[cure]

When I look at resumes, I don't like to see a series of short (less than 18 months, say) stints. It can happen once or twice, no problem - sometimes things just don't work out.

If the resume shows three or more short stints, especially in a row, it's a red flag.

I might still phone screen the candidate if their experience looks relevant and the resume is otherwise impressive, but I'm going to ask about the short positions, and the answer matters a lot.

[whostolemyhat]

Less than 18 months is about the length of time to work somewhere, get a crap raise after an annual review, have a look around and realise you could be better-paid for the same work somewhere else.

Why would you stay at a company where you're being under-paid?

[flukus]

Your avoiding hiring people that get frustrated in crappy environments and rewarding the ones that put with it them or don't know any better.

[romanhn]

Note that he's talking about a series of short stints, not just one or two. If every environment is lousy and warrants immediate exit, perhaps the problem is not entirely with the environments. Chronic complaining without a bias for action is not exactly a positive trait as far as interviewing is concerned.

[Bahamut]

Except most companies are lousy dev shops. Bad practices are endemic at many, and good practices are not practiced a lot. Engineering is often ignored in favor of quick wins.

There are a lot of reasons for quality developers to be dissatisfied with shops out there.

To take myself as an example, in my almost 4 year career, I am in my 5th developer job. I have changed jobs every 10 months or so, excepting one job lasting 3 months due to asinine expectations, and my current one that I am 15 months into and counting. The first two I left for better compensation & more responsibility.

I wasn't one for inaction at my jobs either - I was one who would be a driver of change and better practices. At two of the jobs I was promoted to lead developer, including my current one where I am a hybrid between tech lead & engineering manager.

I have interviewed many candidates over the past two years - I have found that candidates who are able to explain their positions well and are open to considering alternative possibilities tend to be passionate ones who care about what they do, which is a characteristic that is a positive if you want to improve the state of engineering at the company. Short durations often tend to mean that they care more than anyone else at the company, and management/executives are too difficult to fight as they have more power to countermand attempts to make things better if it doesn't align with misguided judgment.

I would recommend you rethink your evaluation skills, speaking as one who it sounds like you'd chase away from being interested because such biases would become obvious over the course of interviewing. I am a respected expert in my domain with significant open source work in it & major open source project stewardship. My company has been rewarded with my finding other high quality developers, as well as me being a strong advocate - all due to the simple choice of having good processes and listening to employees & trusting their professional opinion. It's not surprise that the company has risen into Fortune's top 50 small companies to work for.

[flukus]

> If every environment is lousy and warrants immediate exit, perhaps the problem is not entirely with the environments

Most are like that IME. This is compounded by the fact that these are the companies most frequently hiring.

You've probably seen comments along the lines of 90% of candidates failing fizzbuzz? Remember those candidates work somewhere.

[romanhn]

Don't believe that FizzBuzz trope - there certainly are candidates that can't code their way out of a wet paper bag, but they are hardly the majority. I'll also point out that 90% of companies could care less about time/space complexity, optimized algorithms and data structures more complex than a hash table. Business apps are everywhere and don't require a fancy CS degree - some folks thrive in these environments, for others it's personal hell.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the onus for company/team/culture fit is on both the interviewer and the interviewee. Bad luck aside, there's no excuse for running into irreparably lousy workplaces time and time again.

[flukus]

> Don't believe that FizzBuzz trope

Don't believe it? It's not something I'm just parroting, it's something I've seen for myself, from people with more than a decade of experience.

> I guess what I'm getting at is that the onus for company/team/culture fit is on both the interviewer and the interviewee.

As an interviewee you don't have access to the single most important piece of information to make that assessment, the source code. When this changes then me and a lot of others will stop ending up at crappy companies.

[cure]

Not exactly; like I said that can happen once or twice. But if it happens 3 times or more in a row, something else is likely going on. And that's a red flag for me when hiring; I don't want to invest in a person only to have them leave very shortly after. That's just a waste of time.

[hiringmanager]

This is silly. What you think these are "bad" employees and the company is figuring it out in the 14th month?

Or are you stuck in the 1950s era idea of loyalty and these employees are not "loyal"-- yet are you considering whether you're giving them a reason to be loyal?