June 28th, marked the end of my journey at SurveyMonkey, a great company I had worked for more than 3 years. It’s a bittersweet heart to say goodbye.
Many colleagues were wondering why I leave when it’s only half year to my 4 years anniversary. This is one of the reasons that makes Survey Monkey great. You will get extra 4 weeks vacation every 4 years. The company cares about employees life a lot and try to balance our work and life. Besides the generous take 4 policy, they provide free breakfast and lunch, support you to attend conference every year, allow working from home if you want, monthly bonus points(can redeem Amazon gift cards) etc. just name a few.
It was not easy to say goodbye to such amazing benefits, leaving an amazing team is also risky. Although all my team members except me located in Bay area, I never feel I am alone, daily stand up, biweekly 1:1 with manager, sprint planning meetings every two weeks and a lot slack calls for discuss or pair programming, we have established a solid way to do remote communication. because of 3 hours time difference, they try their best to no bother me after 6:00pm (EST), and I try my best to cover incidents or issues happen in the morning (before 12:00pm PST), which proved to work very well.
I was impressed the warm words the team delivered to me upon hearing my news, they even prepared a thank you card and gift to me which I was really touched. I was even questioning myself: is leaving good?.
Nobody know a decision is good or not until it proved to be. we experienced a lot good things in the past, nice people, wonderful place, but as life moving on and us growing up, everything has an end. Leaving is exactly a graduation for me. SurveyMonkey is indeed a university for me, where I focused on technology but also took a lot ‘courses’ in cooperation, leading, communication, understanding. And just like 6 years ago, and almost the same time when I graduated from University. maybe this is also a time for my graduation as an intermediate software engineer.
Graduation marks the starting of a new journey, a new school, in the new journey, I will be a curious student to learn, be a good team player to contribute, be a better man.
Last but not least, I will be a good husband to support my family. Thanks to my wife for accompanying me since 2016, the journey is meaningless without you.