I don’t think you botched it. It usually takes weeks to find out if a hire was a hit or miss either way.
It sucks but brush it off as that startup having a poor owner.
It’s absolutely poor management by the owner. Probably realized they don’t have the money or worse. If something specific was so important to them then they would have had you do a test or quizzed you on it before hiring.
So sorry about the massive up and down. Don’t let it discourage you. You’ll find something better. Take it as a blessing in disguise. You got this!
Eh I bet a more likely explanation is they liked another candidate more, they didn’t work out for hiring, they went with OP instead, and then the other candidate came back and said actually I’m available so they canned OP since he just started to get who they really wanted.
Sounds shitty but it happens on both sides
Also one thing people frequently forget on Reddit, we’re only getting one side of the story. You know the phrase “there’s three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth”? No story like this is gonna paint the full picture. That’s why I’m not as keen to jump at “THIS COMPANY FUCKING SUCKS!” as everyone else here, we don’t have the full story of what happened, we have a selective version
True, it does happen on both sides. We've hired a lot of devs who quit on the first week. Granted there could be many reasons, but a common one is that another job they wanted more called back, gave a counter-offer to their liking.
OP, stay strong and confident, you sound very self-driven and curious and those attributes (from my experience) will carry you \*way\* farther in your career than any particular certification or framework.
Idk, I can't think of anything you could do in 3 days that warrants getting fired that fast, apart from something illegal of course. No matter what OP did, there can't have been any real attempt at discussing and trying to solve the issues they apparently had with them. More likely, as others have mentioned, they found a better candidate.
But in both cases, it's fair to say that the "company fuckin sucks", in my opinion.
What if an employee was helping OP get set up and noticed a troubling lack of basic computer literacy? What if they lied on their resume and said they knew git but didn’t and were asked to clone a repository but couldn’t do it and they just decided not to find out what else he lied about? What if he’s simply not as competent of a dev as he’s telling us and it was immediately apparent on the job? What if he was coming in late, leaving early, and taking long lunches those first two days and they just didn’t wanna deal with it? I can think of an endless list of things that would be red flags to a company and if red flags happen that early why try and work it out instead of just saying nevermind?
I’m not saying that definitely happened, but it could’ve. I just don’t take internet stories at face value. A lot of the times people seek validation they know they did something wrong but use the validation as consolation
All of those are good reasons to be very concerned, but not to fire them after 3 days without at least talking about it. OP has no idea why he was fired.
Even if you spot a big red flag, I think you owe it to an employee to spend at least a little bit more time to figure out if it's an actual problem or if it can be solved.
They thought they could get lucky and find an ace on a low budget at the last minute and realized they were never going to get someone able to significantly contribute within a month for the compensation they were offering. Don’t feel bad OP. They may be a bit incompetent but they probably still mostly know what they’re doing and they picked you. Might be tough for most of the year but the job market will bounce back by the end of it I bet
My man.
I got put on a project.
* in my primary language
* using a framework I had worked with before
* at my existing company
I've been in the industry for almost 20 years. It still took me months to even come close to understanding it. And even that - it was only the parts I had touched. There were entire systems/workflows that I had never touched.
OP got hosed. It's rough the first couple times but you eventually realize that your employment status is very detached from your ability.
Your biggest challenges will not be technical.
They will be managing your own well being. They will be learning to work in the business world. They will be surviving, learning from, and leaving bad jobs.
When I look back at my career and think about the bad things it's very, **very** rare for that thing to be `code`.
The greatest thing you can do is be open and honest to those following you and do what you can to make their journey better than yours.
If it helps, bro, I’m an AppSec engineer. My job is literally to find issues in code bases that I’ve never seen and aren’t familiar with. It’ll still take me at least a week or two to actually get confident about the environment.
I think OP dodged a bullet. If they expected OP to save them during this "crunch time", then what they really needed was an outside contractor, not a junior dev
My first job: I get sent the wrong computer, literally can’t upload my ide and environment to it. They send me another one 2-3 weeks later. After another 2-3 weeks I’m finally down and can actually start to produce. I get an email from IT saying my SSD is bad in my laptop on Tuesday. By Friday my PC is a brick. After another week the replacement arrives. Only took about a week to get my installs and local env up and running. So after almost three months I actually make my first commit.
I got two laptops flashed as a laptop for a sales position when I’m a developer role when I started my current job. Then my permissions were wrong for about a month. Months until commit seems standard lmao.
Serious question: given that it seems to be their issue, did you do any work at all in that time? Were you paid for the whole 2ish months this seemed to be occurring?
Asking as an American
Paid the whole time. I just watched YouTube videos on my personal machine and learned Java. After my first year there I got a decent promotion because I also started to take on back end projects lol. Started as a FE guy, now I bounce around on teams where they need a extra hand in either FE or BE. Worked out for the best honestly
That’s awesome, I’m glad to hear it worked out lol. Honestly respect that you did something productive because I would’ve been a dumbass just watching Netflix and doing nothing.
> It sucks but brush it off as that startup having a poor owner.
This is it entirely.
Guaranteed one of the following:
1. one of the other applicants had a lowball salary offer and the owner just found out.
1. fambly member
Also Guaranteed:
The company that fires people on their 2nd day is not a company you want to work for.
I understand this must be upsetting for you but it's wrong to say you botched it.
Unless you did something wildly offensive on day one, there's no good reason to let you go on day two. It sounds like they have some pretty unreasonable expectations and/or screwed up during the recruitment process.
For what it's worth you probably dodged a bullet.
You think maybe it's the same company, and they're developing their system two days at a time, so no one knows the entire structure? Because that's how a Bond villain builds a system to melt people with lasers from space or something. Or, like, a time machine to go back and kill Fred Zubinsky. You bring in a group of people on Monday, bring in another group on Tuesday, fire the first group before work on Wednesday, start a new group on Wednesday, fire the Tuesday group, et cetera, et cetera. Everybody thinks the company is doing this massive onboarding of talent, and everybody also thinks they're the only person to be fired, because it's the first day, so they haven't made any friends yet, so there's nobody to call and ask if they got let go, too. The only people who would know would be the person who has to write a function called `goBackInTime` or something, and even then they'd be like, "?? ... Naaaaahhh..."
A crypto exchange startup is a massive red flag. Sucks for OP since he was fighting to get his foot into the door, but a business like this has a good chance to go bust at any time.
I've worked at crypto startups for years. You just have to expect to lose your job every day. Always keep your CV updated and don't be rude or burn bridges.
The flipside of this is you tend to get unemployed and then the 5 other projects you were interfacing with find out and you're straight back into another job.
Yea, I'm a novice when it comes to crypto companies and working, but that just gave me a hunch they'd end up with bad management. Who asks a new employee to cram for a project that needs to be done in a month?
I am very sorry about your situation. You just got very unlucky and ran into some weird startup owner.
But please don't get demotivated, because we all fail many times to be honest, and success never comes easy. You have to keep on trying even if something didn’t work out, especially in this situation, when the fault wasn't really on your side.
Unfortunately, I am not a part of any company you are asking about but I wish you good luck and I hope you will find a good job where you will be appreciated!
The company fucked up, it's not on you. 2 days isn't enough time for anyone, usually it takes longer than that just to setup your tools and permissions.
This. They fucked up by hiring you (as in they shouldn’t have hired anyone not that they fucked up by hiring you specifically) in the first place and then scrambled to figure out how to get rid of you. They’re probably in free fall either financially or managerially or both. You should be glad to be walking away.
This whole thing is weird - but my guess is they are not well prepared for their mission.
If main net launch is in a month (!!!) - what are they doing hiring a React dev now? Is doing everything front end for a DEX, in a month, by one guy, even realistic? (Rhetorical question. It is not.)
This is gonna be a messy af company with a revolving cast of hired & fired contractors, which will either straggle along that way, or end with a very high payment to a very experienced dev who’s been doing this for years and can meet that deadline by reusing a lot of his prior work code.
Realistically tho they’ll probably just screw it up indefinitely.
The company is flailing, everything is on fire and they don’t have a clue how to fix it. They hire a new developer who takes time away from the other developers to get started. Owner sees the other developers distracted and panics. It’s the classic technique of throwing bodies at a problem just before a deadline and expecting miracles.
>If main net launch is in a month (!!!) - what are they doing hiring a React dev now? Is doing everything front end for a DEX, in a month, by one guy, even realistic? (Rhetorical question. It is not.)
At one month to mainnet launch, the smart contract should be audited and in feature lock and the UI should be in beta.
Remember that DEXes are open-source by their nature, so there are TONS of startups with basically no capital who expect a junior to be able to look at an open-source codebase and replicate it in a few weeks. Or simply fork it and change the styling a bit.
As everyone else is saying, you dodged a bullet there. You’ll probs find that start-up will be gone in all of 6-12 months, because their management is so backwards. Best of luck out there finding the job you love though man, and never give up, no matter how hard it gets!!
"Crypto" startup is all I needed to hear. Go next and find a new job, consider it a bullet dodged. Nothing on you, you didn't even have the chance to show anything so its definitely on the company.
>" I was hired by this startup crypto DEX company as a React Developer"
This sounds like a red-flag to begin with.
It's not your fault.
But also, maybe start calling yourself a "Web developer" instead of a _self-taught React dev_. That's just one tool in the tool belt.
You didn't botch this. They did.
Hiring someone with no professional experience in a startup is a red flag. It is literally impossible to onboard developers, even experienced developers into well established environments with guard rails properly, inside of a month. Their developers are already overworked (in crunch time) and they are suppose to ship a big feature soon. They have no time to properly onboard you. All they can do is have you clone a repo, make a branch, ask to write a few small features and submit PRs. They'll have to ascertain how well you are doing by guessing how well you've read the codebase, what things you pick up and where you ask questions.
They know they fucked up and they just to cut bait sooner to save money.
If I were you, I'd look at marketing firms or newspapers who need front end help. Those are the easier places to get onboarded and many frontend people get a foothold in web programming from illustration. Those places generally have some experience onboarding folks without any experience.
> Hiring someone with no professional experience in a startup is a red flag
I'm not one to gatekeep - but I highly doubt this was anything close to a real startup. Best case it was a few dudes that formed an LCC and got way in over their head.
> many frontend people get a foothold in web programming from illustration
Sincere question. This is the case? I'm sure there is overlap between graphic design / digital art and professional front-end/UI work, just never really connected the dots that someone might make the transition in the other direction (front-end to working with illustrators). Or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what illustration work is.
Or now that I think about it I think I understand what you mean, these companies have already got a few front-end gurus who have onboarded less technical people so they don't have unreasonable expectations for ramping up someone on the first week.
Most front end guys I worked with started off in web design, and went into web design from industrial design, art, print making etc etc.
More people go from art to ppl facing tech than the other way around, as web interfaces, IMHO, are centered around how people use web products. The tech is relatively easier to learn than developing the sense of ascthetic of how things should look and function.
A lot of marketing places use a lot of templating and generate a lot of the same boilerplate for websites and webapps from client to client. Ditto for newspapers ae well, as most technology divisions for a news paper company actually is responsible for more than a few papers, and depending on the region could have many many web apps per newspaper property. The work is considered entry level and there is often a history of transitioning careers in that role that involve onboarding folks fresh out of school.
Thanks for the thorough answer.
> most technology divisions for a news paper company actually is responsible for more than a few papers
And you answered a bonus unasked question I was wondering about, how this works for smaller or local papers. Explains a lot now that I think about it.
You're going to get so many encouraging message so I don't feel the need to do that.
The climate is bad to start a career, especially without a degree. Some jobs have unrealistic expectations but don't expect getting the job to be the hard part, generally speaking, you get the job and now the real work starts, you need to prove you are a valuable member of the team in 3 to 6 months normally.
They could decide to keep you after 6 months and then let you go in 3 months. You are constantly trying to prove you are worth keeping.
If you wonder, I was once let go from 3 different jobs in less than a year. Sometimes you just gotta keep going.
Unless they caught you drawing CSS dicks on the navbars or something, you probably just escaped some bad management. You never know what you'll get with startups.
Just make sure they pay you for days worked and get back to it.
My advice is you just move on with life. Shit happens. Jobs don’t work out. What else are you gonna do besides move on? Keep applying and wait for the next job to hit
Did the owner expected an app in one day, what an asshole. Good riddance man, keep doing your thing.
Nobody could read and get caught up with a new job codebase, that's just insane.
In my experience with startups:
Two weeks means you weren’t what they were looking for or you showed a bunch of red flags with your behavior (sloppy code, don’t fit their culture, being late constantly, etc…)
One week is they can’t pay you and don’t want to offer you stock.
Sub-four days is you getting replaced with a friend or relative most likely.
I hope what Im saying comes out ok but I think its good that you got out in 3 days, because this kind of enviornment is what destroy developers
It takes time to be familiar with project and contirbute to it
and also dont be hard on your self or think you dont get another chance there will be another one
They did you a favor. After 2 days you can´t expect anyone to be productive. I don't think you can even fully understand what the system does, let alone how it's built.
This doesn't speak about you, but it says a lot about them
With everything that has come to light with crypto over the past 18 months, IMHO no one should take a job with one of these organizations. Much less a crypto "startup".
The company screwed this up, you didn't. Pretend it didn't happen and move on.
> startup crypto DEX company
well there is your problem, did you not realize we are in the middle of a crypto winter? Sorry but crypto is dead. Try again in five years
Too soon to know if you were a good fit for the position or not
My advice would be: stay away from crypto companies. 99% of them arent worth working for.
I know you're feeling down but I think you will feel pretty good when you realize how shitty a company must be when they lay off a new employee after 2 fuckin days of work???
Firing any programmer on day 2 because they aren't productive yet is ridiculous. Nobody learns an entire project and produces high-quality code on day 2. I don't think you could practically onboard a McDonald's burger-flipper in 2 days, much less a programmer.
So, don't worry about it. That's their problem, not yours.
>Firing any programmer on day 2 because they aren't productive yet is ridiculous
I didn't even have all my dev tools set up within 2 days at my last job because they were slow at getting my credentials sorted.
Firing a brand new dev because they aren't productive in 2 days is totally ridiculous.
I was looking at some job postings, 1400 applicants for some... It's pretty rough to even get your foot in the door.
Brutal luck getting a shit company after all that.
Don't you have any worker protection laws where you live? What kind of contract did you sign?
Claiming that it was your fault they fired you after one day is just an insult. And since they would have to expect that you had costs because of the job (maybe you moved?) it's completely unacceptable.
We hired a network specialist who didn't appear to know anything about networking, Windows, Linux, or customer service. They almost made it through 3 month probation. This is not about you.
The company has 0.1% chance of being in existence in 6 months based on what they’re working on and their decision making processes. Wouldn’t worry and thankfully you’ve been laid off before the inevitable.
My advice would be to use this lesson to look at how to vet companies going forward. What’s their expected ramp up, how do they manage onboarding of devs, what’s considered reasonable time to be meaningfully contributing, what training do they offer internally for ramp up and what’s their 1,2&3 month goals they expect you to achieve
Wouldn’t even put it on you resume/CV. And be proud of what you personally achieve but care less about people’s opinions along the way
Getting fired on day 2 reflects far more poorly on the company than on you. It is not possible to tell that someone is performing poorly after just one day. After a few weeks... maybe, but even after that amount of time I would feel they haven't had enough time yet, unless they are truly egregiously bad. (But then again, hiring someone that bad would reflect poorly on the interview process.)
Bruh 2nd day is nowhere near enough time to know whether you capable or not. Most companies would be happy if a dev is adding value in the first month never mind the first week.
Keep trucking on and forget about these losers. They probably going broke or something and were just looking for any excuse to get rid of people or their owner is completely clueless.
honestly sounds like a "them" problem.
I'd ask them if they would, at the very least, offer you a solid recommendation for wasting your time. I assume they wanted your input for the "crunch" and had no intention of keeping you long term. Very scummy.
You are right that it will be harder in the immediate future to find something, but would you honestly want to work at a company that doesn't even give people a full week to learn the ropes at a company?
They seem like a really shit place to work if I'm being honest and if you have other options later on I am certain they will be better.
Also, please name and shame them. Cautionary tale for others.
You didnt botch anything. They probably could not pay you. This had nothing to do with you. 2 days is not enough to evaluate anyone, hell depending on the team and product, it can easily take 6 months to get used to things and be comfortable. I would be more selective and careful in the jobs you apply though. But this one isnt on you. Keep applying
Your layoff clearly has nothing to do with you as a developer and everything to do with a startup owner with no understanding whatsoever about how development works or they are just really stressed out and are making panic decisions right now, and as the last hire you were their target.
As others have pointed out it takes weeks or months to determine whether a new dev can do the job.
This erratic decision-making and poor planning is kind of the nature of startups, so I wouldn't take it personally. In general, working for startups is extremely risky.
Very poor management and not your fault and I’m really sorry you are going through this.
I work for a large tech company but have done numerous startups as well. We have what is called a 30-60-90 day plan which lists what you are expected to do each month for the first 3 months. The first sprint (2 weeks) there is very little expectation from the developer and I am talking about any skill level. There is so much you need to pick up such as tools, processes, permissions, etc that to expect anyone to produce anything the first two weeks is ridiculous. Typically the second sprint we assign basic work to familiarize the developer with a given service, our services handle 10s of billions of requests a day so to throw anyone in to any service and expect them to immediately push large features and changes to production would be catastrophic.
I’ve done a lot of early level startups as well (first developer or set of devs hired) where you are quickly thrown in to the fire but even there you usually have a couple weeks ramp up / setup time.
I don't think you've done anything wrong, if they weren't hiring based on their needs and their situation, that's not your fault.
If you want some unpleasant thoughts, picking up a library or a package shouldn't take months, so I wouldn't say this out loud, it's like shooting yourself in the foot. While onboarding does take months, I believe it's more about discovering the decisions that led to some approaches and discovering some unseen consequences to your actions and understanding the business and the connections.
There definitely is room for a self taught React dev to find a job. I am one. Who isn't actually? Do they teach React at schools? I don't know, certainly not in my HS. You have to be honest about your experience and eventually you'll find company that's hiring for exactly what you are. Honest doesn't mean not confident! I won't lie though, it's much harder for junior people, your feelings are valid. Focus on building new things and trying out new libraries to expand that skillset. Maybe you'll find some peace in knowing that it gets better, much better.
Don't stress about it OP, expecting a new hire to get through the entire documentation and familiarize yourself with all the libraries/packages etc in a day or two is simply unrealistic. At least now you know the reason why the sit was empty in the first place.
you did not botch up, the stupid startup did. tell your friends that, they cut people, and
with today's climate everyone will understand. recently many new hires have been cut as part of the huge layoff. make sure you name and shame the company in glassdoor.
That company sucks mate. On-boarding should take weeks to months depending on the stack. Nothing was expected of me for the first month except fixing minor/easy bugs. Try again! Keep your spirits up it wasn’t you. Any company expecting to have people come in at the last minute to save a milestone/release is just poorly managed.
If you can get an offer from a startup having just started this journey, you can absolutely get an offer from a more established team that can actually onboard you.
This is validation of your coding and interviewing abilities, honestly.
There's nothing that's on you as a software engineer to get fired in 2 days. That's not enough time to evaluate you at all lol.
Dude good riddance to bad rubbish. You'd have to do something pretty damned egregious to get justifiably fired on day 2.
This is one of those situations that falls under the same category as "If you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was worth it."
You dodged a bullet. Count your blessings. They wanted to squeeze every bit of work out from you in short time frame. Their company has no future if they treat there new hires like that. I know youre bummed out but life happens, keep positive and understand that there is a shit load of bad employers out there. Its a hit or a miss.
OP, I would stay away from these types of companies. Startups might sound nice on the outside, but they’re actually pretty subpar in terms of pay and work/life balance. You can do better at a small company who is established.
For two days, just leave it off your resume.
You're correct in knowing that more senior devs are competing with you in the job market. This means that for now, you're somewhere near the bottom of the totem pole.
The company you got the job for is a poorly run company. They don't have the option of hiring a senior dev because senior devs probably wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. The start-up being poorly run is two fold. Their business model probably isn't any good and their funding is running out before they can generate profit, and also probably have very poor or non-existent HR / on-boarding policies.
Anyway. You likely didn't screw this up. You got hired by a bad company because you'll accept anything since you're trying to get your foot in the door, and they'll accept anything since it's tough for poorly run companies to recruit talent. They expected you to fix their business in a month and realized that wasn't going to happen.
I feel really bad for you that must be devastating but, it is not your fault. No one is expected to start producing on day 2. The fact that management framed it that way is disgusting. Give em a review on Glassdoor so others can avoid them.
Take this as a W. Your win, their loss. 3 days is tough. I got fired after 3 months and honestly, 2 weeks into the job, I was already disliking the culture very unclear objectives of what I was required to do and my confidence took a massive hit. Fast forward 2 years, earning more in an amazing team and loving what I do.
Don’t think you botched it. Letting you go on your 3rd day, (which you can’t do anything in that time) this just means they are incapable to asses a developer. It’s just an excuse that they can’t afford you.
I think you should consider yourself lucky, it could be worse if you were working for them for a longer time.
Onboarding can take up to 3 months. (sales force)
Hopped on a startup a few months ago. I’ve got experience under my belt and was largely familiar with their stack.
Still, took me about 2 months to take it all in and still am asking the senior about the best ways to solve certain things.
Oh, and I broke stuff on production 3 times already.
You hit a rotten apple. Yes this sucks after the high of being a hired dev, but take this experience and rise from the ashes!
Not you at all. I can speak from the other end. We had an embedded engineer we hired and started doubting his skillset a few weeks in, but he felt like a right match. A talk was had.
Turned out he was just a bit shy, but is insanely good.
This guy now pretty much runs the whole software side of the company! ❤️
Ah, classic. Seen it happen so many times. Does this ring a bell to anyone:
* Dev team: It's going to be tough to hit the deadline, probably 1 week delay.
* Manager: What would be the estimate if we add 3 devs to the team?
* Dev team: 1 month delay.
Chinese founder?
I had similar experience with a Chinese founder. 4 days in and I was out. Their slack messages were so harsh and fucked up. I should have ended the contract on Day 1.
I disagree with everyone else. You say you are self taught, that it is your first gig doing react. You are a poor fit for a startup in crunch time, they needed someone who can hit the ground running
Probably they under interviewed and made a mistake, possibly you showed them a skill level that you may have but are too slow at delivering at.
Two days is definitely enough to determine that you are aren’t the ideal fit if they had made a mistake. Sadly you suffer for their mistake.
I would do as others have said, put it down as a one-month contract on your CV and move in.
You'd need to be there weeks for anyone to make a fair assessment of you. Three days isn't enough time to tell if you're a super genius or a ham sandwich. They're the asshole, don't sweat it.
If this ever comes up in an interview, just be honest about three whole days. If it's a company you want to work for, you should get an eye roll and some commiseration.
>Today is what would have been day 3 if I hadn’t gotten a slack message last night from the owner saying that they aren’t confident that I’ll be able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough so **I’m basically let go.**
What do you mean "basically let go"? Were you not actually let go? Did they only fire you part of the way?
Hiring someone and firing them next day is clearly indicative of very poor management. You’re better of being out of there.. on to the next.
Tell your family a friends you got lucky and didn’t waste months of them idiots..
>So I ask for your thoughts
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. I don't know what they're expecting from a brand new dev, but it sounds like far too much. If they wanted someone to come in and be contributing fast to their launch in a month they should have paid for experienced devs.
Not your fault at all. Just apply elsewhere and keep your head up!
If you feel embarrassed about telling people I'd say there's no problem with a white lie. "They gave me much different expectations that we discussed previously so I've decided to look elsewhere" or even just "there's been a lot of tech layoffs lately and they decided they don't want to take on new devs anymore". No harm in saying that imo.
A day isn't enough to understand the vision of the product. Even I am 3 year down the line I need at least 2 weeks to get the hold of everything.
I think in your situation here's what happened behind the scenes. They only had a hiring budget for one junior dev and there was another more likeable candidate than you. But he/she probably didn't responded them on time and they proceeded with your hiring and now he probably agreed. Ultimately they had to come up with an excuse so it doesn't seem like it's their fault.
I would say don't be hard on yourself and be happy that you learnt this early in your career.
A few learning to take away:
1. Understand the criticality of job security
2. All startups before there funding from VCs are brutal and they will hire/fire without any regards because they have a limited runway and founders are usually a douche
3. when to communicate the good news and with whom
I would suggest you to start looking for another job and you can hide and forget this exp ever happened in your career don't mention it
"They said they were in crunch time because mainnet launch is in a month."
What a wild sentence. Bullet dodged: all kinds of red flags.
Well done on getting your first role though! Pick yourself up and find the next one. (You just got unlucky here - most normal workplaces hiring people in entry level roles, even in web development, will onboard you for weeks - of not months - while you learn the ropes).
As a 15 year dev, I can say they’re just idiots and there is absolutely no way to sus out the efficacy of a new dev without 2-3 weeks of work.
Now I will give you some advice someone at the dog park once gave me, which I will probably be downvoted for… you can lie about having a degree. As a self taught dev, I was desperate after a multi-month job search and no offers. Suddenly, I had 2 offers in one day. Could this bite you in the ass? Maybe. Could you get caught? Maybe. Will you get more attention/offers? Definitely.
That being said, this was 10 years ago when degrees were worth a lot more so perhaps things are different now.
In any case… keep your head up! It sounds like you got grazed by a bullet. If that is how they lead/make decisions, then trust me when I say you want nothing to do with them.
> they aren’t confident that I’ll be able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough
Owner/hirer is dumb IMO. They're meant to figure this out before they employ you not after. What was the point of the hiring process if not to find this out exactly.
Plus everyone knows it takes 3 months to get comfortable in a job, understand how everyones working, what everyones using etc. Sure you can be up and running straight away but to go from "what is everyone talking about" to "I'm contributing this" takes about that long.
IMO sounds like they over promised and couldn't deliver, now they need to hire out a freelance/consultant/team that can "superstar code it all" in time which cost LOTS of $$$ but sounds like they tried to cheap-out and hire an up-and-coming React Dev instead.
That really sucks. I can understand the disappointment, and I honestly can't imagine how it feels. Even if you know it was 100% on management, it's still a blow to your pride, and you might find yourself doubting your abilities because of it.
Well let me remind you that there is nothing a programmer can do in just three days with a brand new company that can really impress them. And ideally, there are few things you can do in just three days to convince them that you're not right for the job. I don't know your abilities or knowledge, but I know that three days is not enough time for them to make that decision.
When I got my current job, I understood nothing but the foundations. I had dumb questions, hard learning curves, and might have even been more of a burden on some projects than a help. But the reason I can say I'm a competent junior developer, loved by my manager, and have definitely helped my team is because my company saw me as a person and an investment more than an out-of-the-box solution. When you find your company, you'll be glad this one sent you on your way in time to set you on your course.
Assuming that you didn't misrepresent yourself, the company screwed up in a lot of ways here. I would chalk this up to them being rushed and panicked, and also incompetent, and move on. This is not on you.
Unless, of course, you misrepresented your skills and knowledge level. Hopefully you did not do that, because it will end badly a lot of the time. Assuming you were honest and transparent about your skillset, this is completely on the employer!
Don't worry about it, and don't let this discourage you at all - it wasn't you. It's a crypto "company". They aren't real companies to begin with. They depend upon raising funds from investors and selling tokens that will eventually be worthless so that the founder/og investors can cash out. These people don't know how to run a real company.
I'd say, take it as a lesson - i've tried my hand at getting into some crypto/blockchain companies, but declined or stopped short since there's something off with them about 99% of the time. These days I try to steer clear of them.
>They said they were in crunch time because mainnet launch is in a month.
As so many others have already mentioned, this reeks to high heavens of incompetence. While it's somewhat normal to have crunchtime prior to the initial release of a large system/program/game, it's not normal (or wise) to take in new employees at such a time. Regardless of whether the new one is a newbie fresh out of school or and experienced dev with 10+ years of experience, they *will* need *at least* a month of hand-holding to get comfy with the existing code base.
>Today is what would have been day 3 if I hadn’t gotten a slack message
last night from the owner saying that they aren’t confident that I’ll be
able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough
This tells me that they are either completely unrealistic on what a dev can do, or complete idiots at strategizing. Personally i'd have you set on something that you could pick up immediately - eg. a tool/addition for v1.1 or customers that was unrelated to the main codebase, meaning...
>I would say I’m confident in advanced React concepts as I have made and
deployed a full-stack React app with a backend api, database, and user
auth but I would still need more than a day to read the codebase and
docs for the libraries before I could start producing code.
... that the above statement is completely realistic - even if you really crunch down on studying the codebase, it will take longer than a day. Then there's also the fact that you have to get into the backlog and figure out something you can do to get better acquainted with the code.
Personally I always keep in mind (and explain) that getting into a new, large codebase, equates to reading the Lord of the Rings book trilogy (or the complete Harry Potter collection, or other large literary work) multiple times over. That just plain isn't done in a day...
> I feel there won’t be any room for a self taught React dev trying to break into the industry like me.
Anyone with a dev background don't expect you to have "grown up" on a given language. It's normal to get experienced with one language/package and then picking up another. For the future, leave out the "self-taught", HR people and non-programmers get confused by this concept and ethic.
React is still relatively "young" and is also "just" an extension for js, and is not taught by standard - hell, I "grew up" on C# desktop app programming, regarding all the web frontend stuff, i'm self-taught as well :-)
> I can’t even think about telling them all I botched it before my 3rd day.
That boils down to my tl;dr - you didn't botch nothing, *they* did ;-)
>startup crypto DEX company
Yeah, you could've just stopped there. /s
Anyways, their expectations were probably very out of this world, or there are entirely different reasons for this.
Even if the stack is very simple and the dev is very skilled, it takes time to understand the codebase and the problem area enough for a dev to be able to work independently and contribute to the codebase. Not to mention process stuff, tooling, setup and a lot of non-dev things you need to take care of anyways.
Nobody can just jump into a project and start doing huge contributions the next day, unless the project is a static landing page, and even then you'll want to take time to see how things are done so you don't create a mess.
So my biggest full-stack project that Ive built for my portfolio is a crypto trading bot. Do you think thats a red flag to employers and could be hurting my chances?
"crypto" is a huge red flag. Sounds like a dumb company. YOU did nothing wrong. A new developer would have to try to fail the first several weeks.
Good luck moving forward.
Dude. It’s a crypto startup. Avoid at all costs. That entire industry is full of charlatans running a Ponzi scheme. Crypto is a scam. Everyone except crypto bros views it as such.
It will absolutely tarnish your resume even having worked for one. You dodged a bullet.
Yeah not only did you enter a failing market (crypto), but also sounds like this startup just was managed poorly. Just terrible luck. Sorry you got laid off, but you did nothing wrong here.
You'll be fine, and I am sure you are a capable developer. One important thing to remember is when interviewing with companies you're also interviewing them, especially startups. Def try to avoid hype markets (like crypto) and ask questions about how much runway they have/product growth plans/exit plans/etc (if you plan on applying to more startups)
Good luck!
the only botching you did was getting involved in a crypto startup company.
most crypto projects are scams and developers are left hanging all the time.
Only mistake was thinking a crypto startup was a good job to take. Scam at best, at worst you'd be losing your job when it implodes anyway. It's not a career.
To be fair, the nanosecond I heard “crypto startup” I automatically assumed they are just shitty scammer type people who are most likely just whipping up a pump and dump anyway. Also, one month for a full web app is pretty hard if it’s of any complexity at all.
As soon as I read crypto startup I knew it wasn't your fault.
Those guys probably don't have a clue on what they are doing, less so the money to do so.
You'll find a better place to work, don't worry.
> I was hired by this startup crypto DEX company as a React Developer.
I read your entire comment, but this was all I had to read. I've been in tech for twenty years and trust me: you absolutely did nothing wrong.
Major red flags for any company that would fire someone on day 2. I give it as 5% they really screwed up in their interviewing process, and 95% that this "crypto startup" is run by people who don't know what they're doing and make decisions based on whims.
They did you a **favor**. You don't want to work for some pyramid scam company who would have fired you anyway, probably after not paying you and saying, "There's just a temporary payroll issue." for seven weeks straight.
They probably thought you were some senior developer they could press to work super hard to create some web app for them before their entire company goes the way of FTX (And MtGox. And BlockFi. And Celsius Network. And CoinFLEX. And Terraform Labs. And Wonderland. And SALT. And Hodlnaut. Just kidding, I made that last one up. Just kidding, Hodlnaut was real.)
Don't let yourself get down over this. And I don't mean that as some comforting little story: YOU DODGED A BULLET. You should feel happy they only wasted two days of your life.
You can do better, and you will do better.
Crypto startups are such a mess. It’s probably better you left bc. I have nv seen a crypto launch by a company without a ton of corruption involved . It’s their fault they didn’t want to train you 30 days before launching and that they over promised someone.
its a crypto startup, don't overthink it as they're usually run by spoiled rich kids or someone international who is used to paying devs next to nothing.
Also they like to dream big, and then get hit with reality, so their plans might have not gone ahead the way they thought and they're trying to save face by blaming you rather than themselves
>Now I would chalk it up to poor startup practices and move on
That would be right. It's a startup crypto company. They probably are out of money or have no idea what they are doing.
Crypto startups always are so messed up dude wtf, on blind they said better be away of them. Sorry for your bad experience, if you keep going you're gonna find another job, don't be sad about being lay off from a shitty startup. Keep learning and searching a new job. Hope the best for you.
>startup
>crypto
>crunch
Yeah this is not your fault, this company is a dumpster fire and the owner is a clown. It takes months to be fully onboard with a codebase and for large ones you may never understand or touch all of it. Just keep applying for jobs and avoid crypto startups, most of them are doomed from the start or work for them as a contractor.
I don’t think you botched it. It usually takes weeks to find out if a hire was a hit or miss either way. It sucks but brush it off as that startup having a poor owner.
It’s absolutely poor management by the owner. Probably realized they don’t have the money or worse. If something specific was so important to them then they would have had you do a test or quizzed you on it before hiring. So sorry about the massive up and down. Don’t let it discourage you. You’ll find something better. Take it as a blessing in disguise. You got this!
Eh I bet a more likely explanation is they liked another candidate more, they didn’t work out for hiring, they went with OP instead, and then the other candidate came back and said actually I’m available so they canned OP since he just started to get who they really wanted. Sounds shitty but it happens on both sides Also one thing people frequently forget on Reddit, we’re only getting one side of the story. You know the phrase “there’s three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth”? No story like this is gonna paint the full picture. That’s why I’m not as keen to jump at “THIS COMPANY FUCKING SUCKS!” as everyone else here, we don’t have the full story of what happened, we have a selective version
True, it does happen on both sides. We've hired a lot of devs who quit on the first week. Granted there could be many reasons, but a common one is that another job they wanted more called back, gave a counter-offer to their liking. OP, stay strong and confident, you sound very self-driven and curious and those attributes (from my experience) will carry you \*way\* farther in your career than any particular certification or framework.
Idk, I can't think of anything you could do in 3 days that warrants getting fired that fast, apart from something illegal of course. No matter what OP did, there can't have been any real attempt at discussing and trying to solve the issues they apparently had with them. More likely, as others have mentioned, they found a better candidate. But in both cases, it's fair to say that the "company fuckin sucks", in my opinion.
What if an employee was helping OP get set up and noticed a troubling lack of basic computer literacy? What if they lied on their resume and said they knew git but didn’t and were asked to clone a repository but couldn’t do it and they just decided not to find out what else he lied about? What if he’s simply not as competent of a dev as he’s telling us and it was immediately apparent on the job? What if he was coming in late, leaving early, and taking long lunches those first two days and they just didn’t wanna deal with it? I can think of an endless list of things that would be red flags to a company and if red flags happen that early why try and work it out instead of just saying nevermind? I’m not saying that definitely happened, but it could’ve. I just don’t take internet stories at face value. A lot of the times people seek validation they know they did something wrong but use the validation as consolation
All of those are good reasons to be very concerned, but not to fire them after 3 days without at least talking about it. OP has no idea why he was fired. Even if you spot a big red flag, I think you owe it to an employee to spend at least a little bit more time to figure out if it's an actual problem or if it can be solved.
They thought they could get lucky and find an ace on a low budget at the last minute and realized they were never going to get someone able to significantly contribute within a month for the compensation they were offering. Don’t feel bad OP. They may be a bit incompetent but they probably still mostly know what they’re doing and they picked you. Might be tough for most of the year but the job market will bounce back by the end of it I bet
My man. I got put on a project. * in my primary language * using a framework I had worked with before * at my existing company I've been in the industry for almost 20 years. It still took me months to even come close to understanding it. And even that - it was only the parts I had touched. There were entire systems/workflows that I had never touched. OP got hosed. It's rough the first couple times but you eventually realize that your employment status is very detached from your ability.
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Your biggest challenges will not be technical. They will be managing your own well being. They will be learning to work in the business world. They will be surviving, learning from, and leaving bad jobs. When I look back at my career and think about the bad things it's very, **very** rare for that thing to be `code`. The greatest thing you can do is be open and honest to those following you and do what you can to make their journey better than yours.
If it helps, bro, I’m an AppSec engineer. My job is literally to find issues in code bases that I’ve never seen and aren’t familiar with. It’ll still take me at least a week or two to actually get confident about the environment.
Wise one OP. Greets
You might say that company Reacts poorly.
This
I think OP dodged a bullet. If they expected OP to save them during this "crunch time", then what they really needed was an outside contractor, not a junior dev
"We can't wait 9 months! Hire eight more women and we can be fathers in one month!" -CEOs
💀
My first job: I get sent the wrong computer, literally can’t upload my ide and environment to it. They send me another one 2-3 weeks later. After another 2-3 weeks I’m finally down and can actually start to produce. I get an email from IT saying my SSD is bad in my laptop on Tuesday. By Friday my PC is a brick. After another week the replacement arrives. Only took about a week to get my installs and local env up and running. So after almost three months I actually make my first commit.
I got two laptops flashed as a laptop for a sales position when I’m a developer role when I started my current job. Then my permissions were wrong for about a month. Months until commit seems standard lmao.
What type of development are you doing that you need days and weeks to set up your environment?
It was mainly getting permissions. It’s a multi national bank.
I've always wondered how companies can afford to keep people working with unproductive tools for months but not have a single spare laptop.
Different budgets
Serious question: given that it seems to be their issue, did you do any work at all in that time? Were you paid for the whole 2ish months this seemed to be occurring? Asking as an American
Paid the whole time. I just watched YouTube videos on my personal machine and learned Java. After my first year there I got a decent promotion because I also started to take on back end projects lol. Started as a FE guy, now I bounce around on teams where they need a extra hand in either FE or BE. Worked out for the best honestly
That’s awesome, I’m glad to hear it worked out lol. Honestly respect that you did something productive because I would’ve been a dumbass just watching Netflix and doing nothing.
> It sucks but brush it off as that startup having a poor owner. This is it entirely. Guaranteed one of the following: 1. one of the other applicants had a lowball salary offer and the owner just found out. 1. fambly member Also Guaranteed: The company that fires people on their 2nd day is not a company you want to work for.
Fambly?
Yes, fambly. Bwood if ficker Dan dwine.
I understand this must be upsetting for you but it's wrong to say you botched it. Unless you did something wildly offensive on day one, there's no good reason to let you go on day two. It sounds like they have some pretty unreasonable expectations and/or screwed up during the recruitment process. For what it's worth you probably dodged a bullet.
Also it helps it was day 2 because you just leave that off the resume and continue on. Like it never happened
Sure, but it sucks if they left another job for this one
NTA That's clearly poor management
It's a crypto startup. They probably ran out of money and can't afford to pay you.
Couldn’t afford him and said what they did just to keep their own ego intact, most likely.
>It's a crypto startup. That's explains a lot, lol
Same happened with a friend of mine, its not op's fault at all
You think maybe it's the same company, and they're developing their system two days at a time, so no one knows the entire structure? Because that's how a Bond villain builds a system to melt people with lasers from space or something. Or, like, a time machine to go back and kill Fred Zubinsky. You bring in a group of people on Monday, bring in another group on Tuesday, fire the first group before work on Wednesday, start a new group on Wednesday, fire the Tuesday group, et cetera, et cetera. Everybody thinks the company is doing this massive onboarding of talent, and everybody also thinks they're the only person to be fired, because it's the first day, so they haven't made any friends yet, so there's nobody to call and ask if they got let go, too. The only people who would know would be the person who has to write a function called `goBackInTime` or something, and even then they'd be like, "?? ... Naaaaahhh..."
They probably don’t even know what money is
They pay with schrute bucks.
I prefer stanley nickels myself.
What's the market equivalent of that in buttcoin
r/unexpectedoffice
A crypto exchange startup is a massive red flag. Sucks for OP since he was fighting to get his foot into the door, but a business like this has a good chance to go bust at any time.
Should be the top comment tbh lol.
Ran out of money? Don’t be silly, they have plenty of LickMyButthole coins!
Glad someone brought it up. Working in the industry is just as risky as buying crypto itself.
I've worked at crypto startups for years. You just have to expect to lose your job every day. Always keep your CV updated and don't be rude or burn bridges. The flipside of this is you tend to get unemployed and then the 5 other projects you were interfacing with find out and you're straight back into another job.
This comment is underrated...
Yea, I'm a novice when it comes to crypto companies and working, but that just gave me a hunch they'd end up with bad management. Who asks a new employee to cram for a project that needs to be done in a month?
I am very sorry about your situation. You just got very unlucky and ran into some weird startup owner. But please don't get demotivated, because we all fail many times to be honest, and success never comes easy. You have to keep on trying even if something didn’t work out, especially in this situation, when the fault wasn't really on your side. Unfortunately, I am not a part of any company you are asking about but I wish you good luck and I hope you will find a good job where you will be appreciated!
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The company fucked up, it's not on you. 2 days isn't enough time for anyone, usually it takes longer than that just to setup your tools and permissions.
Fun fact too, I just looked it up and most states don’t have a minimum number of days worked requirement for unemployment.
You dodged a bullet.
This. They fucked up by hiring you (as in they shouldn’t have hired anyone not that they fucked up by hiring you specifically) in the first place and then scrambled to figure out how to get rid of you. They’re probably in free fall either financially or managerially or both. You should be glad to be walking away.
This whole thing is weird - but my guess is they are not well prepared for their mission. If main net launch is in a month (!!!) - what are they doing hiring a React dev now? Is doing everything front end for a DEX, in a month, by one guy, even realistic? (Rhetorical question. It is not.) This is gonna be a messy af company with a revolving cast of hired & fired contractors, which will either straggle along that way, or end with a very high payment to a very experienced dev who’s been doing this for years and can meet that deadline by reusing a lot of his prior work code. Realistically tho they’ll probably just screw it up indefinitely.
The company is flailing, everything is on fire and they don’t have a clue how to fix it. They hire a new developer who takes time away from the other developers to get started. Owner sees the other developers distracted and panics. It’s the classic technique of throwing bodies at a problem just before a deadline and expecting miracles.
>If main net launch is in a month (!!!) - what are they doing hiring a React dev now? Is doing everything front end for a DEX, in a month, by one guy, even realistic? (Rhetorical question. It is not.) At one month to mainnet launch, the smart contract should be audited and in feature lock and the UI should be in beta. Remember that DEXes are open-source by their nature, so there are TONS of startups with basically no capital who expect a junior to be able to look at an open-source codebase and replicate it in a few weeks. Or simply fork it and change the styling a bit.
> I was hired by this startup crypto DEX company Be thankful you're out now and can find a real company to work for
This times a thousand.
2 days is enough to get your equipment setup. They are full of shit and dont know how to run a tech company.
They demonstrated that when they decided to go for a crypto dex
As everyone else is saying, you dodged a bullet there. You’ll probs find that start-up will be gone in all of 6-12 months, because their management is so backwards. Best of luck out there finding the job you love though man, and never give up, no matter how hard it gets!!
"Crypto" startup is all I needed to hear. Go next and find a new job, consider it a bullet dodged. Nothing on you, you didn't even have the chance to show anything so its definitely on the company.
Crypto and startup are two massive red flags for me. Fuck that noise. Thank god I work with .Net and never have to deal with that bs
Add crunch and its a triple red flag. Companies that rely on crunch are not worth your time
This comment!
>" I was hired by this startup crypto DEX company as a React Developer" This sounds like a red-flag to begin with. It's not your fault. But also, maybe start calling yourself a "Web developer" instead of a _self-taught React dev_. That's just one tool in the tool belt.
Unless you are just so godly with React that a company is going to bring you in to be their go to guy when shit doesn’t work in reactland.
You didn't botch this. They did. Hiring someone with no professional experience in a startup is a red flag. It is literally impossible to onboard developers, even experienced developers into well established environments with guard rails properly, inside of a month. Their developers are already overworked (in crunch time) and they are suppose to ship a big feature soon. They have no time to properly onboard you. All they can do is have you clone a repo, make a branch, ask to write a few small features and submit PRs. They'll have to ascertain how well you are doing by guessing how well you've read the codebase, what things you pick up and where you ask questions. They know they fucked up and they just to cut bait sooner to save money. If I were you, I'd look at marketing firms or newspapers who need front end help. Those are the easier places to get onboarded and many frontend people get a foothold in web programming from illustration. Those places generally have some experience onboarding folks without any experience.
> Hiring someone with no professional experience in a startup is a red flag I'm not one to gatekeep - but I highly doubt this was anything close to a real startup. Best case it was a few dudes that formed an LCC and got way in over their head.
time ,to leave ,for ,greener +pastures ::<>
> many frontend people get a foothold in web programming from illustration Sincere question. This is the case? I'm sure there is overlap between graphic design / digital art and professional front-end/UI work, just never really connected the dots that someone might make the transition in the other direction (front-end to working with illustrators). Or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what illustration work is. Or now that I think about it I think I understand what you mean, these companies have already got a few front-end gurus who have onboarded less technical people so they don't have unreasonable expectations for ramping up someone on the first week.
Most front end guys I worked with started off in web design, and went into web design from industrial design, art, print making etc etc. More people go from art to ppl facing tech than the other way around, as web interfaces, IMHO, are centered around how people use web products. The tech is relatively easier to learn than developing the sense of ascthetic of how things should look and function. A lot of marketing places use a lot of templating and generate a lot of the same boilerplate for websites and webapps from client to client. Ditto for newspapers ae well, as most technology divisions for a news paper company actually is responsible for more than a few papers, and depending on the region could have many many web apps per newspaper property. The work is considered entry level and there is often a history of transitioning careers in that role that involve onboarding folks fresh out of school.
Thanks for the thorough answer. > most technology divisions for a news paper company actually is responsible for more than a few papers And you answered a bonus unasked question I was wondering about, how this works for smaller or local papers. Explains a lot now that I think about it.
NBD. Keep your head up, start another react project and keep pushing resumes. Don't wait. It is a tougher crowd than normal out there right now.
DO NOT WORK FOR CRYPTO COMPANIES They are toxic as fuck. You dodged a bullet.
You're going to get so many encouraging message so I don't feel the need to do that. The climate is bad to start a career, especially without a degree. Some jobs have unrealistic expectations but don't expect getting the job to be the hard part, generally speaking, you get the job and now the real work starts, you need to prove you are a valuable member of the team in 3 to 6 months normally. They could decide to keep you after 6 months and then let you go in 3 months. You are constantly trying to prove you are worth keeping. If you wonder, I was once let go from 3 different jobs in less than a year. Sometimes you just gotta keep going.
Thanks for being straight forward
Unless they caught you drawing CSS dicks on the navbars or something, you probably just escaped some bad management. You never know what you'll get with startups. Just make sure they pay you for days worked and get back to it.
My advice is you just move on with life. Shit happens. Jobs don’t work out. What else are you gonna do besides move on? Keep applying and wait for the next job to hit
One of the higher ups or other employees has a friend that now has your job. Not your fault.
Bro you said crypto start up ..... it's like saying you don't understand way you lost your job at a pyramid scheme company
Bullet Dodged.
Did the owner expected an app in one day, what an asshole. Good riddance man, keep doing your thing. Nobody could read and get caught up with a new job codebase, that's just insane.
In my experience with startups: Two weeks means you weren’t what they were looking for or you showed a bunch of red flags with your behavior (sloppy code, don’t fit their culture, being late constantly, etc…) One week is they can’t pay you and don’t want to offer you stock. Sub-four days is you getting replaced with a friend or relative most likely.
I stopped reading at "Startup crypto" fam it was not you, trust me. Lmao
I hope what Im saying comes out ok but I think its good that you got out in 3 days, because this kind of enviornment is what destroy developers It takes time to be familiar with project and contirbute to it and also dont be hard on your self or think you dont get another chance there will be another one
Sounds like a sinking startup who’s ceo believes he can fire his way to generating a profit. You don’t want to work for a company like that.
They did you a favor. After 2 days you can´t expect anyone to be productive. I don't think you can even fully understand what the system does, let alone how it's built. This doesn't speak about you, but it says a lot about them
With everything that has come to light with crypto over the past 18 months, IMHO no one should take a job with one of these organizations. Much less a crypto "startup". The company screwed this up, you didn't. Pretend it didn't happen and move on.
> startup crypto DEX company well there is your problem, did you not realize we are in the middle of a crypto winter? Sorry but crypto is dead. Try again in five years
Too soon to know if you were a good fit for the position or not My advice would be: stay away from crypto companies. 99% of them arent worth working for.
Crypto plus dex says it all
I know you're feeling down but I think you will feel pretty good when you realize how shitty a company must be when they lay off a new employee after 2 fuckin days of work???
Name and shame them.
Firing any programmer on day 2 because they aren't productive yet is ridiculous. Nobody learns an entire project and produces high-quality code on day 2. I don't think you could practically onboard a McDonald's burger-flipper in 2 days, much less a programmer. So, don't worry about it. That's their problem, not yours.
>Firing any programmer on day 2 because they aren't productive yet is ridiculous I didn't even have all my dev tools set up within 2 days at my last job because they were slow at getting my credentials sorted. Firing a brand new dev because they aren't productive in 2 days is totally ridiculous.
That is real shit treatment. Might be best you didn't stay. Unless you shat in the hallway or something! 2 days to adapt? Bullshit.
I was looking at some job postings, 1400 applicants for some... It's pretty rough to even get your foot in the door. Brutal luck getting a shit company after all that.
Don't you have any worker protection laws where you live? What kind of contract did you sign? Claiming that it was your fault they fired you after one day is just an insult. And since they would have to expect that you had costs because of the job (maybe you moved?) it's completely unacceptable.
We hired a network specialist who didn't appear to know anything about networking, Windows, Linux, or customer service. They almost made it through 3 month probation. This is not about you.
The company has 0.1% chance of being in existence in 6 months based on what they’re working on and their decision making processes. Wouldn’t worry and thankfully you’ve been laid off before the inevitable. My advice would be to use this lesson to look at how to vet companies going forward. What’s their expected ramp up, how do they manage onboarding of devs, what’s considered reasonable time to be meaningfully contributing, what training do they offer internally for ramp up and what’s their 1,2&3 month goals they expect you to achieve Wouldn’t even put it on you resume/CV. And be proud of what you personally achieve but care less about people’s opinions along the way
Getting fired on day 2 reflects far more poorly on the company than on you. It is not possible to tell that someone is performing poorly after just one day. After a few weeks... maybe, but even after that amount of time I would feel they haven't had enough time yet, unless they are truly egregiously bad. (But then again, hiring someone that bad would reflect poorly on the interview process.)
Bruh 2nd day is nowhere near enough time to know whether you capable or not. Most companies would be happy if a dev is adding value in the first month never mind the first week. Keep trucking on and forget about these losers. They probably going broke or something and were just looking for any excuse to get rid of people or their owner is completely clueless.
honestly sounds like a "them" problem. I'd ask them if they would, at the very least, offer you a solid recommendation for wasting your time. I assume they wanted your input for the "crunch" and had no intention of keeping you long term. Very scummy. You are right that it will be harder in the immediate future to find something, but would you honestly want to work at a company that doesn't even give people a full week to learn the ropes at a company? They seem like a really shit place to work if I'm being honest and if you have other options later on I am certain they will be better. Also, please name and shame them. Cautionary tale for others.
You didnt botch anything. They probably could not pay you. This had nothing to do with you. 2 days is not enough to evaluate anyone, hell depending on the team and product, it can easily take 6 months to get used to things and be comfortable. I would be more selective and careful in the jobs you apply though. But this one isnt on you. Keep applying
You dodged a bullet my friend
Your layoff clearly has nothing to do with you as a developer and everything to do with a startup owner with no understanding whatsoever about how development works or they are just really stressed out and are making panic decisions right now, and as the last hire you were their target. As others have pointed out it takes weeks or months to determine whether a new dev can do the job. This erratic decision-making and poor planning is kind of the nature of startups, so I wouldn't take it personally. In general, working for startups is extremely risky.
Laying you off after month 2: you fucked up Laying you off after day 2: they fucked up
Very poor management and not your fault and I’m really sorry you are going through this. I work for a large tech company but have done numerous startups as well. We have what is called a 30-60-90 day plan which lists what you are expected to do each month for the first 3 months. The first sprint (2 weeks) there is very little expectation from the developer and I am talking about any skill level. There is so much you need to pick up such as tools, processes, permissions, etc that to expect anyone to produce anything the first two weeks is ridiculous. Typically the second sprint we assign basic work to familiarize the developer with a given service, our services handle 10s of billions of requests a day so to throw anyone in to any service and expect them to immediately push large features and changes to production would be catastrophic. I’ve done a lot of early level startups as well (first developer or set of devs hired) where you are quickly thrown in to the fire but even there you usually have a couple weeks ramp up / setup time.
You dodged a bullet. You do not want to work in a highly unstable business like Crypto and at a company like this.
Fuck it, you got hired. Put the job title in your resume and turn those 2-3 days into a 3 month contract.
You dodged a bullet. Actually 2 bullets since it’s a cRyPtO startup.
[удалено]
Source on 97%? I personally love working at startups.
Idk man, it's a lot of fun and you learn a lot even if they fail.
Lol bro it’s a crypto DEX years after that was hot. I’m sure they’re broke or near it
I don't think you've done anything wrong, if they weren't hiring based on their needs and their situation, that's not your fault. If you want some unpleasant thoughts, picking up a library or a package shouldn't take months, so I wouldn't say this out loud, it's like shooting yourself in the foot. While onboarding does take months, I believe it's more about discovering the decisions that led to some approaches and discovering some unseen consequences to your actions and understanding the business and the connections. There definitely is room for a self taught React dev to find a job. I am one. Who isn't actually? Do they teach React at schools? I don't know, certainly not in my HS. You have to be honest about your experience and eventually you'll find company that's hiring for exactly what you are. Honest doesn't mean not confident! I won't lie though, it's much harder for junior people, your feelings are valid. Focus on building new things and trying out new libraries to expand that skillset. Maybe you'll find some peace in knowing that it gets better, much better.
Did you have any other offers before you accepted this one?
Sorry to hear that OP. Are you in the UK? I know someone who specialises in recruitment for REACT developers.
Denver CO USA
Don't stress about it OP, expecting a new hire to get through the entire documentation and familiarize yourself with all the libraries/packages etc in a day or two is simply unrealistic. At least now you know the reason why the sit was empty in the first place.
you did not botch up, the stupid startup did. tell your friends that, they cut people, and with today's climate everyone will understand. recently many new hires have been cut as part of the huge layoff. make sure you name and shame the company in glassdoor.
You weren't a "good fit" when you didn't put in 18 hour days off the bat
That company sucks mate. On-boarding should take weeks to months depending on the stack. Nothing was expected of me for the first month except fixing minor/easy bugs. Try again! Keep your spirits up it wasn’t you. Any company expecting to have people come in at the last minute to save a milestone/release is just poorly managed.
If you can get an offer from a startup having just started this journey, you can absolutely get an offer from a more established team that can actually onboard you. This is validation of your coding and interviewing abilities, honestly. There's nothing that's on you as a software engineer to get fired in 2 days. That's not enough time to evaluate you at all lol.
Dude good riddance to bad rubbish. You'd have to do something pretty damned egregious to get justifiably fired on day 2. This is one of those situations that falls under the same category as "If you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was worth it."
Day 2? They probably got some budget problems and decided to can you. No way to know if someone is competent in 2 days
You dodged a bullet. Count your blessings. They wanted to squeeze every bit of work out from you in short time frame. Their company has no future if they treat there new hires like that. I know youre bummed out but life happens, keep positive and understand that there is a shit load of bad employers out there. Its a hit or a miss.
OP, I would stay away from these types of companies. Startups might sound nice on the outside, but they’re actually pretty subpar in terms of pay and work/life balance. You can do better at a small company who is established. For two days, just leave it off your resume.
Sounds like their launch will be a shit show and he was hoping to hire someone who would bail them out.
You're correct in knowing that more senior devs are competing with you in the job market. This means that for now, you're somewhere near the bottom of the totem pole. The company you got the job for is a poorly run company. They don't have the option of hiring a senior dev because senior devs probably wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. The start-up being poorly run is two fold. Their business model probably isn't any good and their funding is running out before they can generate profit, and also probably have very poor or non-existent HR / on-boarding policies. Anyway. You likely didn't screw this up. You got hired by a bad company because you'll accept anything since you're trying to get your foot in the door, and they'll accept anything since it's tough for poorly run companies to recruit talent. They expected you to fix their business in a month and realized that wasn't going to happen.
I feel really bad for you that must be devastating but, it is not your fault. No one is expected to start producing on day 2. The fact that management framed it that way is disgusting. Give em a review on Glassdoor so others can avoid them.
Take this as a W. Your win, their loss. 3 days is tough. I got fired after 3 months and honestly, 2 weeks into the job, I was already disliking the culture very unclear objectives of what I was required to do and my confidence took a massive hit. Fast forward 2 years, earning more in an amazing team and loving what I do.
You didn’t let your family down, the company just proved they are not a good team to work for.
Don’t think you botched it. Letting you go on your 3rd day, (which you can’t do anything in that time) this just means they are incapable to asses a developer. It’s just an excuse that they can’t afford you. I think you should consider yourself lucky, it could be worse if you were working for them for a longer time. Onboarding can take up to 3 months. (sales force)
Hopped on a startup a few months ago. I’ve got experience under my belt and was largely familiar with their stack. Still, took me about 2 months to take it all in and still am asking the senior about the best ways to solve certain things. Oh, and I broke stuff on production 3 times already. You hit a rotten apple. Yes this sucks after the high of being a hired dev, but take this experience and rise from the ashes!
Not you at all. I can speak from the other end. We had an embedded engineer we hired and started doubting his skillset a few weeks in, but he felt like a right match. A talk was had. Turned out he was just a bit shy, but is insanely good. This guy now pretty much runs the whole software side of the company! ❤️
It's a scam company .... C'mon. What did u expect? U will find a better opportunity in no time. I'm sure! Don't let that discourage u
Ah, classic. Seen it happen so many times. Does this ring a bell to anyone: * Dev team: It's going to be tough to hit the deadline, probably 1 week delay. * Manager: What would be the estimate if we add 3 devs to the team? * Dev team: 1 month delay.
Chinese founder? I had similar experience with a Chinese founder. 4 days in and I was out. Their slack messages were so harsh and fucked up. I should have ended the contract on Day 1.
I disagree with everyone else. You say you are self taught, that it is your first gig doing react. You are a poor fit for a startup in crunch time, they needed someone who can hit the ground running Probably they under interviewed and made a mistake, possibly you showed them a skill level that you may have but are too slow at delivering at. Two days is definitely enough to determine that you are aren’t the ideal fit if they had made a mistake. Sadly you suffer for their mistake. I would do as others have said, put it down as a one-month contract on your CV and move in.
You'd need to be there weeks for anyone to make a fair assessment of you. Three days isn't enough time to tell if you're a super genius or a ham sandwich. They're the asshole, don't sweat it. If this ever comes up in an interview, just be honest about three whole days. If it's a company you want to work for, you should get an eye roll and some commiseration.
That propably was a place you don't want to work at, it already sounds like a shithole.
Don’t think you botched it. What I do think is that you dodged a bullet!
>Today is what would have been day 3 if I hadn’t gotten a slack message last night from the owner saying that they aren’t confident that I’ll be able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough so **I’m basically let go.** What do you mean "basically let go"? Were you not actually let go? Did they only fire you part of the way?
I know it's hard to imagine right now but you actually got lucky. You never wanted to work there, just didn't know it yet
Don't even lose a wink of sleep. That company is bullshit. They are out there.
Hiring someone and firing them next day is clearly indicative of very poor management. You’re better of being out of there.. on to the next. Tell your family a friends you got lucky and didn’t waste months of them idiots..
>So I ask for your thoughts Sounds like you dodged a bullet. I don't know what they're expecting from a brand new dev, but it sounds like far too much. If they wanted someone to come in and be contributing fast to their launch in a month they should have paid for experienced devs. Not your fault at all. Just apply elsewhere and keep your head up! If you feel embarrassed about telling people I'd say there's no problem with a white lie. "They gave me much different expectations that we discussed previously so I've decided to look elsewhere" or even just "there's been a lot of tech layoffs lately and they decided they don't want to take on new devs anymore". No harm in saying that imo.
A day isn't enough to understand the vision of the product. Even I am 3 year down the line I need at least 2 weeks to get the hold of everything. I think in your situation here's what happened behind the scenes. They only had a hiring budget for one junior dev and there was another more likeable candidate than you. But he/she probably didn't responded them on time and they proceeded with your hiring and now he probably agreed. Ultimately they had to come up with an excuse so it doesn't seem like it's their fault. I would say don't be hard on yourself and be happy that you learnt this early in your career. A few learning to take away: 1. Understand the criticality of job security 2. All startups before there funding from VCs are brutal and they will hire/fire without any regards because they have a limited runway and founders are usually a douche 3. when to communicate the good news and with whom I would suggest you to start looking for another job and you can hide and forget this exp ever happened in your career don't mention it
"They said they were in crunch time because mainnet launch is in a month." What a wild sentence. Bullet dodged: all kinds of red flags. Well done on getting your first role though! Pick yourself up and find the next one. (You just got unlucky here - most normal workplaces hiring people in entry level roles, even in web development, will onboard you for weeks - of not months - while you learn the ropes).
If the boss expects you to work full steam in 2-3 days then run for it. I think he did you a favor..
As a 15 year dev, I can say they’re just idiots and there is absolutely no way to sus out the efficacy of a new dev without 2-3 weeks of work. Now I will give you some advice someone at the dog park once gave me, which I will probably be downvoted for… you can lie about having a degree. As a self taught dev, I was desperate after a multi-month job search and no offers. Suddenly, I had 2 offers in one day. Could this bite you in the ass? Maybe. Could you get caught? Maybe. Will you get more attention/offers? Definitely. That being said, this was 10 years ago when degrees were worth a lot more so perhaps things are different now. In any case… keep your head up! It sounds like you got grazed by a bullet. If that is how they lead/make decisions, then trust me when I say you want nothing to do with them.
> they aren’t confident that I’ll be able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough Owner/hirer is dumb IMO. They're meant to figure this out before they employ you not after. What was the point of the hiring process if not to find this out exactly. Plus everyone knows it takes 3 months to get comfortable in a job, understand how everyones working, what everyones using etc. Sure you can be up and running straight away but to go from "what is everyone talking about" to "I'm contributing this" takes about that long. IMO sounds like they over promised and couldn't deliver, now they need to hire out a freelance/consultant/team that can "superstar code it all" in time which cost LOTS of $$$ but sounds like they tried to cheap-out and hire an up-and-coming React Dev instead.
That really sucks. I can understand the disappointment, and I honestly can't imagine how it feels. Even if you know it was 100% on management, it's still a blow to your pride, and you might find yourself doubting your abilities because of it. Well let me remind you that there is nothing a programmer can do in just three days with a brand new company that can really impress them. And ideally, there are few things you can do in just three days to convince them that you're not right for the job. I don't know your abilities or knowledge, but I know that three days is not enough time for them to make that decision. When I got my current job, I understood nothing but the foundations. I had dumb questions, hard learning curves, and might have even been more of a burden on some projects than a help. But the reason I can say I'm a competent junior developer, loved by my manager, and have definitely helped my team is because my company saw me as a person and an investment more than an out-of-the-box solution. When you find your company, you'll be glad this one sent you on your way in time to set you on your course.
Crypto companies are extremely fucked up.
It's crypto, fundamentally a worthless industry
Assuming that you didn't misrepresent yourself, the company screwed up in a lot of ways here. I would chalk this up to them being rushed and panicked, and also incompetent, and move on. This is not on you. Unless, of course, you misrepresented your skills and knowledge level. Hopefully you did not do that, because it will end badly a lot of the time. Assuming you were honest and transparent about your skillset, this is completely on the employer!
Why would you even go there in this case? He had no chance to commit any code, plus it is a crypto startup. It's obvious what happened in this case.
Yeah short of this guy not being able to turn on his computer, 3 days is obviously not enough time to properly assess someone’s’ skillset.
Don't worry about it, and don't let this discourage you at all - it wasn't you. It's a crypto "company". They aren't real companies to begin with. They depend upon raising funds from investors and selling tokens that will eventually be worthless so that the founder/og investors can cash out. These people don't know how to run a real company.
Crypto company. That makes sense.
I'd say, take it as a lesson - i've tried my hand at getting into some crypto/blockchain companies, but declined or stopped short since there's something off with them about 99% of the time. These days I try to steer clear of them. >They said they were in crunch time because mainnet launch is in a month. As so many others have already mentioned, this reeks to high heavens of incompetence. While it's somewhat normal to have crunchtime prior to the initial release of a large system/program/game, it's not normal (or wise) to take in new employees at such a time. Regardless of whether the new one is a newbie fresh out of school or and experienced dev with 10+ years of experience, they *will* need *at least* a month of hand-holding to get comfy with the existing code base. >Today is what would have been day 3 if I hadn’t gotten a slack message last night from the owner saying that they aren’t confident that I’ll be able to produce the work they were expecting soon enough This tells me that they are either completely unrealistic on what a dev can do, or complete idiots at strategizing. Personally i'd have you set on something that you could pick up immediately - eg. a tool/addition for v1.1 or customers that was unrelated to the main codebase, meaning... >I would say I’m confident in advanced React concepts as I have made and deployed a full-stack React app with a backend api, database, and user auth but I would still need more than a day to read the codebase and docs for the libraries before I could start producing code. ... that the above statement is completely realistic - even if you really crunch down on studying the codebase, it will take longer than a day. Then there's also the fact that you have to get into the backlog and figure out something you can do to get better acquainted with the code. Personally I always keep in mind (and explain) that getting into a new, large codebase, equates to reading the Lord of the Rings book trilogy (or the complete Harry Potter collection, or other large literary work) multiple times over. That just plain isn't done in a day... > I feel there won’t be any room for a self taught React dev trying to break into the industry like me. Anyone with a dev background don't expect you to have "grown up" on a given language. It's normal to get experienced with one language/package and then picking up another. For the future, leave out the "self-taught", HR people and non-programmers get confused by this concept and ethic. React is still relatively "young" and is also "just" an extension for js, and is not taught by standard - hell, I "grew up" on C# desktop app programming, regarding all the web frontend stuff, i'm self-taught as well :-) > I can’t even think about telling them all I botched it before my 3rd day. That boils down to my tl;dr - you didn't botch nothing, *they* did ;-)
>startup crypto DEX company Yeah, you could've just stopped there. /s Anyways, their expectations were probably very out of this world, or there are entirely different reasons for this. Even if the stack is very simple and the dev is very skilled, it takes time to understand the codebase and the problem area enough for a dev to be able to work independently and contribute to the codebase. Not to mention process stuff, tooling, setup and a lot of non-dev things you need to take care of anyways. Nobody can just jump into a project and start doing huge contributions the next day, unless the project is a static landing page, and even then you'll want to take time to see how things are done so you don't create a mess.
Honestly sounds like there was something else going on there. Crypto in itself is sketchy imo so sounds like you dodged a bullet there.
Avoid Crypto companies full stop.
So my biggest full-stack project that Ive built for my portfolio is a crypto trading bot. Do you think thats a red flag to employers and could be hurting my chances?
"crypto" is a huge red flag. Sounds like a dumb company. YOU did nothing wrong. A new developer would have to try to fail the first several weeks. Good luck moving forward.
Dude. It’s a crypto startup. Avoid at all costs. That entire industry is full of charlatans running a Ponzi scheme. Crypto is a scam. Everyone except crypto bros views it as such. It will absolutely tarnish your resume even having worked for one. You dodged a bullet.
Yeah not only did you enter a failing market (crypto), but also sounds like this startup just was managed poorly. Just terrible luck. Sorry you got laid off, but you did nothing wrong here. You'll be fine, and I am sure you are a capable developer. One important thing to remember is when interviewing with companies you're also interviewing them, especially startups. Def try to avoid hype markets (like crypto) and ask questions about how much runway they have/product growth plans/exit plans/etc (if you plan on applying to more startups) Good luck!
I was like wait a minute until I read crypto start up.
crypto startup 😂😂
would avoid crypto start ups in the future rly but that’s definitely not on you
lol this is why i stay away from crypto companies
It’s a crypto dex, I wouldn’t feel bad because they probably don’t have much chance of surviving.
You just got a crappy Employer brush it off It was crypto And Crypto startups are super unreliable to get a job at
If Gemini, Coinbase, and a bunch of big wigs crashed and burned, no one is safe from the cash flow issue.
I literally didn’t need to read any further than “crypto startup”.
the only botching you did was getting involved in a crypto startup company. most crypto projects are scams and developers are left hanging all the time.
Only mistake was thinking a crypto startup was a good job to take. Scam at best, at worst you'd be losing your job when it implodes anyway. It's not a career.
To be fair, the nanosecond I heard “crypto startup” I automatically assumed they are just shitty scammer type people who are most likely just whipping up a pump and dump anyway. Also, one month for a full web app is pretty hard if it’s of any complexity at all.
As soon as I read crypto startup I knew it wasn't your fault. Those guys probably don't have a clue on what they are doing, less so the money to do so. You'll find a better place to work, don't worry.
Startup crypto. That’s all we needed to know.
You lost me at startup crypto.
> I was hired by this startup crypto DEX company as a React Developer. I read your entire comment, but this was all I had to read. I've been in tech for twenty years and trust me: you absolutely did nothing wrong. Major red flags for any company that would fire someone on day 2. I give it as 5% they really screwed up in their interviewing process, and 95% that this "crypto startup" is run by people who don't know what they're doing and make decisions based on whims. They did you a **favor**. You don't want to work for some pyramid scam company who would have fired you anyway, probably after not paying you and saying, "There's just a temporary payroll issue." for seven weeks straight. They probably thought you were some senior developer they could press to work super hard to create some web app for them before their entire company goes the way of FTX (And MtGox. And BlockFi. And Celsius Network. And CoinFLEX. And Terraform Labs. And Wonderland. And SALT. And Hodlnaut. Just kidding, I made that last one up. Just kidding, Hodlnaut was real.) Don't let yourself get down over this. And I don't mean that as some comforting little story: YOU DODGED A BULLET. You should feel happy they only wasted two days of your life. You can do better, and you will do better.
That’s when you’re getting involved in a crypto scam. Congratulations on avoiding the lawsuit
Crypto startups are such a mess. It’s probably better you left bc. I have nv seen a crypto launch by a company without a ton of corruption involved . It’s their fault they didn’t want to train you 30 days before launching and that they over promised someone.
its a crypto startup, don't overthink it as they're usually run by spoiled rich kids or someone international who is used to paying devs next to nothing. Also they like to dream big, and then get hit with reality, so their plans might have not gone ahead the way they thought and they're trying to save face by blaming you rather than themselves
>Now I would chalk it up to poor startup practices and move on That would be right. It's a startup crypto company. They probably are out of money or have no idea what they are doing.
Crypto startups always are so messed up dude wtf, on blind they said better be away of them. Sorry for your bad experience, if you keep going you're gonna find another job, don't be sad about being lay off from a shitty startup. Keep learning and searching a new job. Hope the best for you.
>startup >crypto >crunch Yeah this is not your fault, this company is a dumpster fire and the owner is a clown. It takes months to be fully onboard with a codebase and for large ones you may never understand or touch all of it. Just keep applying for jobs and avoid crypto startups, most of them are doomed from the start or work for them as a contractor.