Hi, I was hired as a junior developer by a startup. I just started to work one month ago. First 6 month is a trial period so both party can issue a 2 week notice to quit / fire.
Suddenly the company gave me a notice yesterday. The reason was that they expect me a quick learner. I think one month is too short to judge my skill… ?
The company gave me another week to check my skill after negotiation. Next week, I’m going to work another project to verify my skill to keep my job. If they fine with my skill, they will turn down their notice. Though I will try my best to keep my current job, I feel uncomfortable with my current situation.
I worked for a company that hired and fired lots of developers. Sometimes it was because they did not have the skill. Other times developers would leave suddenly (by their choice) or resign because they got a better offer.
There are many factors, like is the company successful? My company was not selling enough products so they let go of most of the development team after I left.
You said it is a startup, therefore they are new to business. I would not be to upset to leave. You will find something else soon.
No experience, but I work for a startup and we only hire people that we think can get up to speed quickly (we don’t have enough funds to wait for people to learn a skill from scratch). Our trial period is one month and if we don’t see enough progress, it is bye bye. I believe you’ll have more time to learn at a bigger company that has time and funds to help people become better coders and provide a mentor.
Thank you for your comment. My company received new funding from investors and they have a few reliable clients. But still they are a startup and they don’t have much room to hire and grow junior developer, I think.
I don’t know if I can extend my trial period next week, but I decided not to feel upset after reading your comment.
don’t let it get into you dear,
not to brag, but i’ve been fired a couple of times.
protip: if they give you notice, just do a half-assed job and wait for paycheck
Thank you for sharing your company’s situation. I understand that a startup companies move faster with fast learner developers.
My trial period with that company is 6 months. What I cannot understand is that my direct manager told me to take time to catch up with environment for first 2-3 months. He said that if I can start to generate value after 3 months, it should be fine. So I was taking time to learn more stuff than producing value… It seems that I was wrong to believe what the manager said.
Thank you for your comment. You mean that you don’t work with 100% power after a notice? Did your company issue you a reference letter? Do you still write the companies which fire you on the resume? I just worked for a month so I don’t know if I should write it on my resume.
Yeah, that sounds messed up. As a manager I would be more up front to the new hire about this. If I were you I would certainly address this and talk about the expectations both you and they had for the job, to see where the misconception crept in (so both of you can avoid it in the future).
In such situation I always remember one thing - there are thousands of companies, that fir your skills and learning speed perfectly. So, my idea is first company hired you is not necessary to be the best one.
I would start looking. Simply because the company is showing that they make dumb decisions:
1 hire a JR and expect a dev.
2 one month of a JR and they are considering letting them go.
3 by hiring a JR and firing a JR in a month they are unwilling to invest in employees.
4 if they need some one with SR level skills and won’t spend the money, they are spending their money in a dumb way.
Not telling you how to live just pointing out working for a company that does that is a poor way to become an awesome developer.
This is a small startup. They just hired a senior FrontEnd dev who can join in December. They still said that my position (UX focused front end) is needed but they wanted to hire a mid level one when they hired me.
I work for a startup now, and although I’ve only worked for this one, I think it’s safe to be wary of their intentions – they very likely care more about themselves than about you. I think this is true of most businesses, but startups are particularly vulnerable and subject to rapid changes that you may not be able (or willing, depending on the change!) to keep up with.
I don’t agree you should coast after being given notice, especially if there’s still a chance you’ll hang on, but if it was me, I’d be quite skeptical and seeking other employment. If you see bad signs/have a bad gut feeling, run!
This sucks, I remember being fired from a job a week and a half after I started because I could not use the equipment required (it was a non-dev tech job). Sometimes there is a disconnect in the hiring process, just take it as experience and move forward!!!
