[scarface74]

I was very unhappy with my job for the first 12 years between two jobs. Except for one brief period of a year.

I had been a hobbyist hacker for 10 years, since 6th grade, including four years in college. I then got my first job that I was greatly over qualified for as a computer operator. But that was my best opportunity to get to a big city because I had been an intern at the company the prior year.

I changed jobs 3 years later, got a nice 20K bump and another 10K bump over the next year, learned a lot and I thought I was doing well. That year and the next year was great.

Over the next 7 years, no growth in skills and only making $7K more over that time with measly raises and bonuses being cut, I hated my job but I felt so unqualified that I didn’t make a move and I was just miserable.

I finally woke up and changed companies and started back gaining new skills and seeing a salary increase.

Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”.

I guess that’s just a long winded way of saying that I only hate my job when I don’t feel like I’m growing and/or have any optionality.

I also realized that I work next in small companies with little red tape.

[projektir]

> Over the next 10 years, I can honestly say I never hated my job for more than a month. Once I started hating my job and I learned all I could, I had the skill set and the optionally to jump ship. Even if I didn’t leave immediately, I never felt “stuck”.

How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job hopper?

[scarface74]

Four.

It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third company as a reference who had the same issues I had.

1. The company went out of business - that was an easy one.

2. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in all of the business was on their legacy PHP product, no one wanted to do PHP. There is no money in saying “I developed a PHP app”

3. Cant go into details without doxing myself but it was highly political and we working in a remote office away from the seats of power.

4. It was a contract to perm and when they gave me a permanent offer they told me up front that they didn’t want to be a software development shop but they wanted me to lead two initiatives. I saw the writing on the wall.

There were other reasons for leaving the 2-4 one but that’s the story I tell which are all true.

[emmanuel_1234]

That is one of the benefit of working for startups. It's easy to spin the story as "well, it's a startup, those things fail all the time. In the meantime, I learned $SO_MANY_THINGS because I had to wear so many caps.

[projektir]

Hmm, these definitely seem more exciting than my case, which is usually more "feeling uninspired and feel that others at work don't care about the product".

[scarface74]

I’m much more cynical now. I don’t get my “inspiration” from my job. The only reason I went to work up until my current job was to get a paycheck and learn skills to get a larger paycheck. As long as that was happening, I was happy.

Now, things are different. I’ve come close to maxing our as an individual contributor in my local market, I have no desire to be a manager, and a dev lead position doesn’t pay enough more (about $10-$15K) to be worth the extra headache (been there done that).

I am continuously learning to keep my options open in case something changes, but I really like my job even though it can get crazy but its not because of the people.

As much as I say in theory that you should always leave a job if you feel like you’re stagnating, I’m not sure that I would have the discipline to leave a job a like just for that reason as long as I’m making enough to live the lifestyle I want and my compensation is not to out of whack with the market.

[projektir]

I think that's generally the part I don't like about most jobs. It seems everyone is checked out and is just there to collect a paycheck and build their resume.

My job is fine in terms of paycheck and learning, but it feels like I'd have an easier time if I just ignored issues but that's not really the kind of person I want to become.

[scarface74]

I wish I could say that attitude was in me and that’s the advice I would give others. But, I’m at the point where either I either want to be a team lead at a large company, be an architect by responsible if not title at a small company where there isn’t too much red tape, or just a consultant.