Job hopping is amazing for increasing your TC, but you get only so far with this and after some point you will be penalized for this. My story: Currently 12 YoE, senior dev role, TC200 -> 0 I have been moving between countries (EU) and stayed at a job in average for 2 years (some 1, some 3). I have managed to up my level only once (to senior) with a switch. Now I got to the point where I am very expensive for senior roles (they rather pick a person with ~5 yoe), but not experienced enough for staff/principal ones because I dont have that title (I get immediate decline on those if I find any). Combined with the current status of recruiting, I am pretty fucked (I resigned due to reasons). Moral of the story - job hopping is good early in your career, after some time it becames disadvantage, so avoid.
You can always join a early age startup Your experience will be valued there Or the best thing is to switch into management
Early startups are always a bet. Is that really advisable?
Don’t go to an early startup for the money/stability . Go there for a few years for the title/experience. A senior at a big company will map to staff or higher at a early startup. Then jump back to a big company at staff level. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a startup. Could be going from a big contó small company. Or tech to non tech company.
How is it an issue? You are saying a staff gets paid less than you anyways. So go for lower pay and buy the title if it means so much to you.
What? Read it again. I said that I am expensive for senior, but cannot get staff interviews
12 years is enough experience for applying staff. Go some place smaller to get that title or work as Senior at larger ones and move. Yes there's some friction to get staff but it's mostly at bigger companies
Anyways 2-6 yrs are the sweet spot for software engineering, after 10+ u r considered old. Market is not in your favour My current manager also did the same, changed to management after 10+ yrs, and he is thriving in this role
How do you change to management if you have no experience with that?
My manager told me this. He told me that he likes coding and tech but after a point, it will become hard and eventually for further growth u have to switch into management. He was a tech architect before switching to management 2-6 yrs is a sweet spot are my personal views
I have different experience, I think you just apply to the wrong companies. My exp: worked in VMware 2.5 years, Microsoft 2 years, switched to Amazon 2 years and in process with Google and Meta now. Before VMware were for 2 years in unknown company. TC went from 25k euro to 270k
Good for you! Not every country has FAANG and I cant move
You don’t job hop from trash to trash company. It is not mandatory those to be faang or whatever, just aim to increase TC by 30% and more, increase title otherwise not worth it to switch.
What? 2 year tenure is not hopping.
Not enough for title promos either
How many years average is enough for title promos? I’m in my company for ~2 years and would like to ask for a senior title 😕
At what point should someone stop job hopping?
When you get right manager and coworkers
I think I have good coworkers and manager but the company is paying very less 14 LPA as SDE1 I am thinking of switching but I will miss my colleagues 😞 and manager. I may not be able to find such a team again
I’m in the same boat with 12 years of experience and no job going over 4 years. Most of them are 1-3 years. You may have a biased perception. The reality is that even if you stayed somewhere for a long time it doesn’t mean you’ll become staff or principal. Most engineers don’t go over senior in level. The only benefit to staying somewhere for a long time is that you’ll gain a lot of knowledge in the space the company is in and institutional knowledge in that organization.
Job hopping isn’t necessarily bad for your career if you do it right. I try to hop after getting a promotion. At some point, if you’re not a tech lead or staff+, it might be good to consider the management route if you have 12+ YoE.
Sorry, I don't understand "staff" meaning, can you explain it?
It's like architect level.
Some places the only way to move up from Senior Engineer is to switch to management because they don't appreciate that some engineers have/can have a larger impact than just the typical Senior Engineer. Other places that actually understand this have a technical track where you can continue to grow as a technical contributor. It typically goes something like Senior Engineer->Staff Engineer->Senior Staff Engineer->Principal Engineer.
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With so many experiences with multiple companies, it must be beneficial to become a conaultant
Maybe, but that is quite unstable right?
Not necessarily, you can be a consultant with an indefinite contract where you are basically treated as an employee, but are free to take on other contracts on the side. Or be an employee with side contracts.