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10 Unexpected Technical Red Flags When Starting A New Job
Have you ever started a new job and immediately found something that made you want to jump out of the nearest window¹?
“But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game;
A man may say full sooth in game and play.”
— Geoffrey Chaucer, from “The Cook’s Tale”
1 : You’re working for who?
Day one and you’re working with people from another company, on another project, in a different timezone.
The people who interviewed you catch up once a week, if you’re lucky, and drop by only when they want you to do something but on the clock for the customer.
Yes, the company is a blatant body shop — basically you’re a contractor but working for a third party for a permanent rate and making the company a mint but yourself a pittance in the process.
Oh, and double jobbing while you’re at it so the original company doesn’t have to pay for its own development.
2 : Legacy Blues
“Sounds great, love to get involved, your new project looks amazing!”
Well, that was what I said at the end of the original interview when I was offered the job, anyway. Thing is, that project’s been delayed, now you’re working on something else ‘temporarily’.
You see, there isn’t any new work, nothing, those promises were empty, the legacy project needs blood sacrifices, and they must be willing!
Thing is, it’s all maintaining a behemoth of a legacy codebase for a product that’s so fragile if the project manager sneezes the backend shuts down 3,000 miles away and logs out all of the users.
A new circle of hell welcomes you.
3 : Bare Knuckle Updates
You were enthused that the project moves so fast, hits all the milestones, and the users can’t wait to get a hold of it. This was the pace you always dreamed of and you could never understand why everything always took so long at those other companies.
“What’s that? There’s no documentation?”
With a clickety-click you realise there’s nothing, nada, not a single Confluence page other than the usual starting page…
