of the salary,' and the mood got awkward, so afterward I switched to framing it as 'growth opportunities.' Of course, my true feelings were half-and-half.
In conclusion, changing jobs was a good choice. That said, before you move, I recommend taking a moment to check: 'What have I not yet learned at my current company?'
5 answers
Agreed—if you go to a team with a solid wiki and active code reviews, your ramp-up speed is easily twice as fast. But if you come from a place that didn't have that, the first month is chaotic lol.
I also switched in my fourth year, and the domain knowledge reset was huge. At my previous job, I was the go-to person—if someone asked about it, it came to me. At the new company, I felt like a newbie who knew nothing... I think surviving that is half skill and half mental game. But after six months, I’d built up knowledge there too, and what ultimately stayed with me was adaptability. I think the 15% pay bump was the price for taking on that risk.
Well, I'm a bit bothered that the mood got awkward after you said, 'It's because of the salary.' That's an honest reason, and if a company has interviewers who are uncomfortable with that, isn't it likely to be similar once you join? I'm actually more suspicious of candidates who can't clearly answer that question. I think it's better to use it as a criterion for filtering out companies rather than as a reframing technique.
If it's 15%, how much does that feel like after tax? If it includes bonuses or signing bonus, that seems like it would be a different story.
"What have I not learned yet at my current company?" This is a really important checkpoint. I skipped that and switched jobs twice in a row, so over three years I just built up the same first-year experience three times lol. Now I've settled in, and I'm going to stick around for a while before deciding. I agree with the concluding sentence.