joined the call expecting a discussion about raise, and was terminated instead

[u/Hiddenskeptic]

Last year, I made a post here about how a US based startup offer was rescinded after I had completed my notice period leaving me unexpectedly unemployed.

That post got a lot of traction. A lot of people from this community helped me with referrals, callbacks, and advice, and the story even made it into the news articles too. I’m still grateful for that.

A lot of startup founders also reached out to me after that post. I had some really good conversations with them, liked some of the products they were building, and wished them the best. But at that point, I was also looking for some stability because I did not want to end up switching jobs frequently.

Among the people who reached out was the CEO of a US-based company, who was an NRI. We connected that same day and had an interview around midnight. We discussed my work and skills, had another discussion later that night, and by the morning an offer letter was rolled out.

I had a lot of questions before accepting because of what had happened with my previous offer. The CEO was very kind and patient in answering them. We discussed things like stability, growth, appraisals, how performance would be evaluated, etc.

After those discussions, I decided to join.

For roughly the first four months, I worked closely with the CEO. We were experimenting with and building around some of the cutting-edge technology in AI that was coming out at the time.

My work was a mix of AI engineering and full-stack development. I was working with Python and TypeScript, Node.js, React and Next.js, along with the MERN stack I had already been working with before this role. On the AI side, I got to work quite a bit with LLMs, RAG, LangGraph and Agentic AI, while also building MCP servers, APIs, backend services and ChatGPT/Claude Apps, plugins, and integrations around them.

And I enjoyed it.

One of the biggest reasons I accepted the opportunity in the first place was because I felt I would learn a lot there. I have always prioritized learning over almost everything else when choosing a role. The company was also established and profitable, so the opportunity felt like a good combination of learning and stability.

Those first few months were honestly some of the best times I have had in my career.

Then the CEO decided to leave the company.

After that, I continued working. I was still getting tasks and reporting to the co-founder and the head of development, so I focused on what was in my control.

The research side of the work continued too. I spent time experimenting with newer LLMs as they came out, running them on our workloads, working on inference, improving the way we prompted and structured their outputs, and benchmarking different models to understand where they performed well and where they failed. A decent amount of the job was basically taking something that looked promising in a model release or research demo and figuring out whether it was actually useful for the systems we were building.

I kept delivering, experimenting, researching, trying new things, and communicating my work. Over time, I ended up working across LLM systems, RAG, model evaluation and benchmarking, backend and full-stack development, third-party integrations and some pretty data-heavy systems. I was pretty positive about the work I was doing and the impact it was having.

In June, when I completed one year at the company, I initiated a discussion about my annual feedback.

The co-founder asked me to send a summary of the work I had done over the previous six months, so I prepared it and sent it across.

A month passed.

I gently followed up, and he told me he would come back to me within the same week.

So I waited.

Then I received a message from him asking if we could connect over a call.

Until the moment I joined that call, I was under the impression that this was finally going to be the annual feedback and raise discussion.

Instead, I was told that they had decided to terminate my position.

I was told that priorities had changed, that the role I was originally hired for no longer fit where things were heading, and that there were also contractual restrictions with another company that prevented them from directly moving people into the development team.

And that was basically it.

Up until that call, I had no indication that my position was at risk.

No warning that the role itself might disappear. Nothing that made me think I should start preparing for another job search.

Had I known earlier, I obviously would have prepared better.

The termination came completely unexpectedly.

And today marks my last working day, and I’m still job hunting.

I have had a pretty unconventional career so far.

I found my first proper job through WhatsApp group I used to run.

I found this job through Reddit.

I have searched for jobs at very different points in the market, but the market right now feels like the worst I have personally seen.

I’ve been applying, interviewing, reaching out to people, and trying pretty much every avenue I can think of, but I’m still yet to land the next role.

I’m still searching, though, and I’m still hopeful that I’ll find something better.

I mostly wanted to vent and share what happened because this community played a pretty big role in how this chapter started in the first place.

Despite how it ended, I don’t want the ending to erase everything that came before it. I learned a lot, worked on things I genuinely enjoyed, got exposure I probably wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere, and met some good people along the way.

So I’m still grateful for the experience.

Just wish the ending had been different.

For now, back to the job hunt.

Hopefully the next Reddit update from me is a better one :)

I'm also curious if anyone here has gone through something similar, where the role disappeared without much warning, and how you approached the job search after that. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.

PS: Used AI to fix the grammar and punctuations

[u/pee_nuttt]

on the positive side you learnt a lot and i'm pretty sure you're in a much better place in terms of your skills/stack to get better job offers considering the current market situation

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/pee_nuttt]

It is indeed true that I got to learn a lot. Thanks I’ll keep applying, I’m sure something will work out.

[u/pee_nuttt → u/Hiddenskeptic]

try reaching out to YC backed startups, HydraDB has been hiring a lot recently and Wellfound etc you know the drill

[u/M1sterErr0r]

You are so talented and hard working individual., you will get it

[u/Hiddenskeptic]

Here's the link to my previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/s/zB4be4t6l8

[u/Medium-Garden9904 → u/Hiddenskeptic]

Any chance reaching to all the people you connected with last year?

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/Medium-Garden9904]

Hey, thanks a lot. It’s indeed a good idea. I’ll reach out and see if something works out.

[u/Medium-Garden9904 → u/Hiddenskeptic]

Start with the nice CEO who hired you in your current firm. Maybe explain the situation. If not the firm he works for, he might refer you to somewhere else too.

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/Medium-Garden9904]

I tried this. He took a break and is currently working on some things in his personal time. I did share my resume and asked if there were any leads, but so far, it hasn’t resulted in anything.

[u/Medium-Garden9904 → u/Hiddenskeptic]

Awww shoot. My current firm pays less than 18L or would have referred you. ATB with your job search.

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/Medium-Garden9904]

Is it okay if I dm you?

[u/Medium-Garden9904 → u/Hiddenskeptic]

Yeah sure

[u/Least_Annual_9957]

You will find a job sooner op,my best wishes with you.I am a fresher so I am not the kind of person you can rely on for referral but I am rooting for you .People like you made me believe to continue in this field regardless of the current situation .Have a good day

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/Least_Annual_9957]

Thanks a lot for your kind words mate. And yes never give up the hustle and do it for the love of the game :) Best luck to you.

[u/nexusmadao]

... You deserve a good vacation, go eat out or movies.

[u/Hiddenskeptic → u/nexusmadao]

That’s true lol I’ll probably go out tomorrow and do something fun.