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‘I’m proud of being a job hopper’: Seattle engineer’s post about company loyalty goes viral
(www.geekwire.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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I've averaged ~12 job hops in the last 6 years and I wouldn't change a thing. Compensation growth has been roughly 6.05x. The previous 6 years was...maybe 3? And maybe 2x.
I owe the big corps nothing. I meet expectations and deliverables and I support my team however I can, but that's about it.
But eventually don’t you risk being unhireable with this sort of work history? We recently hired someone who had a similar work history and I remember that being very much a red flag when we hired them. Turns out the red flag should have been payed attention too since history is a good predictor of future behaviors.
As a hiring manager I would think twice about investing anything in an employee who jumps around THAT much. I mean I don’t blame you, I’ve had the same job for 23 years and I could be making a lot more money. But salary is not everything and I love my job. My mental health is very much an extra benefit.
Even assuming that it's all W2, it's a self-resolving problem- if no one will hire you because you're unstable, you stay at the existing job. That works until either you've been there long enough to appear stable, or you find an employer that's not concerned about it.
That's assuming you don't get laid off, sadly. Ask me how I know.
Being laid off may be seen as a mitigating factor. It's a no-fault termination and can easily be explained to the next hiring manager.
Even if I got laid off twice in a row in six months though? In this market? Both times it was with around half the company as well. One was an acquisition with the new US owner preferring people in India, the other one was a "pivot" after sales sold something that they themselves couldn't really describe.
I didn't get to hiring managers and explanations in the first place. I got told at one point by a hiring manager that they would rather hire some Googler who recently got laid off, since the pipeline is full of those. The fact that six months later they laid said hiring manager off with his team as well does not really make me feel vindicated either.
No worries though, I got my plans sorted out, no better time to get more specialized, go back to uni and get into a niche but growing field I like.
I could see that if they were all W2. But near the tail end of my more aggressive efforts I started branching into 1099 work and they don't mind at all.
I also have a much wider breadth of technology experience now so it really opened the doors on the opportunities I qualify for.
I've shaved something like 5-7 years off my retirement age with this short stint. Even if I just coast at a single job from here on out, I think it was worth it. You are 100% correct that salary isn't everything. I'm really hoping to grow the 1099 portfolio at this point, there's something a little freeing about it, weirdly enough.
C'mon, if you're an independent contractor you're not "job hopping." Why did your original comment call them hops? You've just got new and different clients.
Tail end. Like the last 6 months of that entire span.
I hadn’t thought about this. Yeah if its contract work it’s expected and that’s a totally different situation.
Also hiring manager here and I agree with you--I wouldn't hire even the best person if they displayed this behavior.
For most people, this is the case. But for the super elite tech worker, this is not the case--they are sought after. The stories you read here are from the elitest of the elite CS/CE program graduates.
Why wouldn't they just become a contractor instead? Makes no sense to put up that many red flags.
Entitlement, narcissism, chose your poison. This person believes they deserve more and more and more and finds ways to justify their behavior.
That said, I agree that corporations are bullshit so I get it. This person isn't a hero, though.
I'm all for job hopping, it just doesn't make sense that after 2-3 times that a company would say, "sure, come work for six months" knowing the person will waste 1-2 months of that onboarding and getting up to speed with how things work at that company.
I suspect that a lot of these get into companies during those gigantic hiring waves that result in massive layoffs a year later.
Easier and more straightforward to get a position and salary promotion by way of hopping jobs than it is to do within the same company.
It's really sad that this is the state of things but it is how it is.
Sadly true. In my earlier years I watched new hires sometimes start at the same or more than I was getting after 1-2 mediocre raises.
At one of my last longer term jobs, I was miffed at the lack of compensation increases over the last 2 years, so I told them I was quitting. I even said I don't have anything lined up, but I just can't continue knowing the market is paying more. They ended up magically finding a 20% increase for me - where was that before?
How do you even explain that during the hiring process? That's not even enough time to figure anything out
Honestly, nobody has ever asked (yet).
Can I ask what you do for a living? In Canada, such gains are basically impossible on income. If you were earning $70k as a low level software developer, there's no way you could, in 6 years, without skill upgrading and promotions, change that into $400k+
Software Dev/Eng. Largely Angular/Vue, C#/Go, SQL Server/Postgres, and Azure/AWS/GCP full stack development.
I'm not sure how tech pay works in Canada. I know in the UK and surrounding that tech pay is significantly lower than the US.
I am in the US and tech pay here can be criminally high (or criminally low). A lot of people chase RSUs, but I chase base pay.
My friend went from a $15/hr IT Support job to a $500k+ (TC) in 4 years hopping 4 times.
It's stupid money that I assume won't last forever so doing my best to save/donate what I can now.
Please don't extrapolate based on what you read here. The people who are saying they do this are among a very elite group of people who came out of high-end technical programs. They have the pedigree and are sought after so they can do this as much as they like. You most likely cannot get away with this.
This is also the internet. So people lie. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of people claiming they job hop and get these huge pay bumps were lying about it.
There’s also the chance that any one of us is lying. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That is also very true.
I graduated with a 2.8 GPA. I learned everything on the job(s). My first few years were 80 hour weeks not because I had to, but because I wanted to learn [everything I didn't learn in school].
My friend never graduated and makes way more money than I do (I believe post-tax $600k but I'm only about 90% sure). Software Engineering is a booming arena right now if you have the right buzz words on your resume and soft skills for the interview. I say booming now, but Sep-Dec last year were rough. However, the market for CS job opportunities is bouncing back.
It's a game that can be played and succeeded at, regardless of pedigree, but aptitude matters. Even my favorite bartender at my local dive bar is studying it in their free time and, frankly, they're getting pretty good at it fast. I think they'll be just fine.
Data Center Engineer now. But I have an associate in electronic engineering from a community College.
2010-2013 Walmart. Started $7.65 an hour Ended $10.60 only reason I got a raise because of minimum raise increases Graduated college 2013-2016 left for a niche small electronics company (laser tag) $10 an hour. Got experience in my degree 2016-2018 left to work for Perdue chicken manufacturering plant 15.10 ended at 15.65 2018-2020 casino started at 15 ended at 15.65 2020-2022 data center for bank started at $24 ended at $26 2022-now data center different bank with a union started at $30 now at $32.30
Most the companies want to give me 3% or less every year one company kept putting off talks of raises. I kept taking more and more responsibility and no one would giving me a decent raise or pay me what I was worth.
I got $8.45 in raises from companies lots of the big chunk amounts came from minimum raise increase and work place adjustments. Every increase that they gave me for a yearly raise was 3% or less. Me leaving to another company got me $16.20 of pay increases.
111% increase from raises and 212% increase from job hopping in the last 14 years
I umm, think you could possibly get 50-70% more salary jumping companies fairly easily. $67k (base) is sorely underpaid for a skilled data center engineer. A quick search confirms my suspicion that a data center engineer makes on average ~$145k a year.
This dude is working at a bank. They don't pay well, but job security is decent. Banks rarely go out of business. He should go elsewhere to earn more. But yeah, that's literally nothing for his job. He could easily double it.
I am also not qualified to be an engineer despite having it in my title I am more like a data center technician or cable/server installer. Which is more inline with my salary
But give me a couple years with it in my title and tons of learning and a certification I can hit network engineer with 6 figures.
That can vary widely across industry and circumstance. I’ve stayed with the same company (granted through a couple mergers) and grown my comp more than 10x in that time.
And while I’m not at all advocating for being any more loyal to a company than they are to you, I can definitely say seeing a big string of quick flips in jobs in their resume is a big red flag for me when hiring people.
I don’t mind people having a practical attitude to comp, but in my line of work at least I find it takes a good few months of orientation for someone to start adding real value anyway. Definitely not something I’m looking to repeat all the time with folks I hire. Granted, I also work damn hard to earn some loyalty and put “my money where my mouth is” for my people, I’d often not the case.
In any event, I’d definitely agree you’ve got to keep a close eye on your own self interest. You may run into bosses and companies that will do right by you like I have, but there is sure as hell no guarantee of it and precious little way to tell the difference till you’ve spent time there.