How to Know When It’s Time to Quit Your Job

How I evaluate the return on my time - money, growth, peace of mind, and beyond.

I have been away for a while, but a lot has happened in that time. I changed my job while I was busy taking care of my toddler, and navigating the death of close family members.

But today, I want to write about the topic of “quitting” a job - We often tend to remain in jobs for a long time even when we know it’s time to move on. Sometimes, it’s a matter of not trusting our own instincts, and sometimes it’s a matter of colluding our thoughts with what we hear from others - “Maybe things will turn around, Maybe I need to stick around, Maybe I am not worthy”. So I want to lay out somethings which have helped me make decisions in the past, and hope it would help you if you are on a similar path.

Whenever I feel like quitting a job, it usually starts as a “feeling” - not some clean spreadsheet-based decision. But every time I’ve dug into those feelings, I’ve found that they’re based on real signals. My brain just takes time to catch up. In these past few months that I was away, I quit my current job to pick up a better paying job in FAANG. In this market, it was a mix of both effort and serendipity, but today, I want to talk about how I decide to change my job, every time I do so.

To help me make sense of it, the PM in me came up with a framework. It’s not perfect. But it helps.

I use one thing to rationalize:
Time.

Time is the commodity I’m offering my company. And that time is made up of:

• Experience

• Skills

• Judgment

• Focus

• Emotional bandwidth

It’s not free. So every year, I ask:
Is the return I’m getting worth the time I’m giving?

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⏳ Time = Money

Let’s start with the obvious.

You're giving your literal hours, your late nights, your weekend Slack checks. In return, you're being paid.

So the question is:
Is the money fair for what I’m doing, and the level I’m operating at?

Don’t just look at your title. Look at:

• The scope you're handling

• The impact you’re driving

• The expectations placed on you

• The skills you’ve built that no one’s even acknowledged yet

Check externally. Use:

• Levels.fyi

• Blind (with caution)

• Conversations with peers

If you’re consistently underpaid and the system won’t budge, you’re being undervalued. Staying will only make you resentful.

📌 Money isn’t greedy. It’s acknowledgment.

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⏳ Time = Current Opportunities

Even if the pay isn’t ideal, is the work you’re doing right now worth it now?

Ask:

• Is your work visible to leadership?

• Is it in a growth area (GenAI, monetization, platform strategy)?

• Or are you in legacy clean-up duty with no future?

Not all work is equal.

Some jobs are “milk the cow” - steady, but flat.
Some are “build the future” - messy, but full of upside.

Also ask:

• Am I learning to handle cross-functional chaos?

• Am I improving at influence, customer thinking, or storytelling?

• Am I finally in rooms I used to be shut out of?

📌 Current opportunity sharpens your edge. It builds your next move.

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⏳ Time = Future Growth Potential

This is the tricky one.

Sometimes you stay not for what the job is - but what it’s supposed to become.

Maybe your manager says, “We’re planning something big for you.”
Or, “This project will get you noticed.”
Or, “Promo’s coming next cycle.”

Cool. But is it real?

Look for signs:

• Are people around you being rewarded - or just strung along?

• Is leadership consistent with follow-through?

• Are you being brought into planning - or just kept in delivery mode?

📌 Hope is not a strategy. If there’s no signal, don’t wait in silence.

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⏳ Time = Comfort

Sometimes you stay because the job is... manageable.

You’re recovering from burnout.
You’ve just had a baby.
You’re caring for family.
You don’t have the energy to start fresh.

That’s completely valid.

But here’s the catch:
Comfort is not neutral.

Stay in it too long, and:

• Your skills dull

• Your ambition fades

• You lose touch with the market

📌 Use comfort as a pit stop, not your final destination.

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⏳ Time = Relationships & Reputation

Sometimes you stay because you’re building career equity - the kind that doesn’t show up on a payslip.

• Your manager champions you

• Leadership trusts you

• You’re the person people go to when things break

• People say your name when you’re not in the room

This compounds. It gets you your next big scope or referral. But if you’re being passed over, sidelined, or excluded from ownership - even when you're delivering - then you’re not building any equity at all.

📌 You don’t need to be liked by everyone. You just need the right people to bet on you.

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⏳ Time = Learning & Intellectual Satisfaction

Is your brain still in the game?

Ask yourself:

• Am I solving new problems?

• Am I learning better judgment, better product taste?

• Or am I just becoming really good at navigating Jira?

If you’re checked out mentally, but still working long hours, you’re not learning. You’re just draining time.

📌 Your brain wants to grow. Feed it something worth staying for.

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📉 But First: Market Reality Check

Before you jump ship, pause.

We’re not in a 2021 market anymore. We’re in a cycle of:

• Layoffs and hiring freezes

• Backfills on hold

• PMs fighting over fewer open roles

Even great PMs are underplaced - not because they aren’t good, but because the market isn’t moving.

So before you quit, ask:

• What’s the actual market appetite for your skillset?

• Can you grow quietly for a few months while the dust settles?

• Are you jumping into a better role - or just escaping this one?

📌 Sometimes, staying is not settling. It’s your smartest option in a bad market.

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🔁 If You Decide to Stay…

Sometimes, staying is strategic. Not weak.
But don’t use that as an excuse to stagnate.

You don’t need to “crush it.” You just need to move one or two small levers, depending on your bandwidth.

1. Skill Up - Quietly

Pick a new trend that aligns with your work.

• GenAI tools in your domain

• Better async writing or stakeholder storytelling

• Watch teardown videos during lunch - no pressure to “finish”

🎯 1 hour a week adds up. Compound slowly.

2. Be Slightly More Visible

Not performative. Just clear.

• Send a short monthly impact email

• Share 1 lesson on LinkedIn every 2 weeks

• Give feedback on a doc others are ignoring

🎯 You don’t need to go viral. You just need to be remembered.

3. Explore Through Side Projects

If you have energy - and only if.

• Try building a tool in your space

• Play with an old pain point from your job

• Write a 300-word blog post. No pressure to launch a personal brand.

🎯 You don’t need a portfolio. You just need a signal.

3. Build your brand

I cannot stress on this enough. In this market, where the supply is more than the demand, it is really important to stand out. Post on linkedin, write on substack, anything. There is such high value to being visible in this market, I will follow up with a post on this.

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🔁 Put It All Together

This isn’t a formula. It’s a gut-check.

Every year, I sit with this:
What am I giving - and what am I getting?

If it’s off, I speak up. I ask for more. Or I quietly start prepping to leave.

Not because I’m trying to get ahead.
But because I’ve learned to respect my time.