[needlessly]

I don't get people who say, "Well I would never hire someone who has never worked more than 5 years at a single place!!!"

I would never have increased my from $68k to $115k in 5 years.I probably would've been somewhere at like $80k right now at best if I was didn't switch jobs twice.

If it means some hiring manager is going say some snarky opinion, then yes I'll take my extra money.

[mikekchar]

On the other hand, look at it from a hiring manager's perspective: people who have stayed in a job long enough to see how things go wrong are also less expensive. I'll be honest, if I'm looking at a CV for someone with 10 years of experience and they have changed jobs every year or two, I will suspect that they are missing some pretty important experience as a senior developer.

Everybody makes serious mistakes that don't show themselves for years. Those who don't stick around usually assume that any mistakes they find in their new company were due to incompetence. Similarly, people who have not stuck around for years have never been instrumental in doing difficult culture transformations, or fixing long term architectural problems.

It's truly unfortunate that the industry rewards those who don't tackle these kinds of difficult problems. The legacy is an industry where the problems are ubiquitous: flavour of the month architecture, my way or the highway bullying, either process of the month or "pragmatic" (aka ad hoc) processes, absolute disrespect for coworkers (I'm the only one with an ounce of sense).

Yep, I'm happy to take the discount on the developer who is humble, knows how to navigate political mine fields, knows how to recover from mistakes, knows how to refine techniques and processes, etc, etc. I'm also happy to take the odd "rock star" if they are actually good enough, but I'd never build an entire team of them (willingly).

[inferiorhuman]

> It's truly unfortunate that the industry rewards those who don't tackle these kinds of difficult problems. The legacy is an industry where the problems are ubiquitous: flavour of the month architecture, my way or the highway bullying, either process of the month or "pragmatic" (aka ad hoc) processes, absolute disrespect for coworkers (I'm the only one with an ounce of sense).

Yep. However I'd say it's less of an industry thing and more of a generational thing that you can see that from customers all the way on up to C-level people and out.

Perennial favorite ISP Sonic.net is a great example. They're giving away free basketball tickets, free service (6 months!) to customers who are referred via NextDoor, additional discounts for new subscribers, etc. Existing customers get told to pound sand and complimentary rate hike. Other ISPs do this as well, but it's funny to see the supposedly good guys succumbing to the idea that loyalty is worthless.

CEOs, of course, get tasked with propping up short-term profits and get showered with cash when their short-sighted efforts fail (ex: Yahoo, HP). Of course this isn't particularly new either as Gordon Gekko style corporate raiders have been around for decades.

[sesteel]

It isn't one or the other, there is value in both staying for a longer period of time and moving more frequently. When moving more frequently, you can be exposed to a wider variety of problems and have a more complete picture of the profession and the various pitfalls. Plus, you may have the opportunity to learn from and correct the mistakes of others.

It can accelerate your growth and pay substantially if you are doing it for the right reasons. I would never fault anybody for doing so without discovering why they moved.

[meric]

I think it's good to have a bit of variety - one or two roles where you stayed 3, 4, 5 years, then a bunch of companies only 1-2 years each. You'd have some depth of experience as well as breadth.

[watwut]

I think it should also depend on what kind of projects you are working on. If you work in a middle sized to big company, you can change teams and positions easily. You are likely to change them within 3 years. If you work in a small shop, you are unlikely to change the team (since there is only one) or position (there are not that may of them). Most startups fail within first few years and I would not blamed a coder who worked in startups for changing jobs as the old company ceasy to exists or changes into pure hell.

Once you hit the job that really really suits you (say you like algorithms and this job occasionally needs some), you are less likely to move no matter how experience you are already. While you are on positions that are meh to you, you are more likely to want change soon.

Of course you don't want company stucked with only people who are new there nor only with people who never worked elsewhere. But then again, company should have idea about which position requires more stability or how many of each type is there already and factor that in into decision process.

[sokoloff]

> if I'm looking at a CV for someone with 10 years of experience and they have changed jobs every year or two, I will suspect that they are missing some pretty important experience as a senior developer.

I call this the "one year of experience, ten times" phenomenon.

[UK-AL]

Ironically I find the developers, who have stayed at company for 10 years the worst for this. They've been maintaining the same product, for similar requests for the past years. Doing the exact same thing.

Moving to different employers means you get a wider experience of different technologies.

[restalis]

There may also be a big project that takes years of development, with each completed part serving as a prerequisite for a new one. It's hard to judge one's career from a face value unless the CV explicitly states details like "X years sunk in product maintenance".

[jaclaz]

>I call this the "one year of experience, ten times" phenomenon.

As a side note, I always find funny reading "Our team has 20 years of combined experience in ..." as if a two people team with 10 years each was the same thing as 20 people with one year each.

[tcfunk]

I don't think that's really accurate or fair.

In my experience, you learn very different things in every workplace. Could be a different language or framework. Could even just be a different team arrangement or workflow.

Bottom line is this: if you feel like you're not learning and growing in your current environment, why stay? Better yet, why would anyone expect you to stay?

[sokoloff]

I agree (that it's more funny than perfectly descriptively fair). The point is that a lot of people with 10 years' experience aren't necessarily more valuable than those with 3 years' experience.

There's a steep initial ramp of learning that can readily plateau out if someone is complacent or actively disinterested in learning new things.

[restalis]

3 years' experience may sound sufficient only if we're talking about something very narrow and/or confusing "getting aquatinted with" with "mastering" something, otherwise you don't have to go to 10 years - you'll sense the difference even between 3 years' and 5 years' worth of experience.

[arwhatever]

Interesting counter-example: I learned these lessons in long-term ownership at my first programming job, which I stayed at for 5 years, at a company in the Midwest which most people don't seem to ever leave.

Then I moved to a much larger software market, and I have been job hoping more than once once a year, but because the teams and companies themselves have no notion of long term ownership, preferring instead to cut whatever corners to get the thing right now done most quickly, without regard for the future.

[pas]

> Everybody makes serious mistakes that don't show themselves for years.

I'd rephrase that as simply knowing the trade offs, knowing in which conditions your solution is valid, and estimating how long these conditions will be present, and then estimating what's next, and then taking that into account when choosing a solution (and trade offs).

Some people are absolutely terrible at estimating change and pace. Some people don't see when it's time to involve higher ups, and some don't know when to do the inverse of that.

> Those who don't stick around usually assume that any mistakes they find in their new company were due to incompetence.

That's too general, but also not completely unfair.

> Similarly, people who have not stuck around for years have never been instrumental in doing difficult culture transformations, or fixing long term architectural problems.

Again, too general. Maybe you get hired for a transformation/migration/rewrite project, and basically you have a good chance to be hired as the Captain for the mighty Failship.

And now let's discuss how all of the aforementioned are discussed to death in [Project] Management 101, and all of the following are discussed to death in [People] Management 101, yet what you write is still valid as ever.

> It's truly unfortunate that the industry rewards those who don't tackle these kinds of difficult problems.

Industry is full of incompetent showmen, useless middle managers, and a lot of extremely biased, uncompromising, uncooperative, power-hungry completely regular but overstressed underloved normal guys/gals.

Yet society has a freak approach to freaks, because people think oh fuck them, why can't they just behave, but when I freak out, it's because reasons. And when Joe from IT is a social trainwreck then it's ostracization time!

> The legacy is an industry where the problems are ubiquitous: flavour of the month architecture, my way or the highway bullying, either process of the month or "pragmatic" (aka ad hoc) processes, absolute disrespect for coworkers (I'm the only one with an ounce of sense).

Yes, indeed. And this largely happens in other industrial sectors, but since change is slower there, these problems usually don't present themselves so acutely.

[sverhagen]

They didn't say: "never hire ... who has ever worked less than 5 years at a single place". If you're looking for a mature leader, who you can trust to own, carry a team or a product line, for a number of years, after ramping up in the domain of a complex company and product, maybe you want someone who has proven and can speak to having done this before. (If I want a smart kid who has a wealth of technologies in their toolbox, I may care less about lengthy tenures.)

[dsacco]

Do you mind sharing what region you're in? You may have found it was easy to significantly increase your compensation because you were significantly underpaid, instead of just because you were frequently changing jobs.

[djloche]

I think in the past 5 years there's been a ton of realization from non SF/NYC/VC-tech companies in the fact that they are competing from the same pool of talent and thus have to offer competitive salaries on a national basis, not just competitive for their area/city. There is still a ton of progress to be made in this regard, but it is changing. for example, a hypothetical newly graduated programmer with some skills and experience should be able to land a starting position for at least ~$80k+. companies that would have previously been trying to pay ~$40k in their area are now realizing that by offering a competitive dollar amount, the actual cost of living makes their offer the most compelling one. Whereas before, they'd offer the $40k and say, well, our offer is lower because it's cheaper to live here. The right attitude is matching the ballpark competition in dollar amounts, and saying, you should accept our offer because your money goes further here.

[draw_down]

Hmm, a lot of young people have the mentality that they'll learn more and go farther in their careers if they go to SF/SV to start, even if their adjusted salary is lower. I can't say whether they're right for sure, but it sounds right to me. I think my career has "suffered" for never having lived there. (I'm still doing just fine.)

[needlessly]

i've been working in the midwest, but I don't doubt that networking is much better in the Bay Area / Seattle.

[needlessly]

midwest. My starting pay was only a couple thousand below my my university's CS program's average (wasn't the strongest student coming out), but it was within range of glassdoor reviews. I stayed at for 2.5 years at each role.

[johnward]

I had the same experience with the same numbers too. Except I've now been at my current employer for about 5 years, after accepting a matching offer a few times. I would never be anywhere near where I am had I stayed at those first few companies.