The most important thing is to know when to leave!
It seems to me that most employees, even those who are very marketable, stay here where their careers stagnate and do not acquire any new skills. In the meantime, they are becoming less and less marketable. If I could turn back time, I would have given notice two years ago.
Within my interview stage, I realized I wanted to leave, but accepted the position anyway. After two weeks of constant yelling and harassment from my manager I was ready to go. As a non-engineer, my options were limited. I applied to all different places. I think that is how it is for most people at Intel who do not work in engineering and especially women - they stay because they need a job.
Another key point from Paul Buchheit's interview:
Also, when I first went to work at Google, I had the opposite feeling I described having at Intel. I was excited. I woke up in the morning and was excited to go to work. There was this buzz of productivity in the office all the time. I think that's one way to know if a startup is doing well: When you go into their office, you can just tell. Are people busy working, or are they sitting around on Twitter wasting time? Are people showing up because they have to, or are they eagerly working because they're excited? Google was a really energizing place to be back then.
Intel's been a place where tech careers go to die for 20 years (since the peak of their stock during the 00's dot com bubble).
Paul Buchheit's (creator of Gmail) experience:
Q: Why did you decide to leave Intel?
A:
Overall, the job wasn't exciting to me. I didn't have to work that hard, and one day I had this realization while sitting in my gray cubicle (I was in a sea of gray cubicles surrounded by gray walls, listening to white noise and all alone): I'm like, “Man I am so tired. I need to go home and take a nap.” I went home, but as soon as I got there I realized, “I'm not tired anymore.” Working at Intel was a draining environment, and I knew I wanted to leave.
Q: Why did you decide to take the Google offer?
A: Well it was the only one I got, so that made it easy!
Also, it was exciting, and I thought they were doing cool stuff. I didn't believe in the business or think the company would be a huge success, though. I thought they were going to be roadkill and would get squashed by one of the big internet companies. By then, Yahoo was already a behemoth, and Alta Vista had so much money. I didn't understand how this little startup would be able to compete. But I decided I didn't care. I wanted to go work on Linux stuff and figured I'd at least meet some smart people there, and maybe they'd later start a company that would actually be successful.
In hindsight, I realize the early team at Google was actually quite remarkable. I think they made a real point of hiring smart people. In part, that was because they were working on really interesting problems and smart people want to work on interesting problems. I remember Jeff Dean had gone to work at another startup before Google and immediately fixed all of their problems. When he asked, “Now what do I do?,” it turned out that they had nothing else interesting to work on, so he left. He was drawn into Google because of the interesting systems problems there.
It became a cycle. These smart people would bring more smart people with them and so on. I think we got the whole systems department at UCSB because Urs was a professor there. It was like pulling on a string of talent and getting all the talent attached to it.
When I found out the focal competition was the VPs wife.
@1kfk+1cJobkkr is right.
My 'why' came when they shut down the R&D group I was hired onto, and I had to go into the pool.
By the end of the first week, I realized exactly why everyone was so busy schmoozing, toadying up, and basically licking the shoes of managers from other teams (even long before the group dissolved). The top talent and the most obsequious toadies got snapped up immediately to other groups. I was still too new by comparison (just a couple of years in), so instead I went and got a job somewhere else. Two weeks later I was working for someone else, and even got a decent salary bump when I did it.
Been invited back a few times by friends I made there, but honestly, I don't think I want to run on that treadmill anymore.
I realized it after about 2 years but, feel free to downvote me to oblivion here, I realized that Intel is also one of the better asic companies in Canada so do more research before jumping ship. US is a different story probably.
After missing my age 55 exit I had to take the 62 retirement option this past year. Too many millennial folks to deal with, they are a different breed, didn't have the time or the patience to build a new team comprising of millennial type folks. I'm old school and this new cr-p won't fly.
The first week after NEO lol
OP: “when” is not the important question, “why” is.
Around 6 month mark when I saw the ping pong and hunger games my manager was playing. Then saw that it was same across teams and orgs.
And there are other companies who pay waaay better in a non-toxic culture. So what incentive is there to not leave
I decided to just ride it out while preparing for a better career outside and left around 2.5 year mark to a FAANG in UK London. I am from UK fwiw.
I would say it was pretty obvious in the first orientation classes, where you realize you are just one of many expendable RCGs. The leaving clock starts ticking right away. It is only compounded further when you learn your job and start understanding your duties and the toxic culture.
The longer you stay, the longer you are locked in, skillessness.
If you are on visa, as soon as you are permanent resident.
If you joined as fresh grad, stay no longer than 2 years. Start interview prep after 1 year. It takes time to secure a good offer. Interviews are very tough and competitive.
If you are experienced and joined due to not finding anything better: you should figure out if Intel is indeed your peak of career or do you more fire left inside you. It’s fine to acknowledge that Intel is your final game and then focus on getting promoted. Do whatever is needed without complaining be it more work or a-s kissing or whatever.
If you have energy left, take only as much time needed for interview prep. Aging doesn’t help.
Why do you care what others think? If you think you need to be outta here, then get outta here. Good luck with current job or new job if you decide to leave.
People stay because it’s a known thing, no matter how much it sucks. There is a s-it line that each person must pass before they say enough is enough and put the effort into finding a new job. After time passes at the new job they realize they should have left ages ago and the cycle begins again.
shortly before august of 2017 when i quit after working for 17 years there
A month after I came here.