leaving my dream job🐝

#43 behind-the-scenes of leaving Bumble!

A note for readers
This one is compilation of my thoughts/notes from last 8-10 months. Since then, I had my wedding, job hunting rollercoaster, last days at Bumble, first few months at my new job and most recently, the heartbreaking news of layoffs at Bumble. So if anything feels a tad bit off timely, silly or obvious to you, that’s why!

A note for my bumble team 🐝💛
If you are reading this, I want to tell you that working with you was one of the best experiences of my life. Having seen first-hand how talented and thoughtful you are, I have no doubt that even though this season is hard, there will be a silver lining to all of this. So much love, always a DM away for you.

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When I graduated from university if you asked me about my dream job I would have said…

Something that is rooted in feminism led by women.

Someplace where I get to be surrounded by ambitious, fashionable women. In a very cosmopolitan city like London or NYC with a trendy office.

Yes yes you got me. Very Devil wears Prada/ SATC vibes.😅

But back then it also seemed very unlikely of happening to me. Something that stays on your vision board to add to your room aesthetic.

That is until Bumble happened.💛

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I moved to London and joined the team right smack in the middle of lockdowns and covid. I was very awkward, not that confident and still figuring out if I am any good as a designer!

The small yet mighty, remote but so incredibly thoughtful and connected Bumble team adopted me right away. In short, they were 100% of my social circle + work besties.

First time we met IRL after working together for months!

…and the rest as they say is history (one that is very well captured on my instagram lol).

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The best thing about Bumble for me will always be the people I got to know, and work with, and be friends with. Not surprising, few of them were part of my 30 people wedding list! And I wrote about the biggest change it brought in me.

All the professional ups and downs were truly worth it all - because of people I got to surround myself with.

But since early last year I had been a little restless..

Bumble had become my comfort zone. And while comfort zones are comforting for a reason, they can become quite stifling when they start holding you back.

Although quitting and finding a new job was the most obvious option, I wasn’t really sure what I want to do next. The college version of me had not planned anything beyond this.

Looking back now, I can look back at last 10-12 months and divide them into my very own personal mini eras.

(I went through the eras quite organically, though while reading

Kate Syuma

’s wonderful writeup on her own eras, I found out there is a whole book on it.)

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💅 who-am-I-xoxo era

This era required me to step back to step forward. Slow down to move faster. Do nothing to be more productive lol.

While I would love to paint a montage of me soul-searching in a cabin somewhere on beach, it really wasn’t that fancy. I was very restless and it took a few months and a lot of linkedin/instagram stalking to build this mental collage of what kinda life I would love to build for myself.

Two soul-searching exercises I can suggest for this era.

1. Think about your career as a product.
   Does it have product-market fit? Does it have a founder-product fit? If your career so far is an MVP, what would be V1? What does your brand say. (Sorry not sorry, I love doing this at work, so I love using similar lenses on my career.) Also, career not job.

2. If money (and visa) was not a limitation, what would I do?
   Having grown up in a developing country, I struggle to break through my scarcity mindset at times. Allowing myself to get wild and getting out of my own way massively helped here. Would recommend a listen to this wonderful podcast by Mel Robbins on 5 Truths you need to hear.

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🫠 need-a-plan era

Because of how hard and messy and abstract the phase 1 felt, phase 2 felt relatively easier. I had a very clear idea (a literal list I shared with my recruiters) of what I wanted in my next role.

Personally, this era had two tracks I needed to spend my energy on
1. safety track (applying for long-term visa, trying to be a bit more financially responsible, etc)
2. discovery track (talking to people on similar journey, interviewing, etc).

This was the most time consuming era. I was overwhelmed by all the multi-tasking, and still hesitant to take any final calls.

I had an offer that was almost everything I was looking for but I still had a lot of inertia in me.

Reasons I was using to avoid taking the final call.
- We had our wedding coming up!
- I loved my Bumble team to bits.
- Tech layoffs all around, silly to jump boats?
- Most of all, I was deep into my comfort zone and did not want to create entropy.🫡

planning a wedding x interviewing x 9-5 job feat overwhelmed me.

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✌️ okay-bestie-we-got-this era

One of my biggest learnings from last year was how not to make decisions operating from a place of fear.

It’s hard, especially if you have moved countries and started from scratch and are on a visa and always have a running mental list of all the things that can go wrong. I hear you.

My friends who moved abroad and I talk about this often - that it is so incredibly rare to have luxury of failure. To be able to make a decision that turns out to be wrong, and you can still move on unaffected.

This might sound a tad bit too dramatic to you, and it does to me too in hindsight.

But that’s the thing.

All of us go through some versions of this. Maybe for you it’s about finally starting that blog/podcast, applying for masters abroad, joining a gym, or getting on a dating app.

Navigating change is always a big personal journey and it’s never linear.

And at some point you gotta take that leap of faith.💖

So yeah there was that. Looking back, I find the entire process to be very personally fulfilling - because it never is about the job anyways. It’s about finding things that bring you the most amount of joy, settling into your likes/dislikes a little bit more, and operating from a place of more surety.

To really look in the mirror and go, “hey hey even if the decision does not work out, I got this. I got myself.”✨

💛💛💛

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I hope in me sharing this, you saw some parts of your journey or things on your mind. If you did, please do write to me.

Talk next week,
Chhavi x

insta | twitter

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If you have a friend navigating a change, I would love for you to share this with them. Friends of friends are usually the fastest way to make new friends. 🫶