[jondubois]

I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed.

I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change jobs; they all think they're special and so you'll stick around for them... They all think that they're the next unicorn... Funny thing is that if they were actually a unicorn, I would stay.

If my employer is a visionary genius, I make money.

If my employer is a delusional fool, I make money.

6 months is a good amount of time to figure out which one it is.

[wils1245]

Um, many employers care very much. This pattern of job hopping is a red flag at many firms.

[Balgair]

Man, I wish that were true! I'd love to sit in one place for 2 years. I can't seem to find a job that will last more than 18 months. Some will, but the pay is stagnant and there are no promotions. You must job hop. As one anecdata point, employers all seem to know that diagonal promotions are the standard now and they don't fault you at all. If they did, well then they gave me a red flag, if anything.

[wils1245]

It's a good point. The reasoning behind the moves matter. There's a huge difference between switching jobs because a better opportunity is available, and switching jobs frequently for lateral moves.

It would probably be more accurate to say that it's a yellow flag, requiring a bit of explanation but not necessarily a bad thing. I find the pattern of switching every 6 months for (presumably) ~10 years to be pretty extreme and difficult to explain, though. Not to mention exhausting! How many job interviews must that have taken?

[Balgair]

> Exhausting

No kidding! Here I am complaining about 18-24 month moves and the OP was moving in 1/3rd to 1/4th of the time. Whatever uppers he's taking can't be good for you. Either that or he has the best spouse in history.

Still, honestly, it's a yellow flag. If the guy is good, 6 months may be just fine. But it's a cautious interview I'd think.

[khedoros1]

I've been at this job 2 years, and for 7 years at the job before it. 5-6 years of the previous job were great (promotions, raises, etc). The current job is stagnating; I can't stay here much longer.

[nejenendn]

18 months is a lot different than 6 months. You can’t even ramp up fully on a codebase in 6 months, arguably.

[mnm1]

Having worked at over a dozen places in my career, I've never encountered a code base that takes longer than three months to master let alone ramp up on. This includes shitty code, overly complex code, and well written code. I'd say the challenge is staying interested and challenged after three months.

[jondubois]

The more you change projects, the faster you are able to ramp up to new code bases. It takes me 1 or 2 week to understand the code base well enough so that I can start contributing - This is pretty standard for many contractors like me. Adapting to unfamiliar code bases is a skill on its own.

You don't need to master the whole code base in order to make high quality contributions but you need to be aware of what you don't know and focus your efforts on the parts that you understand really well while learning more about the parts that you don't understand. You can learn as you go throughout for the first 3 months.

If you're already familiar with the framework that the company is using, that's already a big step. Peer review can help as well.

Most good companies have similar coding styles and follow similar practices but they might have different requirements when it comes to testing, security, scalability, Agile/Scrum, etc...

[Balgair]

> for many contractors like me

Ooooooh! Yeah, I should have caught that earlier. 6 months now makes a lot more sense.

[khedoros1]

You've said shitty and complex code...how about voluminous code, or old code? The main product that I work on has about 2 million lines of C, C++, and Java code in the core of the system, then about 20 plugins ranging in size from a few thousand lines to a few hundred thousand lines.

We basically hire for sections of the codebase. It's pretty common for developers to discover the existence of an area of code that they haven't had to touch before and were unaware of the existence of even years after starting to work here.

[Balgair]

2 Million! Wow! Now that is a LOT of code. I can't imagine anyone being able to master all of that and then keep up with the changes. That would take a decade at least!

For reference, the Bible has ~30k verses in it. A verse isn't a line of code, but I'd say mastering the Bible is a good benchmark for equivalent complexity to coding. If anything the Bible is more straightforward than a 2 million line code base.

[slackstation]

Why have everyone know all of 2M lines of code? Programming is about abstraction, knowing what a subsystem does, what it's responsible for should be adequate most of the time until you need to fix something inside it.

We aren't doctors, we just need the skills to figure things out and fix them quickly.

[sumeno]

If you find yourself unhappy at every company you work for after 6 months the problem might not be with the companies you work for.

Your coworkers probably aren't jealous of your inability to stay at a job for more than 6 months.

[khedoros1]

I'm a little over 30, and the shortest I've stayed somewhere is a little over two years (and counting...)

I can't imagine wanting to leave just 6 months after starting somewhere.

[datburg]

I am an MD graduate and from studies in top notch databases I am waiting for a systemic review to show that my fears are true. Healthcare staff from the president to the hard working orderly, they are doing nothing for nosocomial or hospital associated infections. The ER becomes the reason for an admission. An athlete with a concussion does not need to be left lucid because of the diverse nurses are on smoke break 12. Then by force the medical student learned it from the class before. Do the minimal because you are not responsible as a pupil. The boards book after all will be the reason for the coming plastics beach life. Nobody has time to check hygiene or naps. More? The ICU. They changed the waiting room for rich with no idea about fake double blind studies. Guarantee in intensive care, bugs resistant to every antibiotic. I want to fix a block at least.

[khedoros1]

You may've posted this on the wrong thread.

[nejenendn]

It’s hard to tell the difference between your narrative and the narrative that you can only be hired at failing companies because they can’t afford someone who will stick around.