[emodendroket]

Doesn't that become difficult after a while? I'm gradually finding fewer places are even able to match what I'm making, let alone give me a 20% raise.

[scarface74]

Yes. Definitely.

I spent 9 years at one company - 7 years longer than I should have. After a 10K raise the first year and with 3% raises after that and bonuses slowly being cut, I only made $7K more in 2008 than I did in 2002. After that, I started aggressively job hopping - 4 jobs - and learning and over the next 10 years, I made over 60K more.

Now, I am looking to see what technology I should jump on and best case, I might be able to get $10K more over the next two years. I'm actually okay with that, I live a comfortable lifestyle.

I don't want to go into management and I want to stay hands on. My current position as a dev lead as about as high as I want to go and I would be fine being a strict individual contributor.

[senatorobama]

When you job hopped - did you wait for projects to be complete before you left to a new job? Did you have to ship?

I'm in a conundrum whether to leave or not because the project hasn't shipped.

[scarface74]

Would your company be in a conundrum to let you go because you had a mortgage to pay?

[emodendroket]

Don't worry about that. There's never a good time to leave and you'll always feel like you're leaving at a critical time.

[senatorobama]

Wow.. this cleared a lot of anxiety for moiye.

[emodendroket]

Glad to hear it. Don't hamstring yourself out of a misplaced sense of obligation.

[emodendroket]

Yeah, precisely. It seems like "the next level" gets a lot more like management and involves less writing code and I don't know that that is really for me.