[jondubois]

When I was younger, I was learning non-stop. I kept changing companies/industries every year because I was relentless and very curious.

This actually kept me going for maybe 12 years - It's fun so long as you keep learning new stuff... But eventually there comes a point when the day-job doesn't teach you anything new anymore (at least anything non-tedious) - At that point, your only remaining avenues for learning are open source work or going back to university.

But even if you start doing challenging open source work (in order to keep satisfying your craving for learning), you still have to go back to your tedious job every day. Unfortunately, there aren't enough challenging jobs for engineers these days - It's like a lottery; if you don't happen to have the right social connections, you will be limited to tedious jobs regardless of how skilled you are.

If you're the kind of person who has an insatiable passion for solving difficult problems but you are forced to solve tedious problems every day; it's mental torture.

[Winterflow3r]

Glad to hear jumping ship every year did not impede your progress. Someone at a BigCorp once told me that it's good to stay in one place for 5 years - otherwise you'll be seen as a 'leaver'.

[amorphid]

One person's job hopper is another person's seasoned veteran of many battles. Who I want to hire depends on what job I need filled. The job hopper might be the perfect hire for someone who has learned from job hopping.

[jondubois]

It's true, some companies (particularly big ones) will label you as a leaver if you behave like I did (so they know that they can't really exploit you) but those are not the kind of companies I would want to work for anyway.