<metaname="description"content="Unfortunately, mismatched expectations made me choose to leave my first job as a web developer, effective in January 2025.">
<metaproperty="og:description"content="Unfortunately, mismatched expectations made me choose to leave my first job as a web developer, effective in January 2025.">
<p>Back in August, I shared about <ahref="/blog/posts/2024-08-18-from-hobbyist-to-professional-web-developer/">my transition from hobbyist to professional web developer</a>, after spending almost two years in teaching myself web development to switch my career path from graphic design. I received a lot of positive reception to my story about my career change, with some even telling me they found my story inspiring.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, now I have to break the bad news: I am leaving my first web developer job, and 3 January 2025 will be my last day of my current employment.</p>
<p>After working in my current job for 3 months, I was looking forward to an official confirmation from my company if I pass my probation period. I had high hopes for my chance of passing my probation, because I completed all my assigned tasks before deadlines, and my most notable achievement was developing a custom WordPress plugin for my company's WordPress and WooCommerce website, despite never having made a WordPress plugin before. I still remember my boss‘ “wow” exclamation when I showed him my plugin. I was hoping this could prove my willingness to learn new web development skills, especially since my boss invited me for an interview because he was looking for someone with web development skills. Previously, all the web development jobs were handled by an outsourced web developer, so I guess I was hired because my company was looking for an in-house web developer, so my creation of a custom plugin should be able to prove my web development skills.</p>
<p>I was so, so wrong.</p>
<p>On 3 December 2024, I went to my company's headquarters to meet my manager and boss, after being summoned by my boss on the previous day to discuss my probation. Then, when my boss passed the job performance evaluation form and I read it, I started to have a bad feeling when I realised I was only given an average score in my job performance. Soon, my boss confirmed my suspicion that I did not pass my probation, and said the company did did not consider my performance satisfactory.</p>
<p>Then, my manager and boss gave me an offer: if I were to keep my job and continue my extended probation, I will need to change my job scope and responsibilities to focus more on digital marketing, especially social media copywriting since they lack the manpower for it. They further revealed that the company's website was only one part of their marketing efforts. Therefore, I was given a choice of accepting their offer in job scope changes or not, and given time to consider my choice.</p>
<p>I was devastated by the news that my job performance did not satisfy my employer enough to pass my probation. There was a saying in Chinese, "the higher your hopes, the bigger your disappointment", and that could not be more accurate to describe my situation there. I was much, much more upset by not being able to pass my probation than being <ahref="/articles/living-with-retinitis-pigmentosa">diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa</a>, a genetic, currently incurable eye disease that can lead to loss of vision a few days prior. At least with the latter, I already prepared for the possibility of having an inherited eye condition that was difficult if not possible to cure given my family's history with eye conditions.</p>
<p>After spending time in weighing my choices, I choose to not accept my manager and boss' offer. I want to be a web developer, not a marketer. I got my current job because I wanted to get my first job as a web developer since I am switching my career path from graphic designer to web development. As a result, I was given a termination letter on the next day, stating that my current employment will only continue for another month until 3 January 2025.</p>
<p>In hindsight, I should have seen it coming that my employer do not intend web development to be the main part of my job responsibilities in the company. My official position in my current company is actually marketing assistant, not web developer, not web designer nor WordPress developer, meaning I was actually assigned to the marketing department to support the marketing manager. The company does not have a tech or IT department, so everything technical was handled by the outsourced web developer.</p>
<p>Occasionally, I was assigned to do graphic design work. I did not mind it despite having burned out from graphic design as a profession, because most graphic design works for my company were still handled by outsourced graphic designers, and I could still help with tasks working on my company's WordPress website.</p>
<p>I have been trying to look at the positive that at least I actually got some professional web development experience, even if it lasted only a few months, but it still hurts to realist that web developer, the field I am current focus on and the skill I was supposedly hired for, did not get valued by my current employer as I thought. I learned the hard way that sometimes, an employee's goal and what the employee can offer to the company do not match what the employer actually wants.</p>
