Struggling with motivation after company reorganization

Posted by csgirl1997@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 3 comments

Around 5 YOE here. I’ve been through one reorganization before but it was earlier on in my career when I was new enough that it didn’t really impact me.

As part of a company-wide restructuring a couple months ago, my team was dissolved and we were all reassigned to new teams.

I lucked out in that I had worked with my new manager before. I was honestly extremely frustrated with my previous manager and was kind of looking for an out anyways.

When the reorganization first happened, I was a combination of relieved and deflated. I knew my new manager was really good at what they did, and I was excited to work with them. At the same time, I was extremely demotivated because I had put a lot of extra hours and energy into my old projects. I was the first or second engineer on a lot of the work I had to leave behind.

I’m also a lot more excited about business space my new work is in. And yet, months later I’m really, really struggling with motivation in a way I haven’t in this job before.

I think part of it is that I’m struggling to feel connected to the work/my coworkers. Only one of my coworkers is in the same office as me and we’re not working on the same project.

I think another problem is that because the team were on is new, we don’t really have projects that are large enough for multiple engineers - it’s mostly everyone working independently on their own piece which is kind of isolating.

I think lastly some of it is that I’m struggling to find my place in this new team. Previously I was known for and took a lot of responsibility sone really critical systems within the company that are being phased out now. Also to note: I was about equal seniority with most of my previous teammates.

On this team everyone has ~10 years of experience on me and it’s very difficult to feel like I’m qualified to participate in discussions/take on ownership etc.

I’m trying to stay motivated by finding things in our new org that need to be fixed and take responsibility for them/generally trying to learn as much about our system as I can, but I feel like I’ve taken a huge step back.

I’m starting to debate if it’s time just to look for a new job and start fresh. Curious if any of you all have been through similar

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HumanGarbage2@reddit

I don't have any advice, but I thought I'd weigh in because I'm in a very similar situation. I'm at 4 YOE at this point, so you may want someone more senior to weigh in.

In Jan 2024, I got moved off my previous team/project because it wasn't making enough money. The project still exists and some of my old teammates work on it, but they needed a certain number of engineers to move for reorg and I volunteered. I thought it would be a good opportunity to explore other topics and grow as an engineer.

After a few months on the new team, I realized it wouldn't be a good fit. A lot of the code is legacy and based on proprietary tech, the tooling is ancient, and worst of all, I'm not really passionate about the project. Also, I'm one of the few fully remote engineers and the rest of the team is in person, or at least hybrid, so I miss a lot of the conversations that happen (technical or otherwise).

I debated for a long time whether I wanted to stay. Part of me was worried that if I asked to move it would reflect poorly on me. I was worried people would look at me as someone who backed away from a challenge or was somewhat fickle with the work I was given. I told myself I would give it one year and then I would ask to be moved.

Well, a year passed and I still wasn't happy. I finally told my manager and after a lot of conversation, he agreed to move me to another team and I'll be transitioning this summer.

If I had any advice to give from all of this, it would be to ask yourself the following questions:

"Will this role help me move my career in the direction I want it to go?"
"Am I enjoying the work in some way? You don't have to enjoy every aspect all the time, but is there something you like? Do you like the project and what you're learning (the problems you're solving, the stack, etc)? Do you like the team/dynamic?"
"Is there any easy change that I could make that would help me enjoy this work more?"

It's up to you how you want to weigh these questions, but for me, the answer to all these questions was "no." So it was obvious I needed to look for other roles. Either within or outside the company.

Maybe ask yourself these questions and see what your answers are. You can also give yourself some time or maybe set a deadline to come to an answer (I would not recommend a year like I did, probably something much shorter).

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PhillyPhantom@reddit

I don't have too much advice to offer you but did have a couple of questions. I do want to say that I understand how you feel because I've been there multiple times before and am currently there right now in a new role. Please understand that you are just as skilled as your new teammates and/or management sees that you have the capability to be just as good, if not better than them. If they didn't, you most likely would've been re-org'd out the door. The only difference between you and your teammates right now is that they just have years of domain knowledge that you don't have, yet. After a year or so (if you choose to stay that long), you should be at 80-90% of the proficiency as the rest of the team.

When was the last time you took a proper vacation? Is it possible that you haven't given yourself time to properly destress/decompress from the last stressful role?

What's the overall team demeanor/culture? Are they open to providing mentorship/assistance? Do you feel free to ask questions in a safe space without judgement?

If you don't feel that motivation to code/work on the projects will ever come, then you may have to face the possibility of either trying to change teams and/or companies.