[mjhay]

Yeah that is a good point. Short-term thinking and short tenures are incentivized. The short average tenure in tech is just crazy to me, considering that onboarding takes forever compared to most industries, and how expensive the hiring process itself is. Nonetheless, companies hate giving existing employees raises despite how much it helps retention.

[kwhitefoot]

> onboarding takes forever compared to most industries,

What? If you mean other industries where people are called engineers is used then I'm pretty sure that getting up to speed in another industry and becoming familiar with the unspoken, unwritten, unconscious rules that make the product possible must take at least as long as in any kind of software based company. Not to mention that there are often lots of constraints regarding what may and may not be done with hardware exposed to the public.

[johnnyanmac]

Other engineering professions have standards and licenses to streamline a lot of the technical ins and outs. Even within the same domain of software, the tech stacks and methodologies can different very radically. And you're often not just hiring mid+ level folk just to code.

[jumpman500]

Well another way to think about it is that onboarding new folks is the only way to really check if your following a sane software development practice.

If it takes folks more than a few months to onboard, you probably have too many rules, standards or other processes that are pointless. There a multiple exceptions but if you can’t onboard folks fast your management team is either incompetent or they don’t pay developers enough to care who learns.

[spacemadness]

The idea of switching jobs every year and going through the usually grueling tech hiring process is exhausting to me. However, it’s mostly juniors in Silicon Valley doing this. I would also be wary of hiring anyone jumping ship every year unless they’re not senior.