Ask HN: Rejecting an offer from one of the Big 4 after I signed it | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Rejecting an offer from one of the Big 4 after I signed it

2 pointsilokmenkha5 comments

Early this year I got and signed an offer letter with Facebook London which gave me a nice SWE position starting in March after I graduated. However, in this interim year, I got another job offer from an exciting startup which I'm planning to take.

If I had a time machine I would go back a year and not sign the Facebook offer. Since I don't, does anyone here have any experience with the consequences of rejecting job offers from big software companies after signing up with them? Would I get some kind of penalty (I didn't take the signing bonus yet)? Would this bar me from having a new offer with Facebook in an hypothetical future?

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I would never hire someone back who accepted and then bailed on a job offer. I would hire someone back who rejected a job offer and got back in touch at a later time saying circumstances have changed. I think once you make a commitment to someone that you will do something, and then you do not do it, regardless of the legal repercussions most people will not want to hire you as a result.

It is possible that you are amazing at what you do and that they will bend over backwards to make a spot for you even if you abuse them. I suspect however the good advice for 90% of people asking that question is only take the start-up job if you never want to work for Facebook or the person who offered you the Facebook job.

Let's reverse the circumstance.

Let's say you signed a job offer with Facebook. A year later, there's a recession and FB decides that they didn't need X many SWEs now. I would think they would write you a letter to regretfully inform you of the situation and may be offer you some compensation (that might work only for FB, other cash strapped companies might never do this).

Loyalty, not reneging on your word etc, is overrated. I think they will understand that if not for this wonderful new/unexpected opportunity that turned up for you, you were planning on keeping up your end of the bargain. So I'd say go ahead and take the new gig.

My problem is not loyalty or whatever. I just don't want to be burned from all Facebook jobs for the rest of my life for not taking a job I signed for.

It's hard to know what a specific company's policies will be, but in general I expect larger companies to still be willing to work with you in the future even if you bail on them.

Facebook probably didn't even allocate you to a specific team, so no-one is even expecting you, they're just expecting to need X entry-level SWEs next year.

Smaller companies are more likely to take things personally.

Maybe you should get in touch with them and ask them what their policy on this would be?

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