Leaving gracefully
Leaving a job is a big deal! It’s an important moment to take stock of and celebrate what you accomplished, and reflect on what you enjoyed or didn’t about your job. It’s also a rare moment where you can share why you’re leaving (so long as you don’t burn it all down!)
Every job transition involves both running towards something as well as away from something. Framing what you’re running toward and why is a way to start on the right tone in a new environment.
I wanted to share the goodbye letter I wrote to Coinbase after being there 6 years. I received feedback that it resonated with a lot of people. I aimed to hit a positive but honest tone. Without further ado:
Hello, it’s me. Jackie. Wow it sure is hard to leave Coinbase! But it is my time.
My leaving is not a reflection of how optimistic I am about Growth and Coinbase. It’s a function of time and my being ready for a change of pace. I’m going to a climate tech startup to lead their engineering team, and Feb 27 will be my last day.
Please keep in touch - seriously! jackie@teran.co | LinkedIn
While you’re here, I wanted to share reflections on how to be successful - or maybe at least a little happier - at Coinbase, and what I have appreciated vs what I wish was a little different at Coinbase.
Unsolicited Advice
A few words of unsolicited advice to anyone reading… some of this may sound cliche, but I mean every word.
Optimize for learning. I know how intense and all-consuming the perf cycles at Coinbase are, but you are more than your calibration rating and your level. Coinbase is one of the many experiences you’ll have on this big, beautiful planet. Push yourself to learn as much as you can, and good things will follow.
Be engaged. One of my favorite and most formative teachers was my 11th grade English teacher, who introduced each of his malleable, angsty teenage students to philosophy, existentialism, and Kohlberg’s stages of moral development as it relates to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When I was leaving my very large, average high school that I was ready to leave to go to college, I asked him for advice and he looked up very sincerely and said to me, “Jackie, whatever you do, be engaged. Life is too interesting to be bored with what you are doing.” It hit me deep and I think of these words often.
In the words of one of my heroes Conan O’Brien, don’t be cynical. Don’t gossip. Anything you say about someone behind closed doors is something you should say to them directly. Get off Blind. Gosh I know it can be fun, and it’s so entertaining, but it’s so toxic and can really get you down. If you do it, don’t take it seriously, and don’t let it get to you. Find your why, race your race, you do you. Be proud of how you show up, and don’t compare yourself to others.
I genuinely believe that everyone’s doing their best. Some people are better than others 😅but everyone’s doing their best. The moment I stop believing this is the moment I really will lose all faith in humanity.
ICs - Get along with your manager. You don’t have to like them, but it’s your job to get along with them. I have had so many managers here and a different relationship with each one - some real bumps in the road at times - but each time I realized I was part of the problem and needed to shake it off and meet them where they’re at. Meet people where they’re at.
Managers - be good to your people.
Don’t forget the power of a thoughtful note - a welcome to Coinbase, a hello how are you, a congrats, a quick coffee chat. “Water cooler” talk can still happen over Slack, but it does require someone to initiate it.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Be good to one another, and lift each other up.
To Coinbase
I am deeply and genuinely appreciative of my experience here over the last six years. I have grown up here - as an engineer and as someone who is now squarely in my mid-thirties and “mom era”. I’ve been able to have three distinct tours of duty - a product engineer, switching to the dark side - management 😜 - founding App Infra (I am so lucky 🥺) a front-end platform team, and now a senior manager of a Growth pillar. The crypto markets have been volatile since March 2020, but Coinbase - ironically - has been a place of stability for me. Since March 2020 when I joined, I have moved 4 times, I started a family and got more than I bargained for (twins for my second pregnancy!), and I have ploughed forward to the steady drumbeat of Coinbase and its cultural tenets.
What I Genuinely Love About Coinbase
There is an energy here. It may not feel like it every minute of every day, but on the whole, people are grinding and getting shit done and that feels so great to be a part of. Crypto, though much more mainstream than it was when I started here, is still edgy. And there is still a feeling that this is just the beginning. That energy has been special, and I know I will miss it.
The people are good. Seriously - the people who survive here are high-functioning and analytical and motivated and good at their jobs. No shade to the people who don’t last here more than a couple of years, but anyone here more than two years is a killer.
I feel I was able to do my best work here. Bold ideas are encouraged, tested, and gone after. Thank you for letting me cut my teeth here, as I get closer to my dream of being a technical entrepreneur.
And thank goodness for the ability to work remotely. Using the time it would take to commute or to be presentable to other humans on a daily basis for work instead of those other things has made it possible for me to do my job. Hallelujah!
What I Would Change
Coinbase - invest in building an engineering fabric. One by one, efforts to build this have been stripped away. Working groups - gone. The Coinbase Engineering Conference - no more. The company is so hyper-focused on results, that it has forgotten that the majority of people who work here have a desire to learn, connect, and be a part of a community. There are little to no outlets for camaraderie beyond your immediate team. The transactional nature of the job is particularly detrimental to the new generation of Coinbaes.
But really… why? Yes, measure the impact. Yes, put reasonable boundaries on the expenses that go towards work extracurriculars. Yes, the results and impact of your immediate team matter more than one’s involvement in a work extracurricular. But… to completely erase forums for one to connect to other like-minded people within the company is eroding the culture, retention, and morale of the company. Innovation cannot happen without space for ideas to flow. And an exchange of ideas cannot happen unless there are semi-unstructured dare-I-say-for-fun gatherings of some sort.
The engineering rubric is missing acknowledgement of the people who are, put simply, kind and helpful. The people who take time out of their day to help other engineers out. Sometimes there’s a panelist who pounds the table for someone who has been extremely helpful - but this is an exception, not the rule. And there is a business reason! It is the helpful and kind engineers that scale themselves and increase productivity of other engineers & teams.
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I am proud of the work I did here… launching the original Borrow, React Native re-write, GraphQL migration, Project Eitri, driving Code Red workstreams, SEO turning around, leading the women-in-eng group, the first CEC, the engineering learning & development group, the Superbowl Prediction Market incentive - being here on the inside through the ups and downs of the last 6 years. It seriously has been a ride. I know it will continue, and as excited as I am to be starting a new adventure, I am truly sad I won’t be at Coinbase.
Thank you for reading… get back to work! 😁
This was not written by AI.
This took me 30min-1hr.
These thoughts, feelings, and opinions expressed above are those of mine and mine only - not representative of Coinbase or anyone else affiliated with Coinbase.
