Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit (opens in new tab)

I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once. I've tried to spend the time wrapping things up, communicating my tacit knowledge to my coworkers, and writing documentation for things that I've done and created and am responsible for; I'm fairly certain that no one has given my opinions and thoughts any more than a cursory amount of attention.

Now, I absolutely loathe the modern corporate culture, which is happy to escort you out of the building the moment your employment is terminated, without giving you a chance to even say goodbye to your colleagues, who you might have been working with extensively for years. It's deeply traumatic and it contributes to an overall sense of fear and "screw teamwork, it's everyone for themselves".

But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful. I don't want my coworkers to ignore or patronize me while I sit idle or do make-work. I don't want to have to put on a show about how wonderful the company and team are, and why I'm leaving anyways. Nor do I want to expose my true feelings to my co-workers and infect them with my bad attitude--even if the writing is on the wall for the entire enterprise. It's like a breakup: the best thing for everyone is to make it clean and crisp, say "it's not you, it's me", make a sincere statement to the effect of "let's be friends", and then see each other roughly never again.

2 weeks is the standard? I am amazed.

In Switzerland where I live, it is 3 full calendar months. And I thought Switzerland is very similar to the USA...

My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?

No, no, no, no a billion times no to this absolutely not no

The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Sometimes it's a blanket company policy to do this, sometimes it's because they know you're going to a competitor and they don't want you to start training for your new job, sometimes they were on the fence about you staying anyways.

Do not do this ever end. There is a significant chance you will be instantly fired with no income for months. Don't.

This is terrible advice. Great that it has worked for the author but it does not mean it's a good idea for everyone. 2 weeks is the standard and as long as you give that you maintain good relations. Most people are not as valuable or important as they like to think they are. I have seen very important people leave / fired and things still go on. (Twitter is still working - isn't it?) Once you tell that you are leaving, everybody's attitude towards you changes. You want to minimize that awkward period. There's nothing to be gained by staying longer than 2 weeks. If you have stock vesting, wait until stock vests before giving 2 weeks notice.

Reading the comments in this thread really feeds into my bias that worker rights in the US are ... n't? I vividly remember a job posting from last year that listed '15 allowed sick days' as a benefit. What does that even mean?

In Scandinavia, you set a mutual duration of notice for both parties when signing the initial contracts to start working. For IT jobs, the standard is 2-3 months. This gives both parties ample time to adapt.

LOL, I tried that at Apple, was immediately made to pack my stuff after watch of a security guard and escorted off premises. As if I couldn't copy their stuff first and give notice later if that was my intent.

Now obviously, in a mom and pop shop, I would discuss my desire to leave before I even started looking and help find/train my replacement, while they would likewise help me find a new job that better fits my life situation. But that's just not how corporate America works.

This is terrible advice, the company will never give you a heads up if they are going to fire you. Do what's best for you. Keeping a good relationship with your current employer comes second.

I've done this many times, I know for a fact that almost NONE of the prep work, training, file organization, email handoffs, exit/handoff plans, and so on...were ever used except to allow somebody to make excuses on their 'delays' in the first few months after I left.

I've also worked in industries for many years, and was told this line about 'leaving on good terms'. Honestly though, you could just about nearly commit murder - your 'name' and 'reputation' don't matter if there money / a deal to be made. And you'll almost never meet ICs again, so why are you bothering to 'leaving on good terms'. Its a fantasy. Grab names and emails on the way out, though, might be handy.

And, sometimes, you should just go. Seriously. If you didn't care so much trying to make it all happen and work and 'meet timelines', all that would happen is something would fall behind and the management would finally do their job and give relief to the team you think you're helping by doing so much work to 'offramp' - and perhaps get the people they refused before because you were handling it. Seriously, just dropping your shit where you stand and walking out into the sun one fine day may be the greatest gift you give that 'team' of yours.

Will a company give you notice when they fire you? Especially if it's a toxic company? No.

You don't reciprocate (as long as you're okay with burning some bridges - which should be fine with above criteria).

While giving notice is polite, it's important to note that it is just a courtesy in most places, and you're providing that courtesy to something that will happily fire you with no notice if it benefits them. If you're somewhere an employer can treat you as having quit the day you provide notice, then you should give minimal notice to maximize stock vesting, benefits, etc.

So you don't need to provide "more notice (a lot more notice)" as the benefits listed just aren't real. I've replaced bullet points with numbers for ease of reference:

    1. Do only the parts of your job you enjoy the most
    2. Eliminate ~all stress from your job
    3. Get paid the same
    4. Extend your benefits for longer
    5. Take unused vacation time
    6. Vest more stock
    7. Get your bonus
    8. Leave on a positive note
    9. Be thanked and appreciated by everyone

Of these the only a few are unequivocally true, and most are just false or unnecessary, or even contradictory. The true ones are (3), (4), and (6), and only if you live in a place where an employer is not permitted to terminate your employment upon notice.

Your primary goal in providing this courtesy is (8) leaving on a positive note, but if you're trying to do that then (1) and (2) are out. You're employed, you have to do your job, and if you shirk that then you're not leaving on a positive note. At the same time if you've announced you're leaving the company has no reason to continue being nice/trying to keep you.

So we're down to (5), (7), and (9). In most countries (5) is some variation of "earned income", that is you've earned that money and they have to pay you out when your employment class. In many countries sick leave is also earned income and must also be paid out. Hence (5) is unnecessary. If you aren't in such a state or country, then you're beholden to "can I be terminated immediately upon notice", in which case you're better off going on vacation, and then handing in notice.

(7) isn't going to happen once you hand in your notice. Either you've already been awarded your bonus, in which case they can't claw it back, or there's no reason for them to give you one - you've given notice so giving you a bonus isn't going to benefit them.

Finally for (9), you don't need more than 2 weeks notice. You don't really even need a week for that. This particular point feels like it's part of the "your job is your family" nonsense that is routinely exploited by employers.

There is no benefit to extended notice unless you're trying to ensure that (8) will leave you the option to return or work for the same group of people elsewhere in future.

Disagree with this on several levels.

One specific challenge comes as tech companies push more and more compensation to bonuses and other must-be-present-to-win approaches (RSUs, etc). If you leave shortly before a trigger date, you've essentially been working the entire previous year at a discount, since your contractual bonus for the time you worked will never be paid. If you continue significantly past a cliff, then your transition time is being worked at a discount.

If you give significant notice, one of two things can happen. If you give notice before the cliff, planning to depart after the cliff (that is, maximizing the percentage of the time worked where the company actually pays you what they agreed you were worth), the company can accelerate the departure schedule and avoid paying out; if you give notice after the cliff, you're inherently volunteering for discount work for a company you didn't even want to work for at full price!

In practice, I think at this point that companies that choose to put a large amount of compensation behind a cliff this way are responsible for understanding the consequences of that choice. If you pay 30% or my annual comp, and that of all my peers, on Monthuary 15th, then you should assume that you will get a cluster of resignations on Monthuary 16th each year, that those departures will happen in the standard two weeks, and that because they are clustered you will be unlikely to hand off as easily and fully as if they were scattered. But hey, you managed to screw some of my coworkers who had to leave mid-year for family reasons out of a few bucks!

I completely disagree. in the long run, a company is not going to remember you gave them a lot of notice before leaving. your coworkers aren't likely to remember either, at least in terms of your ability to get references.

at the same time giving a long notice has a lot of downsides. your offer can get rescinded and now you are either jobless or have a very awkward conversation. your managers in this time will not respect your time, they will pile on all the work no one else wanted. 'lets put so and so on call, they are leaving in a month anyways'.

Echoing all the previous statements, I gave two weeks' notice when I left my first real job (Microsoft), and they immediately walked me out the door. In this case they weren't jerks about it-- my manager even apologized to me and said if it was up to him they'd've let me stay, but said it was absolutely iron-clad policy that he couldn't change-- but yeah, giving even more notice than that seems to be advice that could only come from someone tremendously naive who has never actually worked in tech.

Speaking as a manager who has managed numerous people through their exit as well as a job changer.... I have to say I disagree with the advice to give extended notice.

Proper notice (in US at least) without severe mitigating circumstances is two weeks and that's what you get. If the employer wants to it to be less then so be it. FWIW I've changed job 5-6 times over my professional career and every single time it's been a cordial exit where I've worked out my final two weeks.

As the employee submitting your notice - have your ducks-in-a-row before turning in your notice as it maximizes your chance for a smooth exit.

Agree with others that it's bad advice. At my last job I gave about 5 weeks notice which my manager convinced me to extend to 6 weeks. I was a manager and timing at the end of the year was not ideal due to performance review schedules and holidays.

Never again. Everything was much more dragged out. Lots of idle time. Lots more "so I hear you're leaving" conversations. Next time, I might do one week notice since this seems to have become a lot more common.

This article assumes that you are working for sane people. I left a job after 9 years. I gave 30 days notice. The reason I was leaving? My manager was micromanaging me and threatening me daily.

I felt the obligation to give longer than 2 weeks notice because I've been there for so long and was a key employee. Instead of appreciating it, the manager decided that I needed to source, higher, and train my replacement within that 30 days. And then they actually made my life even worse. I ended up quitting two weeks in. I couldn't take it.

So yes if you have a wonderful work environment and people who are totally normal and are glad you are there, then giving 30 days notice is great. But if you have that environment, why would you be leaving?

>"Everyone will thank you and appreciate you because you are really doing them a favor.

working is a business transaction. "appreciation" comes in the form of cash. if you're not being offered more cash to stick around (beyond the wages that were clearly insufficient motivation), then no, they don't appreciate it.

Can't help but be mildly amused by the article and many of the comments. Here in Germany the standard "Kündigungsfrist" is often three months to the end of the current month at many tech (and other) places.

For example, if I wanted to quit my current job (which I'm currently contemplating), I'd have to make sure to do it in april, otherwise I'll be stuck for another month.

It does go both ways, a company can't just fire you without reasonable cause, such as gross misconduct. But in most cases people stop trying after handing in their resignation - which I can't blame them for - and as a manager I'd like to release them earlier.

The posted article presents a naive point of view.

In tech, it's very common for those who resign to be walked out of the building immediately.

In corporate America, the idea that you'd give THEM more notice than they'd give YOU in the event of layoffs is one-sided.

By all means, plan your exit carefully. Ensure your own security. If it's an amiable parting, try not to leave them in a lurch. But all of that is you being nice, not something you have to do. If, as is often the case, you're leaving because you're very unhappy with your situation, there's no point in prolonging it. Go.

Nobody gave this person this advice because it is bad advice, period.

Give your contractual notice, whether thats 2 weeks in the US, or a month or 3 months in the UK or whatever and be prepared to actually leave at the end of it.

Any other advice is actually harmful to the majority of people.

The article is so idealistic that I'd call it delusional.

Rule 1: Know exactly what your employer's policies and past practices are. Ditto local culture. There is ~zero chance that you actually are Mr./Ms. Special, who your employer will happily treat differently.

(Exception: If you have to leave for an extremely sympathetic and/or involuntary reason - fatal cancer diagnosis, drafted into army, etc. - that may actually get special treatment. Even then, such treatment is far more likely at smaller firms, if management cares about maintaining a "good guy" reputation.)

Rule 2: If you have some latitude, be considerate with your timing. Giving notice right before the big crunch or busy season will endear you to no one.

Rule 3: Never assume that your employer is going to be nice about it. Ditto for them being rational about it, unless currently-in-place management has a long and distinguished history of that.

I gave a month notice at my old job so I could close out a project for a client before I left. In the end I don't think anyone but the client cared and it meant I had very little time off before the next job started (three days lol). They also had me train my replacement who spent most of those sessions bitching to me about how he also wanted to leave...

> If they do not understand and MUST HAVE YOU NOW, that is a red flag... Most companies, though, don’t have a problem with delaying someone’s start date.

This is not true at all in my experience. Very often companies are hiring to expand a team in order to hit a certain deadline, whether it's back-to-school or a big conference or a signed contract or whatever. Or to cover for someone taking maternity, etc.

If you can't start on the required date, the offer will frequently go to someone else. This is not a red flag at all, but rather simply a reflection of the business world.

Sometimes companies are hiring in a more leisurely way, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

So really this is what invalidates the entire article for me. You don't want to quit until you have a new job lined up, but that job very frequently will require you to be starting the Monday following two weeks from accepting (assuming it doesn't involve relocation).

At my last job I gave a month to upper management and two weeks for those that I was supervising. This let management come up with a plan on how to reshuffle roles to fill the gap. I also created a transition document listing my responsibilities, suggested surrogates, and current statuses of projects I was managing and involved in. Why did I do that? Not really to get something out of it in the future, but because I didn’t want to leave a mess for my coworkers.

When you've been laid off, how much notice did your employer give you?

Yeah, how about no?

My employer behaves exactly as it's laid out in my contract. I will behave exactly as it's laid out in the contract. If it says 2 weeks, that means 2 weeks, not one day late or early.

I’ve quit all jobs with 1-2 months notice and can wholeheartedly agree with the author’s narrative. I am still on good terms with my ex-managers and colleagues.

There’s another plus to this: when your ex-manager moves to another company and starts hiring there, they’d likely want you again.

On the vacation before your last day bit: labor law in most places dictates that employers must reimburse you for any unused vacation days. Unless there’s an “unlimited” vacation policy, which typically caps this at 2 weeks, less any vacation days you take.

This comment section is nuts. Obviously don’t jeopardize an offer by trying to push your exit back. Duh.

But if you are already quitting, and you’re not immediately starting another job, why not extend your departure date? Best case they send you home day 1 but respect your effective date. Worst case they send you home day 1 and stop paying you immediately. So if you push it out maybe you get a few extra paychecks. And if not, hey, you were already quitting. Who cares?

Real Career advice: Do NOT give any indication of leaving to anyone until all your digital stuff is backed up offsite and you know where all your physical things are located.

Maybe like the writer, you work for some unicorn with nice and generally well meaning people. They might let you do this. It's more than likely however that your two week notice will be immediate termination.

Sounds very navie.

Many companies walk you out the door the moment you give notice. If anything you should give at MOST 2 weeks notice.

Nothing bad happens if you only give 1 week, or even if you just walk out.

Remember, they reserve the right to terminate you without cause at any time.

Nope. If you give a lot of notice before quitting "permanent employment" they will walk you out immediately.

It's OK to give a few hints you will not renew a contract as long as you are clear that you still like them and plan to be friends.

The one time I tried to do this my employer would no longer approved vacation requests and refused to pay out my 3 weeks of unused vacation.

> 2 weeks notice is the gold standard

In the US...

In most of the rest of the world 1 to 3 months is normal and expected.

This is highly subjective as in it depends tremendously on the role, employer, and the given employee:employer relationship.

At one startup where I played workaholic for several years establishing substantial leverage and dependency on my presence, I didn't just give heaps of notice; I plain asked the CEO how to gracefully exit the company.

Right thing to do, yeah?

Except he disastrously mishandled the situation by insisting I stay "until the end". Neglecting to take advantage of the opportunity to tell me exactly for how long and with who the knowledge transfers should occur. Instead it just turned into a sort of pissing match where leadership was acting like they owned my autonomy/called my bluff, insisted on paying me for a month+ without coming in "for me to think about it". It was just a ridiculous calamity on their part, culminating in my leaving anyways without any transfer at all. (They eventually went bankrupt after burning >$100M, go figure)

In hindsight that experience alone discouraged me from ever letting myself work hard into such a role again.

And if you're not in some high-impact, difficult-to-replace, bus-factor role, giving notice really isn't all that important IMO.

I also categorically disagree with this advice. The people who benefit are not the ones in charge of the decision, and the benefit to your reputation for the ~5 people it really impacts does not outweigh getting to take a stress-free, risk-free sabbatical in between jobs. I have always asked to extend my start date out as far as possible and the new company always pushes back and I end up taking off a few weeks between jobs at most. I am not sacrificing that time for the potential of better parting feelings for a handful of coworkers who take over my stuff, when you should be working toward that lowered bus factor day-to-day, regardless of whether you are planning to leave.

How many times has David resigned this way? Twice!

I have seen probably close to 100 people give notice in my life. Many get the door as soon as they resign. Many get 2x the workload while the wrap things up. This is straight up naive advice.

One guy gave his 6 weeks notice, his last day would be two weeks after bonus payout. He was a super critical eng on a component in a system that brought in a couple hundred million in revenue. He had started documenting the systems, setting up meetings. HR informed the team that his last day would be the following friday. In 5 working days. It screwed the team and it screwed him. There was no backsies.

Why anyone would trust a corporation not to fire them immediately is being willfully naive. If one does do this, have all your ducks in a row and expect your last day to be the moment you submit your resignation.

Check with local labor laws and structure your resignation for maximum "impact" for whatever your definition of that word is.

I've given two weeks notice to employers I didn't like, and had immediate layoffs from employers I liked exceptionally, so I don't feel I should have any obligation in that regard except to myself. I'll the factors that the author mentions and plan ahead (like, taking vacation or exercising options if I care to), but negotiate the rest to my benefit.

Based on the article and some comments here, I realize it could be quite valuable to resign early in the month--like, in the first week. For my jobs (in the US), if they take the resignation and walk me out the door immediately, my health insurance would still be in force until the end of the month.

My direct experience is that its important to have a week of vacation in-between jobs, just to clear my mind and prepare for the new work. I had an employer who found it urgent that I start ASAP. I tried to negotiate away from their insistence, but eventually gave in to their request. It was the worst starting week ever in terms of my focus and comfort with the new job. Might have been better if I'd taken it as the bad sign that it was and declined their offer.

Upon receiving notice of intent to leave, one of my previous employers would walk you out the door same day. In their judgment, removing quitters immediately was worth the loss of organizational knowledge and team planning challenges that resulted.

Needless to say, their code was full of people papering over code no one understood anymore, duplicated features that interacted poorly, and so on.

I think there’s a kernel of truth in this post, it does make the correct observation that 2 weeks is not always the correct time. I think it’s deeper than that, there are multiple correct times that are incompatible with each other.

This is because there are multiple ways you are integrated into the company and the correct wind-down period for each is different. A few months to find and train a replacement, a few weeks to document all your organizational knowledge, a few days to say goodbye to your colleagues - and for companies with valuable secrets it’s obviously desirable that your access to their information is revoked instantaneously.

Ultimately, for a senior software engineer, quitting is just complicated. I think if you want to try a variable-length notice of resignation you need to find someone in the chain of command you trust to be level-headed and pragmatic, approach them with your thoughts of leaving, and (matching their level-headedness and pragmatism) discuss how to make your departure as successful and effective for the company as possible - maybe you start documenting knowledge now, wind down day-to-day fire-fighting responsibilities a week from now, and formally announce your two weeks notice a week after that.

But you have to go into that discussion prepared to roll with the decisions they make, all the way from “immediate dismissal and escort from the building” to “they do not want you to quit and try to offer you more money or different responsibilities”. If that gives you trepidation, maybe it’s better to stick to the business standard of two weeks notice. It’s not optimal, but it is well-trodden ground.

I've done this, and it's always worked out well for me. My past three jobs received a 1 month notice. The one before that, I told the hiring manager up front that I'd work for them for exactly 1 year.

Most of the comments here are against this, many saying they were prematurely removed, some immediately. Perhaps it is different for FAANG and other SV companies typical of HN?

Possible reasons why my experience has been different:

- I've never worked in a role that is easily replaceable. I've worked mostly consulting for the past decade. The industry has a lot of hiring friction, like extensive background checks, making it hard to give up and replace quality workers. In most cases, even my long notices did not give the employers enough time to find a replacement for me to train.

- My direct supervisors, managers above them, and myself, have always shared mutual respect - even when they are difficult people. We all also understand our compensation is mostly related to what customers are paying, so there is no expectation that our salaries can be magically increased.

Granted, I did leave one employer over a decade ago with just a day's notice. The company had a lot of problems and hadn't paid me for a few months already, so quitting was well overdue.

Having this legally set up in France (typically to 3 months) makes it easier for everyone. As an employee you do not get to choose, as the former employer you know exactly what to expect, as the new employer you know you will need to wait.

This time can be negotiated down by mutual interest of both parties. It is usually the employee who would initiate the discussion.

The calculation also takes into account vacation time so it may be much shorter from the perspective of the employer.

Finally, the employer can forbid the employee to come to work and get back all the equipment, but still has to pay them for the 3 months.

I gave 4 months notice once, at a 15-person company where I was the lead of a 3-person team responsible for everything technology at the company. My boss was the sort who would tell people to leave immediately, and happily pay the 2 weeks they intended of notice. But I was critical to the functioning of the company, and I was able to hire and onboard a successor. I continued consulting part-time for a while past the end of my employment, it was good for everybody. I've never worked at a job where I would afford the company such a luxury of my time.

Lol 'gold standard' please. This is management PR.

I've only ever seen 2 week notices screw the workers over- it happened to me several times (to the point I will never do it again no matter the employer).

Businesses don't give you notice, you don't owe them a single day.

No one owes a company any more than required for their paycheck, stop giving loyalty where none is given.

Also- can we please start calling 'layoffs' what they are- firings.

Layoffs are done as restructuring, and used to be done in bankruptcy filing, or they used to mean you'd be brought back in. Now companies call every permanent firing 'letting go' or 'layoff'.

Stop letting companies re-define words for PR speak.

Edit-spelling

I once cut my holiday short so that I could have more time to pass on knowledge about my projects. I left everything documented and up-to-date. Nobody gave me much attention and a year later a new employee was asking me to come by and give a hand.

So that's something I'm never doing again.

Same experience as many here for me when leaving two companies with a quite long but somehow standard 3 month notice here in France: it felt nice to give my managers/coworkers some time, but overall it wasn't useful. Most of the 2 first months was "as usual" and the real information sharing was done somewhere during the last month. The last week or two were absolutely useless for me and others, as it's just wandering around without any precise task, and everyone being like "oh, you're still here?"

Guess I must be in the minority because I've only worked jobs where I've left on good terms and have always given a month's notice. Don't know if it's luck, or many of you suck at picking good places to work at

Giving notice? Be ready to be walked out of the building, which I believe would be as likely as the Pollyanna scenario outlined in the OP.

{In which case the part about 'get benefits longer' goes out the window.}

When I worked for a Microsoft contractor in 2015, the owners took it very personally whenever someone wanted to leave. If you gave any notice they would accept it without question, but a couple of days later security would suddenly show up and escort you out of the building. That taught me that when I do give notice to prepare to be let go immediately, have everything wrapped up and ready to go.

As a manager I can tell you having a team member leave is not a “get out jail free card.”

First you will have to explain why X person is leaving, and it will generally be considered your fault.

Second if your team isn’t resistant enough to absorb the impact of one team member leaving, this will also be scrutinized and viewed negatively.

Managers are responsible for their team’s performance and not one individual

I gave 2 years notice at a software job I'd been at for 10 years. It was great! I said I was going to go do something new when I turned 30. The boss appreciated it and we had a lot of time to adjust the direction of the company in the meantime.

This was at a very small, tight-knit place though. I'd never do this at a big company.

If I believe I have a lot of knowledge to transfer, I'll do a 2 week + X notice. I've done 1m notice, and that was excessive I believe. Otherwise, 2 weeks is standard in the US, and I have no reason to deviate. Nor would I conventionally just walk out that-day, as that leads to a bad odor.

If I was waiting for a bonus or cliff, of course I'd wait until after the date before formally giving notice. Because, of course, that would be a problem if the Management decided to terminate me immediately.

It's quite contextual, of course, but I prefer to follow local standards.

I dunno... be careful with this advice - a long exit ramp can be shortened by the company, or they can make your life miserable during that time if they don't.

I once worked at a place where notice was neither expected nor tolerated: the moment you decided to leave, you were done - a quick exit interview with HR, grab any personal items from your desk, and out the door you went. I think the time between informing my boss that I was quitting and permanently driving away was about half an hour.

I don't know if I'd argue that their policy was "best", but there is some logic to it - once a person has decided to leave, they are often mentally already out the door anyway, and having them stick around can be a pretty big drain on everyone who is still there, especially with the tendency for some people to need to justify a decision in the eyes of other people. Some people can be really good about a long goodbye, while others will just sort of poison the well the whole time and drag down morale.

I think commenters might not be aware of potential legal consequences of various approaches to quitting your job. Employers might no option but to get you out the door immediately. It depends on the domain. IANAL so I will not comment on specifics only to say that, as an employer, I've had to consult our attorney in cases where we were working on government/aerospace programs.

On the other side of the equation, years ago I had one of our engineers tell me he was starting a business and would likely have to leave in three months (over the summer). As much as I didn't like the idea of him leaving, I thought it was a fantastic move for him. I am 100% pro-entrepreneurship and fully supported his decision. In fact, during the that summer --the last three months he worked for us-- we all went out of our way to help him in any way we could. I wanted to personally make sure he launched into his new business with a solid footing.

As a result the transition was beautiful. We even threw a party in celebration just before he left. We still keep in touch. He is doing well. After he left he was happy to come over a couple of times and help resolve things we missed during the transition.

If you treat people like human beings and show them you truly care for their wellbeing everything is better. Companies come and go. People, and their relationships, tend to stay. If sometime in the future I closed-down my business and needed a job, I know I could reach out to him and get hired if he needed help.

I don't say this in a religious sense: Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

To answer the obvious question: In the couple of cases where the attorneys said immediate release was required, we went way out of our way to explain why this had to be. We also provided a solid financial cushion in order to ensure the person leaving didn't jump into a vacuum. It sucks when legal-crap gets in the way of considerate, compassionate human relations. Sometimes you have no options on the table.

Big companies I've worked for won't allow a long notice period. They don't want the risk.

I think this is very dependent on the company and your role. I've given as much as 2 months notice before, and typically it's closer to 3 weeks than 2 weeks, but I don't think this is always appropriate. In fact, I'd say it's a bad idea more often than not. You should ensure you're not leaving people in a lurch that you may later use in your network to further your own career (I now work with people I last worked with 9 years ago, as an example, which is an eternity in startup-land). But you also shouldn't extend your notice so long it becomes an imposition. You're leaving, so sort things out and leave.

I saw many times notice longer than 6 months; the record so far is more than 2 years, but these are special cases: - very high level people like VP level or above - 6 months during which they fully onboard a replacement - a former colleague that was past retirement age, but they had no replacement for him so they convinced him to stay longer (he gave 2 years notice) - my boss is on notice for retirement in more than 18 months from now (he can retire any day he wants, he was the age and he is meeting all criteria)

But other than that, I don't recommend a notice longer than 1 month, that is enough for almost any case.

This is incredibly dependent on your working relationship with your employer, and even if you think you know... sometimes they'll surprise you.

If you work at a very large company (hundreds of employees) do not do this. Even with a good working relationship terminating a quitter on the spot can often be security policy. I've quit a job and wasn't even allowed to touch my computer, just walked right out the door (before you give notice, back up your personal files and build your portfolio if they're on there).

So I’ve been both an employee and a manager in companies that aren’t faang level but break 1 billion in yearly revenue.

This is advice from someone privileged enough that it was easier for their manager to ignore them as a problem, rather than deal with them.

Off the get go, it’s standard practice to remove all permissions and access to systems from someone who has tendered notice, in the interest of investors, security execs, and anyone who cares about the long term health of the applications being worked on.

The investors and security execs are placated by knowing that someone who has indicated they might possibly be disgruntled doesn’t still have access to damage the systems. Any manager who cares about the long term health of their systems doesn’t want someone involved in the day to day architecture and design designs who already knows they won’t have to deal with any problems that arise after a few weeks.

This isn’t even to blame the employee in question, they just no longer have the incentives to care about the codebase after their notice.

I have also definitely never seen a single person who gave notice and didn’t have access cut off, get to “focus on the fun parts of the job”. In that case they were normally tasked with knowledge transfer the whole time as if it’s an org that can afford the sudden loss of a single person, they also likely don’t have good documentation

Given the recent round of layoffs when employee access was terminated overnight with no warning or conversation, I think employees should treat the employers the same. Now, I am not saying you just stop showing up one fine day but I am merely saying that I would give my notice, do my 2 weeks and leave. I wont spend time writing any docs for knowledge transfer (been there done that and honestly no one cared) but I will try to wrap up stuff I was working on only because I usually care about what I do.

The most important thing is not to give a lot of notice when you quit, or to give a crap about how much notice you give them at all. It's when. If at all possible, you should give notice at or slightly beyond the first of the month. That way, when you leave, you will most likely retain your benefits through the rest of the month.

If your last day is say, the 28th, and you don't start a new job til the 2nd, then you're gonna be without benefits for the entire month.

Totally dumb advice. I've tried to be the good guy several times and give my current employer a month of my time to crunch and write docs or whatever. It's usually stressful and doesn't make a huge impact in the end. Better to just offer 2 weeks and move to new role as fast as you can. Your new employer usually wants you to start ASAP, and they are what matters now that you already made the choice to move on.

I was expecting the comment section to be negative about this, but not nearly unanimously so. I'll be contrary and say that in my last two jobs as a senior software eng, I've given six weeks notice and it's worked out very nicely.

I was not just shown the door immediately, I got a chance to get closure on some projects, and have a number of knowledge dump sessions that I hope were helpful to people. I think my collaborators appreciated the longer notice, but of course it's difficult to say.

The way I did it was to give my manager six weeks notice, then tell my close collaborators at four weeks, most everyone else I worked with at two weeks and then sent a "this is my last week" email. Still, six weeks seems like an outer edge to me—I can't think of any good reason to give three months notice.

The primary downside is that it is not really compatible with taking time off between jobs. Most places are reluctant to give you an offer for a start date more than a month out.

"I'll give my future company a month or two to rescind their offer."

horrendous advice.

This only works if you’re a bro who is chummy with leadership. Honestly this is one of the worst pieces of advice for a marginalized person. If you show any indication of leaving as a marginalized person you are extremely likely to be pegged as “a flight risk” or “unstable” or “frantic” and your job will likely be eliminated before you actually are ready to roll.

In the U.S. this likely means losing your healthcare and missing your children’s tuition payments — and even your housing. Your visa if you’re immigrating, etc.

The only people who have enough psychological security to do this are the ones who don’t actually depend on their jobs for maintaining their current standard of living.

In a perfect world this would be great advice for everyone, however given the political and economic culture of the U.S. this is pretty horrible advice for a marginalized person. Our labor laws don’t support this behavior for a reason — and if “push comes to shove” every corporation in Silicon Valley will air on the side of modern labor laws (or lack there of).

Don't know about US, but I don't think anyone can actually force you to come to work after youve given notice. The most they can do in UK is not pay you for the notice period. And since the only reference they can later give you is "they worked here", working through your notice period is kinda optional.

As an employer, the flipside of this is that there needs to be some value in having someone there that you know is leaving. If someone has been halfway checked out because they've been interviewing elsewhere, it might not be worth keeping them around for six weeks. They can't start any long-running work, or anything with any dependencies, and many people's work quality drops significantly after putting in their notice.

It's a nice idea, for sure; but most jobs can be transitioned in 2 weeks. Anything longer than that and all sense of urgency is lost ("We can transition that in a month", etc).

I've quit both ways -- with a long notice period and a short one, and short notice periods are the only times that there's been an actual transition plan.

My goal is to ensure that the company is in a position to carry on with as little disruption as possible.

I've always given at least the (US standard) two weeks, and usually three, but much longer than that can be counterproductive because one can become entrenched in current projects instead of wrapping things up and transitioning them to others.

Even when I've been at the same company for many years and have been involved in a lot of projects, this never took more than two weeks because throughout my tenure I do my best to document things, cross-train my co-workers, and ensure that others could take over for me if needed. That last two weeks is usually just a matter of making sure that all my documentation is up-to-date and that people remember what I've taught them.

Bad advice. I've seen people give notice way in advance, being terminated on the spot.

How long of a notice period is considered reasonable probably varies drastically between different countries, different industries, etc. So the advice should largely be just do what is the norm in your environment to avoid burning bridges.

I have only worked for FAANGs and other big pre-IPO startups in the west coast for the past 15 years. I have quit like 5 times now and I have always offered only a 2 weeks notice. That is considered normal in these places. I have never burned bridges (I have gone back to work for the same company with the same people even).

There's no Field in the global Google doc Who To Hire for "they were nice and gave a lot of notice before quitting"

+

but I can see how giving a lot of notice will make your manager happy, and could lead to a job lead later in your career. It happened to me.

This depends upon your situation in your work.

But if you feel your managers and company have been good to you or even neutral, then I fully agree with this. Plus it keeps options open for you since things go sideways in your new position.

It's interesting to me to read through this thread and see the stark differences between the US & Europe.

Work culture in the US is pretty awful. It truly is every-man-for-themselves, and I find it deeply saddening.

Skimming this article, it seems to say giving a lot of notice is really good for your current manager, but maybe not so good for your next job.

So, does it explain why I would want it, and not my manager?

I had a great relationship with one of my previous companies, my boss, and team. I gave them about 8 weeks notice. It was certainly appreciated. There was no reason to blindside them, nor were they going to can me early for putting in my notice.

I know plenty of people may do this and it not be appreciated, and that just might happen. I think it's good to at least consider if you have a fairly transparent relationship with your boss.

I gave two or three months notice once to finish up a project. Never again. As soon as you announce that you’re leaving everyone (rightly) treats you as if you shouldn’t be there.

Bloomberg’s policy is that your last day is the day you give notice. You know it going in and it works really well. Get people to document as they go so there’s no need for much of a handoff at the end.

I feel this advice ignores the most common scenarios in which one would need to give notice in the first place.

If you want to a make a move, you interview, see if you get the position, then give notice. You're not going to want to give notice before you know you get the position, and if you do get it, you're new future employer is unlikely to want to wait months.

>> How Much Notice Can You Give? >> It depends on a lot of things:

The list misses what's most important for me: depends on how good am I feeling at the company, or I appreciate its people. Then, I want to make it also easier to transfer knowledge or help them finish things that were dependent on me, etc. Especially on project management.

I agree entirely.

It's rare that I've ever given less than a month's notice when leaving a position. My instinct is to give as much notice as I possibly can. In part because it's just professional, and in part because I'm still a part of the team until I leave, and giving the maximal amount of notice is in the team's best interest.

I actually regret spending a lot of time documenting the system and fixing critical bugs before leaving one of my jobs. The owner was a jerk and ended up screwing us over on final pay. If I hadn't been so professional, the system would have failed within a few weeks and he would have paid dearly for us to fix it.

Companies will drop you in a moment like a freshly pooped turd into a toilet bowl. Give them MORE notice?!?! Lol GTFO.

Never thought about it this way, but makes a lot of sense. I gave 4 weeks notice one time because I had an especially large amount of knowledge-transfer to do, and it worked out about like described. And the "fun"/QOL aspects probably are reproducible at the right companies, now that I think about it

Coming from EU, one month notice both ways is the norm (a lot of people get hired on temporary contracts 6/12 months before becoming full time employees)

Only once I've given ~ 3 months notice simply because I didn't think I was a good fit in the company long term and I didn't have anything lined up yet.

Hell no. The startup I was working for fired me on a Friday, no notice, effective immediately. We had a team meeting the previous week about how macro environment was tough but everything was fine.

I'm so done bending over backwards to satisfy rich people who will dump me as soon as things get slightly bad.

I disagree, often times for myself and many others I know they just walk you out the door that day, or in a few days, they rarely let you leave on your terms. This advice assumes your employer will act honorably, many, err most, dont.

What? The company gets 100% of the benefit. Chances are, if you’re leaving a company, you want to leave, and if you’re starting a new job, you want to start it. Why would you want to delay that any more than necessary?

I'd say, don't tell HR anything, and only tell your manager if you have a great relationship with them, and tell them only that you're _thinking_ about leaving so they have plausible deniability.

The main issue is that even if you give them two weeks or more notice, they can let you go effective immediately leading to lost income. Depending on the company, giving no notice may actually be the better approach.

This is such bad advice. My last career move I 2Xed my income. This guy is advising me to lose thousands of dollars so I can be more well liked at my previous company and stick around for longer? Cmon.

some of these reasons are quite contrary to my experience:

   Do only the parts of your job you enjoy the most

Being asked to create documents, tutorials and presentations on all aspects of your job, and endless handoff meeting is pretty much the least enjoyable.

   Take unused vacation time

wait, giving notice and then scheduling vacation during your notice period?! I think that would be poorly received and raise a lot of eyebrows

Key part of the headline is "advice no one gave me." Yeah, because it's bad advice! Even for the usual management propaganda on HN this is obviously on its face bad.

Would the company give you a lot of notice if they decided to eliminate your role? If so, extend them the same courtesy, if you can. Chances are, most companies wouldn't.

The rule of thumb is expect to be off-boarded the minute you give notice. ie. don't expect that if you give X days of notice that you'll be working those X days.

I've given a small e-commerce company 1 year notice. It was the best year of my professional life.

I've given 2 weeks notice at a large corporate, they showed me the door next day.

Giving advanced notice has backfired every.single.time

In academia, how long one takes to move is a function of seniority.

Months at the junior level, but famous scientists moving can take years.

It is not your job to put yourself out there in order to finally get your company to do the shit they should have been doing all along.

I think you need to feel out the culture of the company and how knowledge transfer would work out to determine how much notice to give.

They ask me that in the interview when they ask where do you see your self in 5 years. I say “not here” and everybody laughs

When they notice I'm gone they've had all the notice they're gonna get.

It's weird, in India, most companies have 2 month notice periods. Many have 3.

ive always given 4 weeks, and would work up to the last day, usually documenting some processes/workflow for the next guy to come along. Last time i actually felt compelled to annotate a video showing my workflow.

Or, you can give two weeks notice, and then be fired for quitting.

I tried that, the boss thought it was a negotiating tactic.

Sure, give lots of notice but be prepared to be walked out.

This is lovely sounding advice until you get burned by it.

A note on the last paragraph about being a “lazy engineer”: this shouldn’t be a factor. Being lazy is subjective and the same engineer can be seen differently depending on the management, team, moment, etc.

here in Norway the standard is 2 weeks in the first 6 months of employment, after that: 3 months.

this goes both ways - for quitting and firing.

Bootlicker

This is awful advice.

3 month notice, lol wtf.

I think this mostly depends on the then current employee market situation.

Big fan of advice like this.

Contrary to some opinions here, I think this is very good advice.

I am always giving as much notice as I can. And also try to finish my projects and accommodate my employer/client as much as I can at the end of the project.

Regardless how unprofessionally they may act, I resolve to always act professionally myself.

I think it is more about the attitude rather than simple cost/benefit calculation.

But even if you are just looking at cost/benefit, after two decades of doing this I am finally seeing people noticing and coming back to me. I have my past bosses bringing new work to me, I have my colleagues spreading information about me by word of mouth. I have CEOs of unknown companies reach out to me because they learned about me from somebody who worked with me in the past.

Maybe you will not get noticed when you are junior level but when you get a bit more exposed position it starts becoming more and more important.