[resonious]

> The best way I’ve advanced my career is by changing companies.

This is interesting. At my employer we see job hopping as a bad thing.

I think there's a unique perspective you get by seeing your 5+ year old code in production. I can kinda tell when someone only does short stints based on the way they talk about other people's code.

[ljm]

If you can't hold something down for more than a year then it looks rough to anybody.

18-24 months generally seems to have been the sweet spot in terms of improving your income. Especially because the promise of equity after 4 years often means fuck all and you almost never see a promotion or a decent pay increase either for inflation or performance.

If an employer is going to ding you for taking advantage of the market then they better be offering enough above market to keep you around for longer.

[resonious]

I'll agree that switching jobs is often good for income. But I think it's a fallacy to say that you "improved" more by doing it vs if you hadn't (obviously depends on the situation). It's a breadth vs depth thing. You are sacrificing depth for breadth. Not a bad thing at all. But if you write code, left it behind, and don't get to see what happens to it, then you're cutting off your own feedback loop.

[orsorna]

They probably also take home more income since they are getting raises more often which allows them to purchase free time to further hone their skills, rather than collecting a fixed wage and minimal equity from a corporation and the satisfaction of their work being minimally rewarded for five years.

[AnimalMuppet]

Maybe it should be almost a Fibonacci thing: Change after one year is fine, the first time. Maybe the second. After that, the length of the jobs had better start going up, or it's an alarm bell (unless they're contracts).

[markus_zhang]

I usually keep it between 2-3 years. Is that a red flag?

[resonious]

Not quite red but cutting it close!

[markus_zhang]

Thanks! Guess I’m in the perpetual movement to my dream fields.