I got a job 3 weeks ago, as a front-end developer. Obviously still on probation. Just got terminated today, reason given was I do not know how to use tools. They say the fact that I use Firefox as my preferred browser means that I'll most likely be terrible at cross-browser testing. That the fact that I do not use chrome dev tools is a red flag. Or the fact that I said I prefer using text editors (vs code) over full blown IDES (visual studio).
So my question is, is it fair to terminate a new developer because they use Firefox?
Before hiring you they had either interviewed another candidate that matched their needs and was more experienced than you, or expected a friend of theirs to join their team, but did not reply back for a while and due to their tight schedule, they had to hire someone urgently, thus leading to your hiring. After hiring you, between the end of second and third week, this aforementioned candidate or friend replied and said "I'm available now" and decided to let you go; the only thing that had to do is to figure out a way to use as an excuse to fire you.
I have been there myself and I know first hand how it feels; therefore I will repeat myself: discuss the matter with a lawyer and feel happy that you dodged a bazooka, not just a bullet!
I'm sorry for that bad experience. If you were instructed to change tools or given a warning prior to termination, the termination might be justified on grounds of insubordination, but not on merit.
Either way, that place you just left carries a bigger red flag than you.
> I'm not sure what to do next.
Keep learning, get more experience, apply to the next job.
I could be wrong, as I have very limited context, so here's my justification for making that claim. You're giving a very one-sided view in the intro, and then other important details crop up below. You didn't know Angular, for example, but the company was willing to give you the time to learn it. You sounded hostile about being asked to work more in the office. Reading between the lines, it seems you were also critical about what work you were given. I'm sure you were trying to help, and you were just being honest. But that kind of feedback costs you capital that you didn't have, since you were so new and lacking in experience where they needed it.
As a manager, I can imagine thinking that you don't have much expertise in our tech stack, and you're not the most easy-going of people to work with. You mentioned that you thought you were a good fit given their technical goals. But tech skills are a small part of "fit".
I think the manager made a decision that they thought was the best for both of you, and they were probably right.
And it seems like you need to learn from that, rather than come here looking for validation that none of this was your fault.
They told you you don't know how to use your tools. In other words that you were not being professional. Not that you are not allowed to use other tools. There's a subtle difference. You might think you know best (can't judge that) but your failure is actually convincing others of those amazing abilities and skills you have.
The fact that you are on HN complaining about this, tells me a lot. It's a bit immature behavior and you are burning a few bridges like that. That combined with a few things that maybe didn't go that well in your work in the first weeks would be a gigantic red flag for a manager.
I would recommend not doing acting out in public like this. It's unprofessional. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. Nobody cares. This is probably a good learning moment for you as well. Somebody didn't see things your way and chose to let you go rather than work with you some more. You might want to reflect on what you could have done differently here.
Anyway, you wouldn't be the first opinionated junior developer that gets a reality check this way. They hired you to do a job and you managed to get yourself fired in 3 weeks. Not a good look. You should thank them for not wasting your time more than that and avoid a repeat of that with whatever you do next.
Nowadays there are few differences between firefox web developer tools and chrome's tools.
IDEs can be powerful tools. To me it seems that in some programming languages they are the default, in others not so much. I don't see much IDE usage in frontend development. But it could be useful when writing TypeScript maybe?
Anyhow. You did absolutely nothing wrong.
If, however, they have a point, try to learn some productivity tools to be more efficient before going for the job.
In any case, don't think too much about this company, it will just distract you.
"likely"? Who fires someone because they're "likely" bad at something? That's really a bullshit reason to fire someone. If anything, using Firefox makes you better at cross-browser testing, because most other people use Chrome. They needed to let you go for reasons they couldn't tell you, so they were just looking for an excuse.
(And Firefox is awesome, btw. It's been my default browser almost since the beginning. I tried switching to Chrome several times, but every time I come back to FF.)
In other words, if they provide you with a PC on Windows 7 with Notepad as an editor, you shouldn't (and you probably don't have the admin rights anyway) to install anything else on company's property.
In reality, it's usually in the interest of the company to allow you to work with tools on which you are the most productive. But they don't have to.
It sounds like they were looking for a 'fit', and it wasn't you.
That said, these types of things should have been settled during the interview and onboarding processes. If it wasn't, it sounds like a really poor company to work for anyways. Keep your head up, and hope the next one is better.
Don't try to read more into this situation than what it really is. Either party did not like the other, no big deal, this happens. Much better to leave early than to suffer through a longer period for nothing. Enjoy Firefox and VS Code - I'm sure there are plenty of other companies that will allow you to use whatever tools you like for development.
Termination on grounds of things that _might_ happen is not fair at all.
I suspect there's something else going on, as this reasoning seems spurious.
Whatever the reasoning, this type of behaviour by an employer is a red flag in itself.
From what you have said you are certainly not a junior dev. Where I see you being somewhat naive is exposure to toxic work environments. A large number of devs and their managers are just immature and nitpicky. Somehow a technology stack is a religion for them. I personally do not know anything that will satisfy such people. And then people can be unimaginably evil, something that often escapes the typical naive engineer/dev who often do not discover it even after having worked up until retirement. Like others have mentioned you have probably dodged a bullet. And your 3 weeks gap is barely anything. Often people can have larger gaps between jobs. Sometimes you can even cover up these gaps by lying on your resume. So point being, relax, do what you can and move on....
Phew you dodged a bullet there, they are a sh* company for sure. Hope you find a suitable company soon!
Did a leader in your organization ask you to switch tooling and you declined?
I work in an organization where we cut deployment bugs in angular by a shocking 40% by consolidating our teams tooling into a consistent set of standards. If a developer started with us who after hearing this wouldnt agree to conform to those standards we would terminate them as quickly as possible.
Thing is, we only have half the story. We don't know what else happened in the meeting you were terminated, or got said or happened in the 3 weeks, we don't know what you did and didn't ask your mentor, we don't know how many roadblocks you hit because you're using Firefox and VS Code, we weren't there for the conversation there was about you using Chrome and Visual Studio, or more importantly, how you reacted. We don't know how good you actually are with Firefox and VS Code. If you're struggling to use Firefox and/or can't use VS code very well, which means no one else on the team can help you, and you actively discourage their efforts to help you, I could see that being a red flag.
That said, there are a few quotes elsewhere in this thread that give me an inkling that it's not about Firefox and VS code.
> So my question is, is it fair to terminate a new developer because they use Firefox?
Why is fair relevant? Fair is for board games with your family. This is the real world, and people in power can be as petty as they want. There's no principal of the tech industry to complain to, very little protection (assuming you're in the US, in an at-will state). There's no review board that says yup, that was unfair unless you're a protected class, and was constructively fired for being black/gay/old.
> They gave me a CSS ticket to fix one page last week, and I actually fixed all the pages!
I mean, it's important to get all of the pages, so it is important that you got all of them, but if you're telling us that you got all the pages, it sounds like there was a meeting that contained additional feedback for you, about how you did/finished the ticket and your attitude about it, and that was your defense in that meeting. Don't get me wrong, you sound hungry for it by pushing your boss to get the ticket - which is a good thing! (In certain environments, anyway.)
> as a senior dev with over 15 proven experience, he should not stress to much about HOW I do it, just WHAT I deliver, and WHEN it is delivered. I guess that was asking for to much? Or being insubordinate?
The "what" is quite important. Did the. senior dev/someone talk to you about how they'd like the fix implemented, and did you do it that way? How did the code review go? Are there formal code reviews?
Let me guess: you've heard yourself being described as insubordinate before?
As a senior dev, it's not just about what you deliver, or when you deliver, but also how you make people feel when you do it, especially as a jr dev. If you told the sr dev during your termination meeting instead of listening to what you were being told, and that "telling truth to power" is important enough to you that telling us that you said that to the sr dev really says there's more going on than Firefox and VS Code. It's possible that they "knew" that telling you that you need to work on social skills X, Y, or Z was going to go poorly, and Firefox and VS code is cover for you being difficult to work with and/or a bad cultural fit fit for the team.
> What I did say was that I rarely use browser debuggers, because I've just never felt the need to. The console.log and a good mental image of what the code is doing has got me this far.
It didn't get you very far in this job. If you have to stop to add a console.log ever time you have a question about the code instead of just setting a breakpoint and investigate the state at the point with built-in tools, I question your efficacy. If this were, say the Linux kernel that's a different story, but you're not, you're a frontend developer. Which are important these days, but a good one should have more tools in their toolbox than just console.log. It's fine to lean on that first, but it shouldn't be your only tool.
On the other hand, they could also be a bunch of jerks who suck, or there was some other power play in the company that resulted in the team losing headcount, but to save face to the rest of the team, they concocted this thing about Firefox.