Leaving a Job the Right Way
Last fall, I left my company after 13 incredible years.
I cared deeply about that company and the people I worked with. That didn’t change just because I was moving on.
So I treated my exit like a responsibility. I wanted to leave the place in the best possible situation. Clear priorities. Clean handoffs. No surprises.
You don’t need 13 years of tenure to approach it this way. Even if you’re leaving a job you didn’t love, you can still leave people with a clear path forward. When you walk out the door, your coworkers shouldn’t be stuck guessing what happens next.
This week, I’ll walk through the approach I used before you leave, during your exit, and after you leave.
Leaving Behind Context
When you leave a job, the company isn’t just losing a person. It’s losing context.
That’s the part that creates pain. Work is mid-flight. Decisions live in someone’s head. A customer issue is half understood. A system “usually works” until it doesn’t, and the person who knows where to look is already gone.
Leaving on good terms means you take that risk seriously.
It looks like a few practical things.
- Someone can look at what you were working on and understand what happens next.
- The team knows what’s fragile, what’s safe, and what needs attention soon.
- Open commitments are visible, not hidden in Slack threads or your memory.
- Your manager can explain the plan without guessing.
That’s the standard I used for myself. I didn’t try to finish everything. I focused on making sure the next person didn’t start from zero.
There’s another reason this matters. Your last few weeks become the story people tell about working with you. It’s the freshest data. It’s what sticks.
If you want the door to stay open, you don’t need a perfect exit. You need a steady one. Clear communication. Clean handoffs. The kind of departure that makes it easy for people to say, “I’d work with them again.”
Your Exit Needs a Plan
Most people treat leaving a job like a single moment. The resignation conversation. The announcement. The last day.
But the part that shapes your reputation is everything around that moment. Someone finds out late. Work gets dropped with no context. A manager has to improvise a plan. Teammates inherit a mystery and remember the disruption more than the work you did.
Thinking in three phases keeps you out of that situation. It also helps because timing changes what you can control.
Before you leave, is when you still have leverage. You have access to the systems, the context, and the people. A little preparation here prevents a lot of confusion later.
During your exit is when people are paying attention. Clarity matters. A structured handoff matters. This is the stretch that shapes the final impression you leave with your manager and peers.
After you leave, it becomes imperative you protect the relationship and your boundaries at the same time. You close the loops you committed to, then you step away cleanly instead of becoming the unofficial support line.
If you want to leave on good terms, most of the work happens before you ever give notice.
|
|
Where can AI save you time?
My friends at Big Creek Growth put together a quick survey to spot the repetitive work you can hand off to automation.
|
|
1. Before You Leave
This part is where most people skip ahead. They wait until they’ve accepted an offer, then they resign, then they try to “figure out the handoff” in a rush.
If you want to leave on good terms, do some prep first. Not a dramatic amount. Just enough that you’re not making your exit everyone else’s problem.
Here’s what I focus on.
Write down what you own
Make a quick list of what you’re the default person for. Systems, customers, reports, vendors, recurring meetings, on-call rotations, dashboards, and monthly jobs. Anything that quietly routes through you.
This is less about documentation and more about visibility. Your manager can’t plan around work they don’t know exists.
If you want a good reference point for what “useful documentation” actually looks like in practice, check out my newsletter on how I think about writing docs that reduce guessing.
Capture the context that only lives in your head
Pick the areas where you’re carrying a lot of “tribal knowledge” and write down the parts someone will need to operate without you.
You’re aiming for things like
- How to deploy and verify
- Where the sharp edges are
- What usually breaks, and what to check first
- The “why” behind recent technical descisions
Make what’s in flight easy to understand
Create a simple snapshot of the current work.
- What’s in progress
- What’s blocked
- What’s waiting for someone else
- What’s risky if it slips
This is the difference between a team inheriting a plan versus inheriting a scavenger hunt.
Look for a clean stopping point
You don’t need to finish everything. But you do want to avoid starting something that only you can land.
If there’s a project midstream, the prep step is to figure out whether it should be wrapped, paused, or handed off, and then make that recommendation explicit.
Decide your notice timing with your eyes open
Two weeks is a norm, not a law.
If you’re in the middle of something critical or are the only person with deep knowledge in an area, you may choose to give more notice so the transition is as smooth as possible. For example, I gave my previous company more than a month’s notice.
If you’re in a situation where more notice creates risk for you, it’s reasonable to stick with the standard.
The point is to make it a deliberate choice, not a reflex.
2. During Your Exit
This stage is where people tend to overcomplicate things. They feel pressure to explain. They try to manage everyone’s emotions. They promise too much. They leave the conversation open-ended.
If you want to leave on good terms, your job here is to provide clarity and follow through.
Have one clean resignation conversation
Tell your manager first. Live, if possible.
Keep it simple.
- You’re resigning.
- Your intended last day.
- You want to make the transition as smooth as possible.
If they ask why, give a version you can stand behind later. Short, respectful, and true at the level you’re comfortable sharing. HBR offers a solid overview of how to handle the offboarding transition, including notice timing and how to discuss your reasons without creating a mess.
Don’t negotiate accidentally
A lot of people walk in thinking they’re resigning and walk out in a half-negotiation because the manager asks, “What would it take to keep you?”
If you genuinely want a counteroffer, that’s a separate decision. If you don’t, don’t drift into it out of politeness. It creates confusion and makes the next steps messy.
Create a handoff plan that your manager can repeat
Once your manager knows your timeline, the next question is always the same. How do we cover your work?
Help them answer it with something concrete.
- the list of what you own
- the “in flight” snapshot
- the fragile areas that need attention
- recommendations on who could take what
This doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be usable. GitLab’s offboarding guidance is a strong external example of how organizations approach handover artifacts and transition steps.
Be explicit about what will not get done
Your last two weeks will get busy. New requests will appear. People will remember “one more thing.” If you don’t set expectations, everyone assumes more than you can deliver.
So you align on priorities, and you put it in writing. A short note to your manager is enough. It prevents the day-10 scramble.
Use your time to transfer knowledge, not to be a hero
Your output matters less than your transfer.
A good use of time is
- pairing with the person taking over
- a walkthrough of the risky systems
- short recordings for tricky flows
- runbooks for the common failure modes
A bad use of time is starting new work because it feels productive.
Stay steady in how you show up
People will read into everything during this phase. Your tone, your responsiveness, whether you look “checked out.”
You don’t need to pretend you aren’t leaving. You just need to keep your operating system stable. Show up. Communicate clearly. Finish the handoff.
That’s what people remember.
3. After You Leave
This part is short, but it matters more than people think.
Most exits go wrong in one of two ways. Someone disappears completely, leaving a sour taste. Or they stay overly available and end up half-working their old job for free.
You want the middle path. Respectful, reachable in a limited way, and moved on.
Close the loops you committed to
If you promised someone a document, an intro, a final walkthrough, or a handoff note, finish it before your last day whenever possible.
If something slips, don’t ghost it. Send a simple message that closes the loop.
“Hey, I didn’t get to this before I left. Here’s what I can share. After that, I’m going to be heads-down in my new role.”
That kind of follow-through is rare, and people remember it.
Be available once, not forever
It’s reasonable to leave a single path for true emergencies. Usually, that’s one email thread or a text to your manager.
It’s not reasonable to be the unofficial on-call person for your old team.
A simple boundary helps.
“If something is truly urgent and you’re blocked, I’m happy to help once. Otherwise I’m going to be focused on my new role.”
Keep relationships, not responsibilities
If you want the door to stay open, staying connected is a great idea. Grab coffee with a former coworker. Congratulate people when you see wins. Be a reference when you can.
Just don’t keep your old obligations alive. That’s how you end up stuck between two worlds, and neither side benefits.
Leave with gratitude
You don’t need a long goodbye post.
A short note to the people you worked closely with is enough. Thank them. Tell them you enjoyed working with them. Make it easy for them to stay in touch.
Leaving a job is one of those moments where your intent matters, but your execution matters more.
If you want to leave on good terms, treat it like a short project with three stages.
Before you leave, do enough prep that your team isn’t inheriting a mystery.
During your exit, keep the message clean and make the handoff concrete. Clarity and follow-through beat heroic effort every time.
After you leave, close the loops you committed to and then step away with healthy boundaries. Stay connected to people, not to responsibilities.
You can’t control how everyone will react to your decision. You can control whether your exit creates confusion or creates a clear path forward.
And if you do it right, you don’t just protect your reputation. You leave behind a final impression that makes it easy for someone to reach out in the future and say, “Want to work together again?”