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Is the old advice to change companies every two-ish years still the best practice for career advancement? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by ELLIOTTCABLE@beehaw.org to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev

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I recall a regular piece of advice for software engineers: “change your job every two years.”

There’s innumerable Google results for this, even from as recently as 2022 — but none of them really seem that high-quality?

I’m really, really enjoying my current (somewhat unusual, hard-to-replicate) position; am about a year and a half into it; but I also don’t want to relax into that and have it cost me in the long-run, career advancement wise.

So, what’ve y’all been doing? Especially in the post-pandemic/fully-remote world, does that advice still apply?

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The sad reality in this field (and probably most jobs) is that unless you have a really good boss and a good HR it is very difficult to get large pay raises. The best way to get a large pay raise is to get a new job. Of course it isn't magical, you can't just infinitely get more. Do some research and try to see what your fair market value is. If you think you can get a lot and more and want to leave, leave!

It is always worth mentioning to your manager that you don't feel you're being properly compensated in a 1 one 1 if that's true. Don't phrase it as you're looking to leave or anything, just ask what it takes to get a big raise.

So, in short, if you're happy don't leave. If you're unhappy, especially because you want more money, that's where the "new job every 2 years" thing comes from. For better or worse pensions aren't really a thing anymore and there's not much value for loyalty.

[–] sillypuddy@mander.xyz 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I would second this.

I've been at my current company as a senior SW engineer since 2015. Mostly because it's a good company, I like the people, I have mentors, the culture is good, and it's all remote. It's for a government contractor which means I ended up getting switched to a different project every few years when a project begins to sunset. Most of my experience is with various government contractors and this is the only one that's been able to transition me to other project. I'm currently working on my 3rd major project with this company and various minor projects in between.

My annual raises have been about 3~5%, but even then I began to feel like it wasn't enough. During my last transition, I mentioned to my new boss that I felt like I wasn't being compensated enough. He asked me to name my price and I said something reasonable. He was able to give me exactly that and a few months later during the typical raise cycle I got another 5% on top.

I really think a lot of companies don't put much thought into retention once someone is brought onboard. You just get scooped up and they do the 3~5% living expenses increase but not much beyond that. If you're feeling like you're not being compensated fairly, definitely bring it up to a manager or someone in the chain of command that can do something about it.