[bootsz]

Personally I feel like an employer who is overly concerned with something like that (especially when it was so long ago) is a huge red flag.

People evaluate others based on their own experiences and ideas of success. If they feel that staying at one job for a long time is the utmost important factor above all else, what does that tell me about the kind of person they are and the kind of company they’re running? It tells me it’s probably a run of the mill mediocrity-factory full of people mostly just punching the clock every day. I’ve ignored these signs in the past and learned the hard way.

IMO places that have strong engineering cultures that are run by smart and driven people understand that your technical skill is what matters and aren’t going to hold it against you if you’ve hopped jobs to maintain your career growth, because they’ve most likely done the same thing themselves. Ambition recognizes ambition, and ambitious people HATE to stagnate.