1. Loyalty will get you nowhere in this industry. People jumping ship is good for everyone as it keeps wages competitive.

  2. This may be a stupid question. Wouldn't the employer not want to hire someone when they look at their CV and see that they jump ship every 2 years?

  3. only if you do only what you are told. I became upskilled as I took classes on other things and worked on my own projects. I get what they ask for done in half the time and then work on my own stuff.

  4. It is very sad. I do understand the comfort level for the dev, and the feeling of being needed for the legacy knowledge, but I’ve had to interview several people that had skills that are no longer needed. It would be a huge gamble to assume they would adapt since they hadn’t for so many years.

  5. I've been at my company for 6 years. We have a massive legacy codebase we maintain. We also are replacing features of that with new functionality on new tech that we keep up to date and explore trying better ways of solving problems, not just copy-pasting what we've done in the past.

  6. Until your stack is old enough that new people won't learn it and then your knowledge is gold. If that's what you want...

  7. Currently realizing this as my first job as a junior dev. Love the company and people but not doing much work as I’m on the bench alot and the projects I do work on don’t entail alot of actual coding. I guess though it’s up to me to keep up to date on my downtime. I’m just not a hobby coder and am motivated more through actual work and projects for clients. I am lucky to be at a subcontractor who stills pays for people on the bench though too. I know a lot of people who finish a project and wonder if they’ll have a job in a week. What a shitty deal, but they hone their skills alot quicker and most likely don’t have a problem finding a new job. I’m just afraid to switch this early in my career.

  8. At our place a decent junior has just discovered he is being held back and not receiving his pay rise because he’s spent his entire time on a single project. You agree with you, exposure to other things makes us better developers.

  9. Wouldn't have to jump ship if the new guys weren't making 30%+ more than the old guys, and the salary was reactively adjusted with the new market price to fill that position.

  10. Managers rarely ever have as much power over pay as you think they do. That’s almost always set by a finance department, and that’s exactly why paying more for retention isn’t usually a thing. A good manager will work the system and expel some political capital to make cases for why their best employees should make more, but it’s far from a foregone conclusion and can be a lot of work or not even possible.

  11. This. My yearly review is coming up, and if I don't get an increase that makes my pay competitive again, I'm probably gonna leave.

  12. That’s not what it is. Generally 2 years is enough time to see if a startup is going to be successful. If you’re in this field you have options that if successful will be worth a ton of money. The goal is to get on board early, get a lot of options and ride it to an early retirement. Nothing is better than getting a $5M payment after a few years of work.

  13. There are just some people like this though. I work at a place and I know people are making 20% over national average and even better for state average. And while no place is perfect I think we are pretty decent. But there's always those kind of people who can't sit still

  14. Honestly, if you're not changing jobs every 2-3 years you're probably leaving money on the table in terms of earning potential. I've only had one raise in my entire career (15 years overall) that was equal to the kind of pay bump I typically get from a job change. Not to mention exposure to new tech, techniques, networking (the people kind), and other growth opportunities.

  15. Not a dev, but in IT. Switched jobs 3 years ago for a 25k pay raise. Stayed at that company for a year and then got an offer for another 25k pay raise. The og company the year before gave me a 5% raise.... For anyone starting out definitely keep your eyes on the market. Had I stayed I'd probably be making 45k less than I am now.

  16. That is exactly my philosophy, all my colleagues that stayed at the same company are still making only 30% that I make by changing companies

  17. The irony is the 'you get more pay by changing jobs' crowd also makes it easier to get more pay by not changing jobs.

  18. What size code bases are you working on? I usually work on code bases that are 1 million lines of code or more. It takes at least 6 months to become proficient. If you leave every 2 years, that's 25% of your time not being productive.

  19. I would really like it if this is not the case.. I want to just be happy to do my job forever and have a stable life but loyalty doesn't pay the bills.

  20. Hot take: Some devs jump jobs that frequently because they can coast for about a year before people expect them to actually contribute at a high level. When it's time to take lead on a project, or own something, off they go to another job where they can coast.

  21. The bad hires don’t usually last that long but it can happen. Usually I think it’s just the dev got a better job/the job they are leaving is terrible. If your interview process isn’t garbage, you’ll know which one the candidate is.

  22. Agreed. I'm in embedded Linux and we work on some incredibly complicated projects. It seems to take new hires about a year before they can really contribute, regardless of past experience. If my team was constantly changing personnel, we'd never be able to complete ANYTHING. Thankfully, I am reasonably well compensated for my area.

  23. I've been at the same company for over 2 decades. I have new problems to work on constantly and work with great people. So, not boring.

  24. Easy, you get so good at your job you finish your work in 30 min, and then spend the other 7 1/2 hours building interesting side projects to double your income per day.

  25. Build trust with the people you work with and above you so they give you the freedom to do whatever you think is necessary to improve things.

  26. I've been a few places but the one I've been at the longest (through a couple takeovers as well) allowed me to wear multiple hats, with training and self-study, as well as work with different technologies. Competitive salary and profit share doesn't hurt either

  27. Bold of you to assume that years are enough to understand what's going on /s Joking aside it depends on how big the company is and what it does, i do consulting and it can take a long time to get bored

  28. It is. I’ve been at the same company for 10 years. While my job has changed significantly over the 10 years (started as tech support for a little company, then ts and training, then ts,training,field enginee, then more…) and while I got ok raises, we were bought out by a bigger company (which had been bought by a bigger company, which eventually got bought but a MUCH bigger company from South Korea), now I only get raises when I threaten to quit, and bonuses are shit. I’ve realized I’m leaving money on the table and am now about to start job hopping in my late 30’s and through my 40’s to see if I can get where I actually need to be financially.

  29. I get to decide for most part what new technology our company is going to use next and am mostly involved in projects that are just starting or have difficult stuff to solve.

  30. I personally get exhausted looking for new work and getting ramped up, much less moving about the country. I'd MUCH rather spend that effort on solving problems than wrangling a new IT dept for the tools I need.

  31. Some people figure out how to coast on ~4 hour days which leaves plenty of time for side hustle, hobbies, or family.

  32. comfort zone, and perhaps getting interesting things to work on. I feel the former is widely observed. Switching jobs requires an extra amount of effort in preparing for extensive interviews and then hoping you do get along well with your potential colleagues and more importantly your manager. Plus the ramp up period where you're not producing much output but taking in a lot...

  33. I liked knowing the systems so well that I could go right to the problem area in the code and fix it. I also liked being one of the few people left who understood the legacy systems.

  34. The trauma of interviewing around is much more than the bordem of staying at the same company. Also jumping jobs all the time isn't very stable and the older you get the more stability becomes something you want.

  35. Yup, loyalty is not rewarded. My previous coworker after doing almost everything and working there two years longer than me was less paid

  36. Idk though startups are a special case, often they offer below market salaries and options that make up the difference only 1/100 times.

  37. 2 years seems like quite a reasonable amount. I jumped after 18 months at my last place. Although I was at the one before that for 6 years. I think after a year, if you don't like the job and don't see any way forward and don't get any pay rises ... then what do employers expect? If you stick around and accept it, they'll know they never have to promote you or give you a raise to match the jobs around at the time.

  38. The startup I work at may be exceptional at that point, but know about some colleagues that got a pay rise orienting at the local job market.

  39. We live in a capitalist hellhole where staying at the same job MAYBE gets you a 3% raise, but changing jobs gets you a 15-20% raise

  40. In my eyes that’s the beautiful aspect of capitalism. Companies competing for who will pay me the most. Its the job of the workers to shake up the company not to be too comfortable staying at one job for too long

  41. How do you all find startups? I have been looking, but it's really hard to tell where the startups are, at what stage they are at, etc.

  42. AngelCo (Google it, don't want to risk linking in reddit) is one. Underdog is another. WeWorkRemotely is also good if you're specifically looking for remote work.

  43. I'm at the 2 year mark now for my current job. If only it was as fulfilling as it is stable. Time to start looking again.

  44. That was me for many years. But one thing hopping around taught me - Stable and fulfilling > pay. I've been with my current company for 8 years now. They keep asking me "What are your career goals." Well, not to get fired - I love it here.

  45. Is this a new reddit feature? How did you.. post.. a mirror? I'm stumped. I guess I was right to be suspicious of that front facing camera.

  46. Better doing that than becoming stuck in your job and feeling too guilty to leave because you're now one of the only people that understands the system enough to keep it running.

  47. The longer my career get, the more I realize that loyalty ain't worth shit in the eyes of the employer. I started a new job 6 months ago after leaving a toxic startup. My current employer used this information against me, offering the same salary and promises of working with cool tech. Due to starting in December they told me: " you will get no raise in 2022"

  48. I just hit one year at my current job and I'm already thinking about it. I'm happy with the pay, work life balance and I work from home, but I still have the urge to find something else.

  49. I'm the youngest developer at my team, and I'm also the developer who has been with the team the longest. I've been with the team for about 3 years.

  50. I was at a multi-day event at Facebook once. In one segment of it they had an event for teaching fresh graduates how to create a compelling resume and prepare for interviews.

  51. 2 years?!?! Ok boomer, I’ve had 5 jobs diff startup jobs in the past 2 years. (Yes all those startups all still exist, no I wasn’t fired or let go from any of them)

  52. Jumping ship works fine until it doesn't. Now you're 50+ with a history of not holding a job for long and a skill set that is all over the map. I'm curious to see how this plays out.

  53. well maybe, just MAYBE if the stable job would actually pay me decent enough wage or at least the salary is as competitive as the job next door I wont be quitting after 2 years.

  54. Honestly it’s an in demand skill and devs should only be as loyal to a company as the company is to them. If other companies treat me better in terms of pay and hours, I’m out the door fast

  55. You probably don't know what you are talking about if you think in IT there is something called a "stable job". That's a myth. Santa Claus has more truth than a stable job in IT

  56. The reward for changing jobs is 20% more salary so yeah I am going to continue changing company every 3 years until I am somewhere that values me while I am working there

  57. Haven’t spent that much time in industry, but everything I’ve ever been told is that compensation increases never keep pace with your market value, and you’ll always have better salary trajectories by hopping around (in healthy intervals).

  58. Until now I have worked for 4 companies and moved after 2 years on all of them... And I have to say it is the right choice, you will know the true value of the market

  59. Every job is stable until it's not, and if that new startup offer is 20% or more in comp then changing jobs every two years is what you have to do if you want to take your career compensation seriously.

  60. high demand skilled employees are incentivized to move, not to stay. 3% raise for both "cost of living" and merit combined to stay, but more than 25% raise to go to new company. not a start up, but a well established company.

  61. I went through a period of about 5 months ears where I changed job every 6-12 months. It was pretty fun, experienced a lot, but I’ve got a family now so I calmed it all down. Changed job twice in the last 3 years.

  62. I jump every 12 months. Some companies care, but so far none that are worth working for. I’d still be 2 jobs ago if recruiters weren’t blowing me up every day. Most of the jobs don’t pay well or are same old code monkey bullshit where you just grind for some web app all day, but every now and then I get something that’s neat/interesting/unique.

  63. Within 3 years my fiancé went from Intuit to Amazon to Google and I’m begging him to just stay at Google for a while. Y’all in the comments are NOT HELPING 😭

  64. This is mitigated by RSUs / Options by companies but little know secret (or maybe is known) most bigger companies will match your next vest cycle with sign on bonus + whatever stock program they run. You just need to ask, and if they don’t…run!

  65. I'll be honest I thought my last job was gonna be one I stayed at for a long time. Worked my way to be in line for team lead amdade myself indispensable. I was told (unofficially) I was getting it with a nice pay raise. Then the company was acquired, it became a corporate hellscape where the new bosses told me the same thing of becoming team lead but there'd be no pay raise. Told them I didn't want team lead anymore. I decided if I was going to be forced to work in a corporate hellscape I'd just go find a better paying job. Did that, put my 2 weeks in. 2 weeks of bosses and bosses' bosses offering me higher and higher offers to stay. I felt like the prettiest girl at the dance. I almost thought about taking it if they could beat my new jobs offer but looking back I'm glad I didn't. I've been challenged and grown more in less than a year at my new job than I have in 3 years at my old job.

  66. I've had current and stable work but not fulfilling. Software is about the money for me. Maybe something with robotics would be cool.

  67. when ive worked at jobs longer than 2 years, i maybe have modest salary growth — COLA raises. The longest job I held was 7 or 8 years and in total I had a nominal 25% increase from when I started.

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