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Recently found a new position at a small software company. It's been about 8 months into my position and in that time, I've seen six employees in our department quit (department consists of 15 people) you can imagine how much our workload increased. Most quit once they realized that they could get better pay, benefits, and a non-toxic environment. Now, they are recruiting and cannot seem to find anyone willing to apply! They've asked us if we knew any friends/family members who needed a job and put in recommendations.

Managers have been desensitized to the turnover rate and know about the problems but have no power to fix them. Last week they interviewed a person with a psychology degree with no programming knowledge for a development position which boggles the mind. The workload and deadlines for new software pushes have put a lot of stress on what's left of our department. Is it a good idea to stick around and finish one year with the company and find another role?

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  • Managers [...] know about the problems but have no power to fix them. If they may not be able to fix the salary problem, tey should be able to fix the toxic environment, unless they're the source of the problem of course.
    – Walfrat
    Commented Jun 19, 2017 at 8:43

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If you can get better pay, benefits, and a non-toxic environment elsewhere, I'd suggest you update your CV and become the 7th to leave, or at least the 8th. Maybe be the eighth, so you can claim you stayed longer than most.

Meanwhile don't let them put you under stress. The extra work caused by 6 of 15 devs leaving is the company's problem, not yours.

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    As this is my first "career" job out of college, I've had other jobs while in school where I worked a couple months to maybe one year. If I quit this position now, I'm afraid future employers will call me a "job hopper" and question my commitment to stay with the company.
    – Noah
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 14:59
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    @Noah, this answer is the correct one. The company is mismanaged. When a company cannot pay well, it needs to compensate by making it a great environment. Your company does the opposite. Those are signs of a poor management team. If another company questions why you want to leave, do not say anything negative, but do say - "In less than a year I witnessed 50% turnover and felt that was a sign that something was wrong with the company so I began a job search and found a new job." That is not job hopping, just intelligence.
    – user45269
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 15:32
  • One year is a reasonable amount of time to stay at your first real job. Just explain in interviews that it wasn't the best fit because (pick thing you want to do that the current job doesn't let you do) and you'll be fine. Don't bash the old company under any circumstances, just say you gave it a fair shot and decided it wasn't the right place for you.
    – Paul
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 15:33
  • @Noah, I left my first job out of college after about six months. Mismatch. I left the second one after about a year, to go back to the first company, on contract instead of Direct. That one lasted almost four years. The next job lasted a little over 11 years, then a two-year stint at Nortel (and EVERYONE knows what happened at Nortel!). I've been at the current job for almost 13 years, contract and Direct. Leaving the first job because of a mismatch will not hurt you. In this particular case, STAYING is more likely to hurt you: prospective employers may wonder why you stayed so long!
    – John R. Strohm
    Commented Jun 19, 2017 at 3:52
  • @Noah Abandon ship! Being able to read the signs and get out of a bad situation before you're exhausted from the stress is a million times more beneficial than a couple of more months on your CV. Managers who have realized once that they can get away with overworking people and not offering a decent environment will never change. They are either able to sustain turnover with new hires, move on or kill the company. It's one of those three.
    – Kempeth
    Commented Jun 19, 2017 at 11:32
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@Noah you have mentioned that it's first job so you shouldn't worry about job hopping image. The longer you stay in poorly managed company, the longer you postpone opportunity to prove your skills and value in a better company.

Most quit once they realized that they could get better pay, benefits, and a non-toxic environment. ...
Last week they interviewed a person with a psychology degree with no programming knowledge

It's obvious that the company don't hire the best players in the market so as junior developer you don't learn and improve so quickly as you could. Stressful environment may cause burn out and error rate so it may decrease your ability to find another job.

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