[Update: Hired!] Startups and I don’t fit: got let go yesterday

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fossxplorer

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Mar 17, 2016
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Oslo, Norway
Wish all the luck and hope you get a job soon so you can stay in DE. I really really understand how it feels! I think here in Norway, it takes a lot more to fire an employee, but i'm not sure how that works within the "probation" time though.

(I read your initial post right after posting, but my ISP screwed up that weekend so i was unable to access STH on my laptop, only on my 4G. I post phone any replies from mobile phone).
 
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DaddyGrant

Active Member
Jul 14, 2016
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That soon?!??! That's crazy.

I'm hoping it all aligns for you this week and will keep you in my thoughts.
 
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manxam

Active Member
Jul 25, 2015
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Omg, no.. Don't move to London. Just don't.
Perhaps search for "Britain nanny state" or "reasons not to live in london" or "average work day london" or even "cost of driving in london" or maybe just go HERE.

What about the netherlands, belgium, spain, italy, Switzerland, or just about any other country?!

EDIT: I'm sorry, I know that wasn't helpful but I've spent a LOT of time in Europe both living and working and London is just about the worst place to live IMHO.

Further EDIT: It appears that TransferWise still requires funding every year and is still considered a "start up". With the labour laws out there I'd stay away. Far, far away...
 
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gigatexal

I'm here to learn
Nov 25, 2012
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Omg, no.. Don't move to London. Just don't.
Perhaps search for "Britain nanny state" or "reasons not to live in london" or "average work day london" or even "cost of driving in london" or maybe just go HERE.

What about the netherlands, belgium, spain, italy, Switzerland, or just about any other country?!

EDIT: I'm sorry, I know that wasn't helpful but I've spent a LOT of time in Europe both living and working and London is just about the worst place to live IMHO.

Further EDIT: It appears that TransferWise still requires funding every year and is still considered a "start up". With the labour laws out there I'd stay away. Far, far away...
Fair enough I’ll do more research. I’d prefer a stable company too I think I’ve been burned by startups.

Was it better before brexit?
 

manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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I can't really say as Brexit was more an economy / financial switch as they felt that the rest of the EU was devaluing their economy.
With regards to Britian, it's turned into a modern day George Orwell's 1984.
You literally (seriously, look it up) can't go anywhere in London without being tracked by several cameras.
There are fees to drive vehicles into the city and speed cameras on every corner.

They tout their gun policy and yet crime is rampant.

Every time I visit I get this weird vibe. So much of Europe is laid back and a totally different, and less stressful, way of life.
London gives me anxiety as though I'm 2 hours late to an important meeting and I'm about to get fired...

With all of that said, if taking a job in London is the only way for you to stay for the time being, do it!

The alternative is.. Trump :p
 
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gigatexal

I'm here to learn
Nov 25, 2012
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I tend to sway a bit libertarian — socially pretty liberal economically pretty conservative but the camera system is a aketchy thing. Thing is even in the six months we have been in Germany I have learned how oppressive the German government actually is. Remember those paperwork loving beauracratic aliens in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy? It’s worse. Nothing is done without a paper and proof. I had to go through hell to prove I was married because my wife hasn’t changed her last name yet. I even came with the proceeds of my house sale (which we spent on paying off debts and furnishing our would be forever home here) to prove we had enough money and that wasn’t even enough.

You can’t even name your kid fiddlesticks if you wanted to because there’s a government agency for it that approves it right names of children! It’s insane. It’s made me appreciate the representative nature of the US system where the officials represent us and work for us. Now, this is all to say that people do things differently in different places and I get that. So if the british want cameras to feel safe so be it. The big thing for me is maybe moving to a place where we know the language and for a company that might be better able to run itself than the last startup I was at.

I do know London is fantastically expensive and we’d likely live outside the city. And the police don’t have guns where here in Germany they do. I mean there was a sword attack in broad daylight in the streets of a London a while back.

But I dunno. If all of it goes to crap and we have to go back to the states and even if we stay I’ll forever be grateful to this forum for all the support
 
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manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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There you go! Norway is rated one of the best places in the world to live and work.
Only visited myself though, so you'll have to rely on @BackupProphet to guide you there.

Good luck!
 
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ReturnedSword

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Jun 15, 2018
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Good luck with everything Alex. Hoping for the best for you and your family.

Personally, I've been at a health IT startup for the last 6 years, and it's come to the point where I'm fed up. The CEO is incompetent (he went straight out of college to the startup), most of the C-suite people act more like a hormone-crazed frat club than managers. Recently I've been undermined passive aggressively by other managers, who get the CEO or CTO to overrule my decisions.

Product-wise, the original core product is essentially what HealthKit and Google Fit became. I'm not free to delve into what our product morphed into after HealthKit and Google Fit were released, but basically I can't forsee it becoming profitable at all.

While I've been in the industry for 16 years, mostly I was running my own consultancy (early on), then consulting for Fortune 500 companies. I think at this point I probably will see if there's room for me in the local SMB consultancy market. While my startup experiences haven't been as terrible as yours, I probably won't be joining any startups again anytime soon :)
 
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gigatexal

I'm here to learn
Nov 25, 2012
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Good luck with everything Alex. Hoping for the best for you and your family.

Personally, I've been at a health IT startup for the last 6 years, and it's come to the point where I'm fed up. The CEO is incompetent (he went straight out of college to the startup), most of the C-suite people act more like a hormone-crazed frat club than managers. Recently I've been undermined passive aggressively by other managers, who get the CEO or CTO to overrule my decisions.

Product-wise, the original core product is essentially what HealthKit and Google Fit became. I'm not free to delve into what our product morphed into after HealthKit and Google Fit were released, but basically I can't forsee it becoming profitable at all.

While I've been in the industry for 16 years, mostly I was running my own consultancy (early on), then consulting for Fortune 500 companies. I think at this point I probably will see if there's room for me in the local SMB consultancy market. While my startup experiences haven't been as terrible as yours, I probably won't be joining any startups again anytime soon :)
Wow. That does suck. There was some blatant racism at the startup I was just at but I didn’t have 6 years of undermining. That would suck. Good luck to you though! With all this experience going back to work for yourself probably isn’t as scary as it would be for me.

Back in Portland I did some light contract work for people who found me on Thumbtack. It was fun. I had some great clients. It wasn’t profitable as the jobs were mostly fix my laptop, recover my data, remove this virus, etc., but every now and then there was a fix my network and the business clients could pay a fair wage.
 
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ReturnedSword

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Jun 15, 2018
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Santa Monica, CA
I tend to shy away from support work, unless it is a support contract for a SMB. My current idea is focusing on storage, HA, and networking solutions for SMB customers. Still need to do some market research though :)

I haven’t experienced much racism myself, but ageism for sure. I was a technical lead by 20 and PM by 23. I also got into EA stuff pretty early on. Mostly I just jumped into opportunities as they arose, usually when another contractor or resource moved on from their position, but before the department hired anyone new.

Tbh I don’t really need to touch code or hardware. Admittedly I’m not the best coder, but I try to stay on top of hardware and software to help me better understand design. More than a few times the contract resources claimed it would take a huge amount of time to deliver something and I proved it could be prototyped fairly quickly. Keeps them honest if I know what they’re doing ;)
 
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gigatexal

I'm here to learn
Nov 25, 2012
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So it’s looking like I might have a shot as a dark matter dev: one who works on line of business applications for internal customers aka people in a different silo of the company. Or potentially a fintech startup in a better part of town with a more interesting software stack. They’ve been around 6 years and have about 150M in funding but it’s a startup whereas the dark matter role is with a big publicly traded company of some 45k employees and it’s been around since the 30s.

What to do, what to do? Stay safe and keep applying? Suck it up, stay loyal and count myself lucky to have a paycheck, or try my hand at another startup?
 
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Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Oh boy I hate those choices but you have to also go with your gut I think.
I know early on in my career I had a choice of a solid full time position or a 3 month contract with a more interesting role (vendor outsourced) and I took the 3 month job that became anyway a lot longer but I don’t for a moment regret the risk.

I just went with what felt right for me, having said that at the time I had no children, was young so happy in a share house etc so different times.
 
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