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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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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.