Grieving over a job break up

It's been a year! On this day, last year, I resigned from my previous job where I was the Head of Frontend Engineering at Curalie GmbH for 3 years.

I had grown in this role into engineering leadership and I could not have been happier with my career path. But after 3 years, it was also the time for me to move on and look for bigger challenges in an environment where values and culture were more valuable for the organisation.

My time at Curalie

I joined Curalie as a Senior Frontend Engineer and took up the role as Lead Engineer shortly. During this time, I had a team to manage while also overseeing the product deliverables. I was one of the first 5 engineers in the company when I had joined and at the time when I left, the tech team was about ~50, and the frontend team had grown to ~12 people.

I was still hands-on coding on that role. On the frontend, our team used React and React Native. My favorite accomplishments:

• Setting up the entire automated build pipeline for React Native using Fastlane
• Setting up automated end to end testing for React using Cypress, including api testing using Pact
• Setting up automated end to end - integration testing for React Native using Testproject.io that worked well with our manual QA team
• Strategising product deliverables and aligning the entire team with the roadmap
• Empathetic and authentic leadership

Decision to move on was not hard, but emotional

Resigning from Curalie was not hard, but it turned out to be emotional, more than I expected.

I resigned, submitted my papers and had a loud cry.

It is during this time that I realised that I just had a job break up, a job that I enjoyed and had grown as a person and a leader. I had to grieve over it.

I asked the following question in Elpha.com.

Dear Elpha community, I handed in my resignation at work today. Although I still have the 3-month notice period and was passively preparing for this resignation, I was not ready for the kind of emotions I am having today. I cried aloud and now I have this sense of loss although I know something exciting is waiting ahead. How to deal with this or how to mourn effectively?

I got good advice from folks and I decided to use the time to say goodbyes to colleagues and work on a good handover.

https://elpha.com/posts/kpo019t4/how-to-mourn-after-job-resignation

Interviewing and grieving

As funny as it apears to me today, on the day I resigned I sent an email to Anaconda saying after the first HR screen I was no longer interested in continuing the inteview process. Jessica, SVP Operations at Anaconda convinced me that I should take the Manager screen interview which was scheduled for the next day.

I had to grieve and I was not ready for an interview. I was tired and needed a break. But since the interview was already scheduled for the next day I decided to continue the interview process.

Manager screen at Anaconda

I had no major expectations from the interview, but just after the interview started and I was talking to Nick, the then VP Engineering, I felt a connection. We also spoke about my resignation, me mourning and also how I was not looking forward to the interview and wanted it to be cancelled.

Towards the end of the hour, the call went beyond ~10 mins, and we both were happy about our interview. I wanted to a job at Anaconda and I was looking forward to the next rounds.

During the next panel rounds, I met amazing people who are now great colleagues. During the final round, I met Kevin, CTO, who is now my Manager at Anaconda.

We had 30 minutes scheduled, and knowing how busy a CTO would be, I had tried to read up as much as I could about Kevin so that I could ask him good questions in the 5 minutes that I would get after he would be done asking me questions.

But Kevin surprised me and asked if I had any questions in the beginning itself. My homework did pay, and we had a good conversation.

Conclusion

I always listen to myself, always on the watch for any signs that bother me. I give a second chance, but beyond that I treat as warning signs and then believe in taking necessary actions.

Although things were good at Curalie, things became limited for my growth both in terms of salary and impact. I decided to resign.

But mourning over a job was a new experience and it is a thing!