I am quite new to the tech industry and want to maximize my tc. Is switching companies frequently (let's say every 2 years) a good idea careerwise? Would it harm my resume? Been at TS for just over a year, but now , at the end of the year, plenty of recruiters reached out to me, claiming that they can offer higher tc plus sign on bonus. Not sure when is a good moment to think about a change. I don't feel that current team is a great match and was thinking about internal transfer in some time. Yoe: 1.5 Tc: 200
Prevailing wisdom is that switching less than 15 months looks bad, but even 1 year of tenure will still get you hired at a lot of places. 6 months or less generally means that something bad happened. Switching every 2 or 3 years is fine if you like that.
I think every 2 years should be fine. There's also gonna be a point where switching teams won't give as much as an increase in TC as you would get intially.
If you’re a strong performer it’s not beneficial. Two Sigma and Google both can and do give high performers steady bumps in comp to people the manager chain wants to reward and retain. You could get to $400k+ in 4-5 years if you are really good. Getting there by jumping around would probably require getting an L6 offer or high L5, which you probably can’t achieve if you jump around every 2 years in the same time frame. Most people aren’t this good though, and companies will give you more than $200k to jump ship because they are willing to roll the dice on junior people.
exfinance is right. One factor worth considering is that Google and TS tend to lean conservative when determining level for external hires. Another is that loyalty can help you make the leap to a managerial position if this is something you care about.
Definitely unless you get fucked on some backloaded RSU schedule like Amazon likes to do