5 years was a personal goal that my wife and I worked out when I started, we had just gotten married and she really likes consistency while I really enjoy ambiguity. It doesn't really have anything to do with being fully vested or not... I joke with some of my hacker friends that I'm sticking around for the glass statue that you get at 5 years. Really I'm spending my time (another 6 months) trying to push Bing to exercise the benefits of structured data and data semantics on the web. I'm also trying to convince SQL as a product to spend more energy focusing on this area.
If I'm hedging my bets at all it's related to being able to come back to work at a life-sucking anonymous job at a mega software corporation :)
I hope that I will not need to but if my wife or family needed the benefits and comforts associated with this type of employment and I could not work out how to get it done another way. I wouldn't hesitate to come back.
Wow, so you are just going to quit working at Microsoft because of some agreement you made with your wife. That concerns me that you aren't making decisions for the right reasons. Make sure you don't mention that in an interview. I would prefer someone to stay around because they like the job, or leave if they don't, not because there wife wants consitency.
Apart from that, if you can talk about the things you achieved at working for such a huge company, that would be great. It is going to be a huge step moving to a smaller company, they way things work. Having worked at Microsoft for a shor time myself, the amount of organisational structure you have to go through to get the simplest of things done is insane, and a full time job in itself.
There is nothing wrong with making career decisions with input from your family.
Maybe I wasn't completely clear though. My staying at Microsoft even at times when I have been frustrated with management or direction is related to my personal goal (which my wife helped me to define). I am thankful that I have stayed, my team has done some really good work and I have influenced direction at a level which I never thought I would get to. My leaving Microsoft is not related to that goal or to my wife, except that meeting that goal allows me to more easily justify looking at new opportunities.
I am getting close to my 5 year goal and I am starting to seriously evaluate my future opportunities and trying to figure out what I want to do. It's possible, though unlikely, that I will stay at Microsoft. The job I have now is a great job and I have worked hard to obtain the influence that I have within Microsoft.
I left startups when I got married to provide my new family with some consistency and with the goal of really building out my resume with time spent influencing key projects at a strong industry leader. I feel that achieving that goal is a strong accomplishment. I am now well equipped to be a much stronger contributor for future employers and have the maturity to push through difficult times without bailing.
> For the typical American nerd, indoctrinated into thinking that there's something deeply wrong with him as a man and that any woman charitable enough to touch him should eternally be paid tribute to, that may be the norm.
> Otherwise, yeah, there's something seriously wrong when your wife tells you what to do with your life, except w.r.t. intimate matters.
Where do you pick up she tells him what to do?
Can't they simply talk about it and agree on a strategy?
> What does his wife know about how it feels to work at Microsoft, or to run a startup? I'll hazard that "nothing". How could her input possibly be valuable, except as a warning, along the lines of "you'll do as I say or I'll make your life bad"?
I'm at a loss to answer you and not violate HNs etiquette so I'll leave it at that if that's ok with you.
I don't understand the down votes against megablast. He has a point, one that you might not agree with, but that does not necessitate a down vote.
That said, I do agree with this point of view. If he really wants to jump out of Microsoft into a startup and it would make his wife feel uneasy, its better to have that talk, explain why he wants to make the jump, and hopefully get her support.
He actually writes the opposite, he is assuming he is leaving microsoft because of an agreement between him and his wife:
> so you are just going to quit working at Microsoft because of some agreement you made with your wife.
Besides that, there would be something to be said for the opposite argument, but the way I read the OP he has made a deal with his wife that said "Ok, I'll work for 'the man' for 5 years to give us stability, but after that I'll want a change of scene, and more risk", and she said "ok, that's fine with me". Now they're approaching the end of the 5 year period and he's checking out to see what his options are.
The biggest single risk in stepping down from a behemoth like microsoft to a much smaller company is that you can't rely on other people to do the mundane stuff for you (so that means you have to provision your own machine, set up your desk and so on), you are expected to self-motivate and work unsupervised for longer stretches. There is a big cultural difference and people working for large companies can get institutionalized to some extent.
But judging by the OPs responses that is not the case with him. Not by far, he seems to have his stuff together pretty good.
If I'm hedging my bets at all it's related to being able to come back to work at a life-sucking anonymous job at a mega software corporation :)
I hope that I will not need to but if my wife or family needed the benefits and comforts associated with this type of employment and I could not work out how to get it done another way. I wouldn't hesitate to come back.