How do you know when it’s time to change jobs? Is there ever a right time? I recently made the choice to leave a job which many people would consider a “dream job” and although I can’t answer these questions for anyone else I do want to seize this opportunity to share my own personal experience. In this post I will discuss the various factors I had in mind and how important each consideration was in my final decision.

Money

Nearly every time I approach the topic of wanting to find a new job with a close colleague or friend the conversation almost immediately turns to money. It sometimes feels as if people assume the phrase “open to opportunities” is synonymous with “I want more money”. Of course improving your personal financial situation is important otherwise we’d all be working for non-profits…or not at all. Due to the dominating nature of the concern for monty when making this type of decision I want to start off by saying that this factor was extremely low in my list of considerations this time.

Career Path

It’s a good idea to periodically reflect on your career. Regularly reflecting on questions like “Where am I in my career?”, “Where do I want to be?”, “How do I get there?”, and whether these answers complement each other or are in conflict can be extremely beneficial. Personally I was at a place in my career where I felt extremely stalled. My confidence in my abilities was high and my desire to improve was even higher. My position at the time offered very little in terms of making great strides in my technical abilities or professional experience. Instead it offered a slow paced, sure footed, and supportive walk towards retirement. That is definitely NOT a bad thing for all or event most people. Many, including myself only a few years ago, dream of having such an opportunity. But where did I want to go from there?

Should I follow the path of this company and allow my career to be guided by the needs of someone else, because that’s what was happening. I was quickly sliding into a DevOps role with promises of moving into my field of interest in the future. What I want is to be a great developer, and I want to get there on terms which more closely represent my own. To be able to focus on web technologies and gain the experience to be able to architect complex solutions while keeping the code clean and simple. I want to forge my skills in the fires of agile development. While I could have gotten there eventually had I stayed the course I knew I’d get there faster if I left.

I currently work on developing API’s for a SaaS application and have learned as much in the last 2 weeks as I did in the 6 months prior. It’s always scary to dive into something new and unknown, but I haven’t regretted a moment of it yet.

Location

Commuting is a normal part of life, but the idea of getting around 2 hours of my life back every day was definitely appealing. Although now I have to find another part of my day to listen to my podcasts and audio books, but I definitely save a lot of money of gas!

Personal Mentality

Most importantly I had already subconsciously moved on. There were definitely interesting opportunities that I passed regularly and I had a hard time making myself feel excited about anything. Some of that is due to personal history with the company and some to the current state of affairs, but at the end of the day I chose to put myself in the position I was in. Sometimes you’ve already emotionally decided on something even when you think you’re still trying to weigh the options. Once you start feeling like Wally from the Dilbert comic strip ti’s probably time to start looking for something to reignite your interest.

Wrapping it up

I decided that my career wasn’t progressing the way I would like, and I found a position which would save me around 2 hours a day while giving me the change I was looking for. That’s why I made the jump. As I said before, while this isn’t a guide to help you decide when it’s time to leave a job I hope that being able to peer into my mind a bit will provide some sort of helpful perspective…or at the very least help you kill a few minutes 🙂