Big mistake..

My complaint is the job I'm doing sucks, despite it paying lots of money.

If all I card about was money, I'd have gone into Sales years ago and made 10x more with 10x less effort, but I love technology - if I'm not working on the technology I love, then everything sucks for me, it's just the way I'm wired up.
 
If your industry is anything like mine, you'll come across the same people at some point in your career. Whether that be directly or somebody that knows or worked with previous colleagues. Tools like LinkedIn make that even more of a certainty nowadays. Therefore, I'd try and leave on the best terms possible given the circumstances. You've already had one email exchange with your manager, now I would make it even clearer that the role is not what you were looking for and that you feel you have to be doing something more technical to continue to be motivated and give your best to the role. They should understand having seen your past experience and put you through such a laborious interview process.

Whilst it is true that if the situation was reversed they would probably not give it a second thought before getting rid of you, it's better to take the moral high ground and try and leave on the best terms possible.
 
Things have gone from bad to worse recently,

The other day my manager came in for a one to one, and also a meeting with the client, it was really awkward as the client are clearly just giving me grunt work to do - which they know I'm not happy with, but they paid an absolute fortune for the whole service, (twenty million dollars worth) and so when a small piece of that deal starts complaining - it's just an awkward problem they don't want to solve, which I understand - it's not their fault that they got the wrong person, they need a project coordinator/manager and not a uber tech who is easily bored and wants serious stuff to do.

I've never been in such a miserable state to be honest, last year I won a couple of technology awards (one with Juniper) and was really making progress, my problem now is that because I'm not doing anything technical I'm haemorrhaging knowledge and forgetting things, which frightens the life out of me. I just spent some money on a 16 core lab box so I can re-familiarise myself with everything again and focus on more on traffic automation and programmable infrastructure, as I had a few pet projects I was working on - specifically based around segment-routing and YANG.

On the flip side, I got through my third interview with a large tech company in Dublin - they're flying me over for a full day very soon, it's looking pretty promising - it will involve relocation but I'm fine with that, as it sounds very much like something they have to go through with every hire, and as such they have the means to help out in many ways. I have high hopes for it as they approached my via my blog, so they know what they're after - rather than a recruiter spinning everything just to get a hire, as I tend to be easily sucked into things sometimes..
 
Hey mate,

Thats good news about the 3rd interview, best of luck for that. You'll love Dublin. I've visited a couple of times. Great city with fun people. Plus, dat Guiness.

Focus on that. I know its awkward for the CX and your Manager especially as they're american they will take the "well we've thrown a lot of money at this so do it" kind of approach which is wrong but thats the culture.

When are you expecting to head to Dublin? within a couple of weeks?
 
Phate said:
Hey mate,

Thats good news about the 3rd interview, best of luck for that. You'll love Dublin. I've visited a couple of times. Great city with fun people. Plus, dat Guiness.

Focus on that. I know its awkward for the CX and your Manager especially as they're american they will take the "well we've thrown a lot of money at this so do it" kind of approach which is wrong but thats the culture.

When are you expecting to head to Dublin? within a couple of weeks?
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Yeah, I quite like the idea of moving to Ireland - a few of my friends went to Google/Facebook/Amazon/Etc over the years, in either Dublin or the US - so I kinda had it in the back of my mind that I'd probably end up in Dublin at some point, the scenery is also quite nice - I like the idea of Giant's Causeway being only a few hours away!

Heading over soon, it's an all expenses paid thing which is cool, I got a good technical grilling on the 2nd interview which is always reassuring so I think the on site thing is more to see if I fit in with the culture as it's a very large games studio, as opposed to where I am now - which is just so dull and corporate, honest to god - it's just endless generic I.T people supporting heaps of stuff that nobody really cares about, or even knows about.. so it'll be good to be involved in actually working towards something interesting, rather than just being part of an enormously dull laborious machine that just *exists* somehow.

Hopefully I can get over the line with it, at least I've got a couple of weeks to sharpen up and prepare.
 
Screeeech said:
a recruiter spinning everything just to get a hire
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That's the problem :p. In my experience recruiters are useless. Never worked for me. Just spin/no idea what they are talking about usually. My positive recruitment experiences have been through direct contact of the company owners. Best to cut out the middleman :D.
 
Scotty123 said:
That's the problem :p. In my experience recruiters are useless. Never worked for me. Just spin/no idea what they are talking about usually. My positive recruitment experiences have been through direct contact of the company owners. Best to cut out the middleman :D.
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It's true to be honest, I've had one or two jobs which have been good from recruiters, but the best roles have always come from approaching or being approached by the hiring company.

The London tech recruiters are notorious, there are a couple of big ones - who basically comprise of a bunch of 18-20 year old kids cold calling people all day long,
 
Bit of an update,

I went through the whole process with the job in Dublin after they approached me, they offered - however I had to sit down and have a big conversation about relocation, as my partner didn't want to - these things obviously get complicated and upsetting, in the end I basically got back to them and declined - saying i'd withdraw from the process as I couldn't relocate right now, it would ultimately cause so much disruption to my life - regardless of how good the role looked.

Surprisingly, they felt I was such a good fit for the role that they made arrangements for me to be based remotely from home - with some regular travel to Dublin and the US (I'm fine with regular travel, just not permanent relocation) so they offered that to me yesterday with a confirmed start date, contract should be through today/tomorrow, so I'm feeling really good about it.. :)

Things with my current role have just been so ****, I haven't done anything technical in about 3-4 months other than type some things into a GUI once or twice, most of my time has been spent sending emails back and forth or being on calls, it sucks. Thankfully one of the big hardware vendors has invited me to write a small book for them, so I'm co-authoring that with someone else which is giving me something good to think about whilst I'm still in this **** role.

The biggest problem I have now is handing my notice in, to do it in a way which will coincide with my new start date means I'll have to do it sometime in the middle of next week, however - next week all the US teams are coming to meet us on the client site for the week for a whole bunch of meetings and other **** so I'm going to create the biggest ****storm by handing in that week with them all around, it's going to hit the fan pretty badly - they're going to end up having to fly someone in from the states or EU to pick it up, I have 1 months notice so I suspect they might just put me on gardening leave... It's the only real thing hanging over me right now, my partner keeps pointing out that it's not my problem - the jobs sucks, it's not for me - I want out, for highly skilled engineers in the tech industry - it's a buyers market out there........ but it's not going to make it much easier :D
 
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Hey mate,

first off, sweary :p

Secondly, your partner is right. It is not your problem. I know the feeling sucks and it never comes at a great time. If possible while it's quieter this week I would message whomever you need to say you need to arrange something for next week to discuss your current situation. They will already get an incling and you might be able to nip it in the bud easier. Will certainly be easier before all the execs arrive.

Congrats on the new role. Thats amazing :)
 
Phate said:
Hey mate,

first off, sweary :p
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Fixed :p

Phate said:
Secondly, your partner is right. It is not your problem. I know the feeling sucks and it never comes at a great time. If possible while it's quieter this week I would message whomever you need to say you need to arrange something for next week to discuss your current situation. They will already get an incling and you might be able to nip it in the bud easier. Will certainly be easier before all the execs arrive.

Congrats on the new role. Thats amazing :)
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Thanks!

Yeah he is right, but then again he's a contractor mercenary so he's used to contracts going south after 6 months and turning his nose up :p as a perm I've always tried to fit in and setup for a 'long haul' so for this so go south in such a short period of time, for what is such a big business deal for the company is going to make it a bit awkward.

I'm kinda tempted to do something similar to your suggestion by giving them a 'heads up' but in the past I once did something similar and they spent as much time as possible making my life hell, so I'm a little reluctant to do it again, I think i'll just do it all on the day and bring in some 'deal_with_it.gif' sunglasses for them all to wear :)
 
Congratulations ! I can attest that working from home is brilliant. So much time saved by not commuting ! Make sure that home working is in writing in your contract and, especially, that they pick up the travel expenses when you have to go anywhere.

Your partner is correct in that its their problem - they can't claim its come out of the blue as you've said you are not happy several times and been ignored or fobbed off. Just keep it as minimal and professional as possible, much as the temptation to do otherwise can be there.
 
Thanks guys,

And yeah, when I hand on - there is a temptation to sort of go off on a rant about it with them, but I think it's just going to be better if I keep it as simple, basic and to the point as possible, rather than be dragged off into awkward territory and have to try and justify it - at the end of the day, it's not working for me and the most sensible thing to do is to leave.
 
So I found myself in a fairly similar situation as you not so long ago, with a very well paid role with great benefits that turned out to be nothing like what I had been led to believe.

I can say from that experience that you are making the right call. A lot of folks in this game are driven by solving technical challenges and those who say "you're getting paid loads to do nothing so just put your feet up" just don't get it. You have to love what you do...simple as that. Money is not a substitute for job satisfaction and good quality of life.

Handing in my notice in the circumstances was daunting, but the relief was immediate. I kept it to the point. No finger pointing, none of the "oh but you said this" - nothing personal - the role isn't working for you and another opportunity has arisen that you have decided to accept. I always find the reaction is better than you expect, but even if it isn't....it's not your problem, as already mentioned. Chalk it up to experience and move on with your career & life.

I got out pretty fast and took a great opportunity elsewhere and never looked back.

Good luck with the new position!
 
I've been in the situation where I was earning buckets for putting my feet up. Literally £300 a day and I'm sitting there drinking beer with my boss because there was nothing to do. Got fed up with it, very very quickly.

As Hulkster says, you're making the right move.
 
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