| I think the main reason you don't see this sort of 40-year loyalty in the software industry is money. The first software job I ever had was pretty much perfect in every respect. Great team, fun projects, respect & support all the way up to the owner, plenty of leeway to experiment with fun tech on the off chance that it might come in handy one day. But they hired me at the market rate for a junior dev. And I got better fast. Like so fast that the things I built attracted attention elsewhere. And before the first year was out it was abundantly clear that I could make twice what I was making simply by responding to an email or two. So I talked to management, and they did everything in their power to get me up to the market rate for a regular dev. Which was still way less than I ended up taking when I did eventually respond to one of those emails. (and a ton less than I was making a year after that). Your value just goes up too fast in this business for a single company to keep up with. Nobody gives 100% raises every other year, but the market as a whole seems to be quite happy to do exactly that. Unless that changes, I think we'll find that most people end up on a track like my own. We might find our dream job several times along the way. But unless we're pretty near the end of the track, it'll be hard to justify staying there forever. |
A smart company would recognize this and, in fact, give those steep raises. After all, if you're worth $X to the market, you're probably worth more than $X to your current company, where you're already fully trained.