Ask HN: How much job hopping is too much?

[ishiz]

I think the conventional wisdom is to stay at a company for at least 2 years, but I'm not sure if that is still agreed upon in this market.

My job history is as follows:

7 months - quit because they needed me to relocate a long distance

13 months - quit because we were acquired by another company and the new leadership was toxic in my opinion

5 months - contract, decided to not renew

7 months - current

I am considering leaving my current job, and I'm wondering if hiring managers would see it as a red flag. I don't want to dox myself but the reasons are:

1. Low pay. I was actually happy with the pay when I started but rent and everything has increased tremendously since COVID started. My company's health insurance plan was also changed at the beginning of this year and my cost went from 0% to 10% of my after-tax take home pay. I've talked to my boss about both these things and she said it sucked. So I didn't formally ask for a raise and I don't think I'd be eligible for one anyway, my other coworkers have not yet received one I don't think.

2. I'm not happy about the culture. The only people who get any recognition for their work is the sales team "because they pay the bills." Even my boss (CTO) agrees. My attempts to fix tech debt is shot down because engineering is seen as a cost center to begin with. My team is fantastic to work with but I don't like leadership's position.

3. Related to my second reason, as someone who is junior I want to sink my teeth into a tough and long term project, but management won't allow it and they only want us working on short (and buggy) MVPs and shipped to customers. Our time to ship averages less than a day. I don't think I'm learning many "proper" engineering skills doing this.

4. Similar to my last reason, I want to work in a team with other people in my discipline (QA) to learn from them. Right now my company has 5 engineers but I'm the only one who works in QA. When I ask for feedback on my code the other engineers say they don't know how it works so they can't help. But the frontend and backend engineers get plenty of feedback from the other engineers because they're more knowledgeable. They're trying their best but I feel I'd learn more working in a team of others rather than by myself.

Other than _maybe_ the first reason, I don't think I have many strong reasons for leaving and that's why I think another employer would see this as a red flag. But I also know there are a lot of job openings these days so I'm wondering if I should give it a shot.

[davismwfl]

In general job hopping is much less an issue than it used to be. That said staying less than a year at multiple jobs, unless they were clearly a temporary consulting gig is definitely a major red flag. It is important to note too, someone with a 20 year career that has had 2-3 short stints is seen far differently then someone with < 3-4 years of experience that has the same.

When I review a resume I look for short stints where the person was an FTE (or freelancer) as generally it is a sign they have a hard time being a team player, or they look for any small reason to self eject versus work through issues. Companies aren't perfect, not one of them, so there will always be one or more reasons people can use to eject, but you need to stick it out some and learn how to work through issues.

In general (specifically in tech), if you stay a minimum of 2 years no one will really care much if you move on, under that and you have to be more cautious how you present and discuss it. I'm not saying I wouldn't interview someone with 1-2 stints under a year. But if you have ~3 years of experience and have had 3-4 jobs it better be clear to me that the jobs were planned as short term gigs or something specific like 1-2 of the companies failed etc.

One strategy you can try is to arrange your resume not in chronological order but about skills and projects you've worked on specifically. This sometimes gets you past the resume review stage though the short stints will come up and you'll need to have a good reason why you are worth taking a risk on. The first one that was because of relocation is fairly easy to justify so I doubt anyone dings you for that, but the others will raise some eyebrows and potentially concern.

[ipaddr]

You are quiting because mentorship isn't available? Some hr managers would understand that reasoning. They also would understand the long term project desire.

The first two roles seem long enough. The 5 month one is rough and following it with a 7 month one may get some ignores but the market is hot and if you can't land something you could wait until the summer when you have a year.

Aside from all of that, you are putting yourself in a pressure situation at your new role because if you don't like it leaving right away will be much harder. Stick it out a year.

You don't need a mentor with 2 years more experience. You need 2 more years. Give yourself time to fail and grow. That means sticking it out somewhere even if it sucks just to build that cred. If you want better work a startup might be better but if you want more mentorship a big company might be better. If you want neither a middle size company is the way to go.

[muzani]

Worked 10 years. Only stuck at one job for over a year, but less than two.

It is a red flag, but employers are in no place to be picky. Most would hire contractors for the same position if they couldn't find a full time person. And if they can get a FTE for half the cost of a contractor, and that employee leaves in 9 months, that's not a bad deal.

I would draw the line around 3 months though. At that point, you haven't really hit the ROI of training and onboarding and such.

[breckenedge]

If you’re still early in your career this is ok. Are you doing good work, making good connections and not burning bridges? Focus on that and not “conventional wisdom” of staying somewhere for 2ish years.

[hnthrowaway0315]

I hopped 3 jobs since 2017 so I don't think it's a big issue. I'm looking forward to hop from Data Engineer to a Malware Reversing position so I expect more hops.

[methusala8]

Does this intended move to cybersecurity have any overlap with your current role? How are you preparing for this transition?

I am looking to move into Cybersecurity too hence asking.

[hnthrowaway0315]

No it doesn't, but it's a lot closer comparing to my first job (Customer Service). I actually asked this question on reddit and HN a couple of times and didn't get a lot of answers. I can understand as it's a wild jump. FYI some people recommended taking a Master program on Cyber security (my favorite is the one in Vrije University: [1] but sadly this does not have a remote option) and I think others mentioned some training program.

Since I'm most efficient when on job and under pressure, my plan is to hop a few bridge jobs. Not sure how to achieve that but going to do more research.

[1]: https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/Master/2021-2022/parallel-and-di...