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I’m working 2 jobs at the moment, putting 12+ hours/day, been doing for about 2 months and I’m already burned out;
I’m working for a big e-commerce agency which is about to get bigger, doing mostly outdated Frontend work (Magento) with no sign of raises/promotions/ real growth, since all clients are basically enterprise and only want “ol’ reliable” over innovative.
A lot of smart people, lot of knowledge, pay is fair.

The second job I’m doing (part-time) is for a smaller agency in the same sector, pay is a bit higher, closer time zone and an opportunity to work with newer technologies.

I need to make a decision on one of these two companies since I can’t possibly keep working all these hours.
Is there anything else I need to consider before making a decision?

As a Frontend developer I’m getting a bit tired of working with Magento and its outdated tools, but at the same time seems difficult to switch to something different since I haven’t really worked with anything else, I feel a little bit lost

Comments
  • 2
    Going away from e commerce, also mostly magento, was the biggest relief I could have done in my career so far. I would quit if I need to do the things I did in magento ever again.
  • 2
    From my personal experience I can tell you that my professional growth spiked wildly while I was working for an agency.

    Started as an js noob in the agency, team was great and they helped me grow as a dev. Good practices, pitfals and gotchas, software architecture, patterns and when to choose which one and why, learned Typescript, learned react from zero to hero...

    If you have people that can back you up and will take some of their time to explain some concepts to you and if you are willing to learn, then my advice is go with the agency. Be sure you will be backed up by the team and that you can learn from someone, ask for mentoring.

    Why agency? Well I am currently working in ecommerce company (no particular framework) and I am feeling that my skills are rotting away.

    I feel that ecommerce is very special part of the industry where there is emphasis on short and fast money rather than long term quality and stable products. Just my 2c.
  • 0
    @bagfox may I ask to what did you switch to?
  • 1
    @devJs well both companies are Magento agencies basically, even if my “main” offers other services as well since it’s bigger. Problem is, I’d love to learn more and get better at js, for which at the moment I only seem to have a hatred for because I am forced to work with Magento over bad engineered Frontend, which uses AMD with knockout, jquery and an implementation that sometimes makes me want to cry and question myself if I will ever really understand js.
    I have many interests but I don’t want to stretch myself too thin trying to learn too many things at once but focus on one of the things I’m better at, which is fact fronted work
  • 2
    Second job seems more interesting.

    I'm front end developer too, and also worked with agencies and their horrible legacy code and narrow minds.

    If you can, go away from this kind of environment. It's scary, but it will be worth it. You will free your mind to learn more and even do small side projects. I have been updating myself for a longtime now, and progressed a lot since I started to refuse working with certain platforms/technologies or managers which refuses to evolve.

    It's sad how many developers are trapped in jobs that sucks all their time and offers only money in exchange. Remember, your health, time and opportunity to learn are the most precious thing you have.
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