Downturn career decisions(lethain.com)
lethain.com
Downturn career decisions
https://lethain.com/downturn-career-decisions/
203 comments
Job hopping has a high ROI early in one’s career, but becomes a negative ROI in the later years.
In the first few years after college it’s not a big deal to change companies several times in short succession because you’re not really a key player in an organization.
Once you reach the leadership and middle management roles, job hopping means you’re never really staying at a company long enough to establish yourself and to own the long-term consequences of your actions. It’s very easy to come in, make a mess, and then leave before any consequences catch up to you. It’s much harder to stay and own things for 3 year or more.
> Also a good callout that this is extra true for senior roles where it will be more complicated to replace a short-tenured leader.
Well said. It’s not a big deal if one of several similarly qualified developers rotates out of a team. It is a bigger deal if your teams have a new leader every 12 months because you hired people who can’t stay in one place very long. Even as an employee it gets painful and worrisome when management is changing over frequently and nobody really knows why.
How many times have we seen “Ask HN” posts where people complain that they’ve had a new manager every 12 months and everyone comments that it’s a red flag? As a company, you can’t afford to hire flakey senior leaders and managers who have a history of disappearing the second someone offers them a slightly higher salary. Keep them compensated, of course, but there will always be recruiters hunting for someone willing to jump ship in exchange for a $10K signing bonus.
In the first few years after college it’s not a big deal to change companies several times in short succession because you’re not really a key player in an organization.
Once you reach the leadership and middle management roles, job hopping means you’re never really staying at a company long enough to establish yourself and to own the long-term consequences of your actions. It’s very easy to come in, make a mess, and then leave before any consequences catch up to you. It’s much harder to stay and own things for 3 year or more.
> Also a good callout that this is extra true for senior roles where it will be more complicated to replace a short-tenured leader.
Well said. It’s not a big deal if one of several similarly qualified developers rotates out of a team. It is a bigger deal if your teams have a new leader every 12 months because you hired people who can’t stay in one place very long. Even as an employee it gets painful and worrisome when management is changing over frequently and nobody really knows why.
How many times have we seen “Ask HN” posts where people complain that they’ve had a new manager every 12 months and everyone comments that it’s a red flag? As a company, you can’t afford to hire flakey senior leaders and managers who have a history of disappearing the second someone offers them a slightly higher salary. Keep them compensated, of course, but there will always be recruiters hunting for someone willing to jump ship in exchange for a $10K signing bonus.
That’s interesting advice that I haven’t seen out play that way in my experience. In very senior roles at big tech companies, even staying in the same role provides 0 guarantee you’re working on the same project or even that the project you start lasts 3 years.
Also, the difference isn’t 10k. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars at middling levels. It’s in the seven figures at the upper levels.
Also, the difference isn’t 10k. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars at middling levels. It’s in the seven figures at the upper levels.
From a job hopping POV, projects or roles don't count, it's all about how long you've worked at the same company. My current tenure at giant company X is "10 years", even though I've held at least 4 radically different roles across three different products during that time.
The context for my statement there was this:
> job hopping means you’re never really staying at a company long enough to establish yourself and to own the long-term consequences of your actions
If you’re project hopping then you’re not owning long-term consequences either.
> job hopping means you’re never really staying at a company long enough to establish yourself and to own the long-term consequences of your actions
If you’re project hopping then you’re not owning long-term consequences either.
I’m someone who stayed put. Same company for 7 years. Not fang. Got promoted to be a manager half way. I stayed put as it was awesome learning for me. I sucked my first year and yet felt was able to demonstrate value due to momentum from my previous impact. I am getting better at leadership and finding my skin.
But .. in retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table. I also don’t see myself making the next jump (to vp) as I have seen no one do it .. vps come from outside where I am.
I am mulling an mba or emba but it is pretty expensive in time and money.
But .. in retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table. I also don’t see myself making the next jump (to vp) as I have seen no one do it .. vps come from outside where I am.
I am mulling an mba or emba but it is pretty expensive in time and money.
Sounds like it's time to quit your job and find a new one.
Not with a recession looming, as the article points out. I’d be interested in upskilling suggestions that are smaller sized chunks.
Online nano degrees seem to be too watered down to take seriously. Need to position self for late 2023.
Online nano degrees seem to be too watered down to take seriously. Need to position self for late 2023.
Even in a downturn, you should look for good opportunities to move. The second management job is where you really start learning.
But be really picky.
But be really picky.
Just read the MBA/Founder books instead of getting an MBA. Find a new job where you'll be challenged and can put the MBA/Founder skills to use, then quit your current job.
> Once you reach the leadership and middle management roles, job hopping means you’re never really staying at a company long enough to establish yourself and to own the long-term consequences of your actions. It’s very easy to come in, make a mess, and then leave before any consequences catch up to you. It’s much harder to stay and own things for 3 year or more.
Isn't this what the top managers do? Seems to work for them.
Isn't this what the top managers do? Seems to work for them.
I think this is overly dismissive. No one in a managerial role is switching jobs for a 10k signing bonus. Companies need to stop scratching their heads about why their talent keeps leaving and just fucking pay them more.
In Europe, its even a bit more. Early hopping is fine/explainable, I've personally only profited tremendously by doing it in first 6 years (increased my net income 20x compared to first full time job, but I started really low and and gradually moved to best paying region in Europe).
But even at those 5-6 years recruiters/hiring managers start to notice, you better have some good story to explain since they will ask. They do care much more if hopping is recent compared to 5-10 years ago. For more senior roles its simply a no-go, I mean think about it - it would be a net loss for the company to hire such a person, and if its obvious from the start why cause this to yourself.
Companies want stability, especially on senior level. If they change, they want to be in control of the change and not the opposite. Instable persons won't bring that, you don't need 30 years of management experience to realize this.
But even at those 5-6 years recruiters/hiring managers start to notice, you better have some good story to explain since they will ask. They do care much more if hopping is recent compared to 5-10 years ago. For more senior roles its simply a no-go, I mean think about it - it would be a net loss for the company to hire such a person, and if its obvious from the start why cause this to yourself.
Companies want stability, especially on senior level. If they change, they want to be in control of the change and not the opposite. Instable persons won't bring that, you don't need 30 years of management experience to realize this.
I'm actually experiencing this and feeling very down especially as a non-European targeting roles in Europe and remote roles.
My career trajectory after undergrad:
4 months: Project manager at a bank. Management development program that I left to join a startup in Berlin.
5 months, internship: promising startup in Berlin that I joined as intern. Founder passed away so the company almost went down under and they couldn't support me with visa.
1 year: Well-known German startup, notable turnkey projects. Left to home country due to family issues (closer to ageing relatives)
2 years 8 months: Rising Asian unicorn, notable turnkey projects, some good impact here. Left after a while to switch industry
3 months: Remote role at a US-based startup. Loved the time here and was actually able to scale a program. Laid-off along with half of the company due to investor pulling funds.
There are reasons behind every move. But this is not immediately evident to a recruiter and raises questions, more so in this market.
Now I'm job-searching while simultaneously freelance consulting on the side but as a generalist, non-tech, I'm somewhat jaded with job-hopping and want to aim for longer run at a stable company.
My career trajectory after undergrad:
4 months: Project manager at a bank. Management development program that I left to join a startup in Berlin.
5 months, internship: promising startup in Berlin that I joined as intern. Founder passed away so the company almost went down under and they couldn't support me with visa.
1 year: Well-known German startup, notable turnkey projects. Left to home country due to family issues (closer to ageing relatives)
2 years 8 months: Rising Asian unicorn, notable turnkey projects, some good impact here. Left after a while to switch industry
3 months: Remote role at a US-based startup. Loved the time here and was actually able to scale a program. Laid-off along with half of the company due to investor pulling funds.
There are reasons behind every move. But this is not immediately evident to a recruiter and raises questions, more so in this market.
Now I'm job-searching while simultaneously freelance consulting on the side but as a generalist, non-tech, I'm somewhat jaded with job-hopping and want to aim for longer run at a stable company.
Senior level positions in Europe often come with a 6 month notice period, so it's not even really possible to job hob that often. There is a strong preference for stability and continuity of leadership.
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One interesting question that isn't really addressed in the article or the comments here is what advice applies to folks who don't really want to move beyond the staff engineer (IC track) or senior manager (management track) level. I have not heard of anyone getting penalized at the staff level for short stints; though I do agree with the gist of this comment and article at the principal engineer (IC) or director (management) levels.
Companies across the industry are well known and notorious for having 4 year cliffs. HR often has no interest in keeping a good senior/staff level developer. Furthermore, companies are also known for making subsequent promotions harder than the first and are more than happy to let developers stagnate - managers at most companies are not responsible for providing growth opportunities beyond the so called "terminal levels" which is roughly senior/staff at most places.
The easiest way for many to keep learning, keep compensation in line with the market, and continue working on interesting projects is to simply hop for a new opportunity after a few years; cliff just makes the choice easier most of the time.
At least from what I have seen, one has to be really fortunate to have good managers/leaders (who can help with some of these issues) and/or a company which aligns very well with one's own goals over a long period of time. I don't believe either of these are common.
Companies across the industry are well known and notorious for having 4 year cliffs. HR often has no interest in keeping a good senior/staff level developer. Furthermore, companies are also known for making subsequent promotions harder than the first and are more than happy to let developers stagnate - managers at most companies are not responsible for providing growth opportunities beyond the so called "terminal levels" which is roughly senior/staff at most places.
The easiest way for many to keep learning, keep compensation in line with the market, and continue working on interesting projects is to simply hop for a new opportunity after a few years; cliff just makes the choice easier most of the time.
At least from what I have seen, one has to be really fortunate to have good managers/leaders (who can help with some of these issues) and/or a company which aligns very well with one's own goals over a long period of time. I don't believe either of these are common.
This is a shortsighted hot take. If it's a bad or average situation, the rational person abandons ship at the first available incremental improvement, or even for an orthogonal move to a less toxic environment.
When the situation is good or at least reasonable, the rational person will stick around and see it through.
There are endless shitty places to work. You don't owe anything to a bad situation which treats you, the individual, poorly.
Hiring managers who choose to judge a person in this fashion, solely based on their resumé and how long a person put up with a mediocre or poor work environment in the past, have nothing of real value to offer and don't deserve the good employees. They don't take good care of them.
There are endless shitty places to work. You don't owe anything to a bad situation which treats you, the individual, poorly.
Hiring managers who choose to judge a person in this fashion, solely based on their resumé and how long a person put up with a mediocre or poor work environment in the past, have nothing of real value to offer and don't deserve the good employees. They don't take good care of them.
> the rational person abandons ship at the first available incremental improvement.
The problem with this take is that over time, those incremental improvements become harder to find for someone who has established a pattern of job hopping.
It’s not a big deal when you’re 24 years old and you’re not really owning major initiatives and long-term projects. It becomes a big problem when you’re at 15 YOE and your resume has ten different companies where you never stayed long enough to even see the long-term consequences of your decisions.
I’ve seen a lot of pattern job hopper candidates who clearly have “One year of experience repeated 10 times” who can’t really compete with someone who has fewer jobs but stuck around long enough at each company to make a bigger impact.
If job hopping continues, it catches up to you later in a career.
The problem with this take is that over time, those incremental improvements become harder to find for someone who has established a pattern of job hopping.
It’s not a big deal when you’re 24 years old and you’re not really owning major initiatives and long-term projects. It becomes a big problem when you’re at 15 YOE and your resume has ten different companies where you never stayed long enough to even see the long-term consequences of your decisions.
I’ve seen a lot of pattern job hopper candidates who clearly have “One year of experience repeated 10 times” who can’t really compete with someone who has fewer jobs but stuck around long enough at each company to make a bigger impact.
If job hopping continues, it catches up to you later in a career.
I think these concepts are orthogonal.
You can have one year of experience 10 times by working 10 years in a single company and not self-actualising. One could argue an employee can stay too long at a job for the comfort and lack of ambition, coasting.
Even at the executive level, staying long does not guarantee owning to one‘s mistakes, since there are many ways to deflect blame and many places where top of the org has little accountability.
You can have one year of experience 10 times by working 10 years in a single company and not self-actualising. One could argue an employee can stay too long at a job for the comfort and lack of ambition, coasting.
Even at the executive level, staying long does not guarantee owning to one‘s mistakes, since there are many ways to deflect blame and many places where top of the org has little accountability.
Genuine question: How can you ever learn from feedback loops that take 2-3 years if you only ever stick around for a year?
TLDR: you cannot.
I am saying they are independent concepts. Basically, if you stay for one year it is not possible to learn the effects of longer projects (very valid point you mention). _But_, staying 10 years does not mean necessarily that you did learn from 2-3 years cycles. It will be _possible_. It could mean you are very good at deflecting, coasting, or playing golf with the right people, among many other possibilities.
Unrelated: today is on the news that Unilever's CEO will be resigning after 3 years, which also seems short to me.
I am saying they are independent concepts. Basically, if you stay for one year it is not possible to learn the effects of longer projects (very valid point you mention). _But_, staying 10 years does not mean necessarily that you did learn from 2-3 years cycles. It will be _possible_. It could mean you are very good at deflecting, coasting, or playing golf with the right people, among many other possibilities.
Unrelated: today is on the news that Unilever's CEO will be resigning after 3 years, which also seems short to me.
Sure, there are plenty of people with decades of experience who haven't actually developed beyond a mid level engineer. Long stints aren't proof that somebody is skilled. The point is that short stints are a worrisome thing on resumes at some point. Not a hard line - if I've got a personal relationship with somebody or strong recommendations from people I deeply trust it changes things. But somebody coming into a leadership role needs a lot of time to even understand an organization well enough to propose changes, let alone see those changes through.
"Some new director showed up, reorged us, and left" is a failure mode for organizations. It causes huge problems and needs to be avoided.
"Some new director showed up, reorged us, and left" is a failure mode for organizations. It causes huge problems and needs to be avoided.
That used to be called a 'seagull manager' - one who flies in, sh*ts on everything and flies away.
>Unrelated: today is on the news that Unilever's CEO will be resigning after 3 years, which also seems short to me.
Wait til you hear about Australian Prime Ministers
Wait til you hear about Australian Prime Ministers
>If job hopping continues, it catches up to you later in a career.
This is not guaranteed. You will limit yourself out of some jobs, but that's true with any career decision you make. Someone somewhere isn't going to like what you did and not give you a job because of their views. But as long as the pool of jobs is large enough, you can find something. If the pool of jobs shrinks so dramatically that this isn't supported, you might survive but you'll end up having a lower salary for it long-term.
These arguments seem to be against full time position job hoppers, but you may not be asking if they were doing contracts or purposeful short-term engagements. And perhaps a contractor is looking to go full-time. But before getting the full story, you've already made your decision.
There is not a optimal path which grants you maximized salary and maximized opportunities. The industry supports multiple career archetypes right now. Don't cast doom and gloom to make people feel anxious that they chose the wrong path when there are viable alternatives.
This is not guaranteed. You will limit yourself out of some jobs, but that's true with any career decision you make. Someone somewhere isn't going to like what you did and not give you a job because of their views. But as long as the pool of jobs is large enough, you can find something. If the pool of jobs shrinks so dramatically that this isn't supported, you might survive but you'll end up having a lower salary for it long-term.
These arguments seem to be against full time position job hoppers, but you may not be asking if they were doing contracts or purposeful short-term engagements. And perhaps a contractor is looking to go full-time. But before getting the full story, you've already made your decision.
There is not a optimal path which grants you maximized salary and maximized opportunities. The industry supports multiple career archetypes right now. Don't cast doom and gloom to make people feel anxious that they chose the wrong path when there are viable alternatives.
Counterpoint: I have 11 YOE and am at my 6th company (not including freelancing), currently a Senior EM. I've been at my current role for less than 6 months, the place is a toxic nightmare, and have had no problem whatsoever getting interviews for senior IC and team lead positions. The longest I've been at any one role was just under 3.5 years, with most under 2 - basically the first time I asked for a promotion or raise and didn't get it, I'd leave.
Now, it's certainly possible that another 3-5 years and another 2-3 companies would negatively impact my ability to land interviews, but I haven't seen the slightest impact yet.
Now, it's certainly possible that another 3-5 years and another 2-3 companies would negatively impact my ability to land interviews, but I haven't seen the slightest impact yet.
At least from my perspective your 3.5 year stint shows that you can stay for a while at one company, so personally I would probably not view your background as one of a "job hopper."
So you are able to get jobs at places that are "toxic nightmares". Perhaps with your job-hopping history you would find it more difficult to get a job at places that nurture a positive culture and high retention.
Might be some correlation.
Might be some correlation.
This seems like a premature conclusion based on one data point out of six.
If it's a bad or average situation, the rational person abandons ship at the first available incremental improvement.
There is an old saying: once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. A similar argument applies to people who have past employments of unusually short tenure. Anyone can have a miss and want to move on. Some people could be really unlucky and have it happen twice. If someone gets five years into their career and still hasn't held down any job for more than a year then something is up.
Even if they're the most unlucky employee in history they still won't have the practical experience to match their YOE. They're probably the perfect example of the meme about having five years of experience or one year of experience five times. So hiring that person into a senior role isn't looking like a smart move in any case.
There is an old saying: once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. A similar argument applies to people who have past employments of unusually short tenure. Anyone can have a miss and want to move on. Some people could be really unlucky and have it happen twice. If someone gets five years into their career and still hasn't held down any job for more than a year then something is up.
Even if they're the most unlucky employee in history they still won't have the practical experience to match their YOE. They're probably the perfect example of the meme about having five years of experience or one year of experience five times. So hiring that person into a senior role isn't looking like a smart move in any case.
5 consecutive jobs on my resume:
1 year: Student software dev job working for the university I attended while in school. Couldn't continue it even if I wanted to.
1 year and 3 months: Game producer for a small game publisher that got some bad luck (and a few bad decisions in hindsight) with a few game releases, and the parent company shut it down.
1 year and 1 month: Lead developer at a tiny app development startup where after a while it became clear the board members funding the company didn't know anything about apps and the executive producer didn't know anything about proper marketing or making sure the product made had an audience (but that became clear a little too late to do anything about it). The apps we made were perfectly good quality, but didn't find an audience. Board members eventually pulled the plug after the fourth app release.
1 year and 2 months: worked as a developer (and project manager/dev on one game) for a company that was doing incredibly well when I joined, but had a string of struggles for the following year after. I was part of a major layoff after a big release when the client decided to stop most of the funding. I could tell things weren't going well with the main client, but it kept looking like maybe we were a month or two out from landing a sweet development contract for various large opportunities to work on a big game for a publisher (none of which ended up panning out), so I stuck around just in case. They never did.
0 years and 9 months: worked as a contractor for a consulting company at a small marketing department at an insurance company, mainly just me and a lead developer. One day the lead developer got fed up with his ideas not being used and walked out and started his own company shortly after. The marketing head at that point decided to do something else with the project and didn't need me anymore so my contract suddenly ended.
Next job: 6 years. Joined the company and a few months later they announced getting bought by a major corporation. The merger started and everything started getting shittier, a couple major layoffs happened, people kept leaving on top of that, but I decided to stay, in part, because "I have so many short stints on my resume, I need something longer, I should stay at least 2-3 years!" At 3 years, the large corporation we merged with posted nothing but losses every quarter for 2 years, raises were pretty much nonexistent, the bonus I was hired with got taken away during the merger, and our department had about a third the employees it had when I started...but then the pandemic happened, and they had already closed down our office space, so I was already fully remote, didn't have to deal with any uncertainty about being forced back into the office, so I stayed even longer than I should have.
So I've had short stints 5 times in a row, always being laid off for nothing that had to do with my performance or capabilities, and that led to me staying way too long at a shitty job to make up for it.
A long stint that almost wasn't, btw, as during one of those major layoffs after the first year, as I found out I was on one of the big layoff lists, until a few people quit before it happened and my boss could lay off less people as a result.
Been at my current job for a year, and so far it's been doing well and they've had 5 straight years of rapid growth, but we'll see. I sometimes joke that I'm the Ted McGinley[1] of software companies.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4549382
1 year: Student software dev job working for the university I attended while in school. Couldn't continue it even if I wanted to.
1 year and 3 months: Game producer for a small game publisher that got some bad luck (and a few bad decisions in hindsight) with a few game releases, and the parent company shut it down.
1 year and 1 month: Lead developer at a tiny app development startup where after a while it became clear the board members funding the company didn't know anything about apps and the executive producer didn't know anything about proper marketing or making sure the product made had an audience (but that became clear a little too late to do anything about it). The apps we made were perfectly good quality, but didn't find an audience. Board members eventually pulled the plug after the fourth app release.
1 year and 2 months: worked as a developer (and project manager/dev on one game) for a company that was doing incredibly well when I joined, but had a string of struggles for the following year after. I was part of a major layoff after a big release when the client decided to stop most of the funding. I could tell things weren't going well with the main client, but it kept looking like maybe we were a month or two out from landing a sweet development contract for various large opportunities to work on a big game for a publisher (none of which ended up panning out), so I stuck around just in case. They never did.
0 years and 9 months: worked as a contractor for a consulting company at a small marketing department at an insurance company, mainly just me and a lead developer. One day the lead developer got fed up with his ideas not being used and walked out and started his own company shortly after. The marketing head at that point decided to do something else with the project and didn't need me anymore so my contract suddenly ended.
Next job: 6 years. Joined the company and a few months later they announced getting bought by a major corporation. The merger started and everything started getting shittier, a couple major layoffs happened, people kept leaving on top of that, but I decided to stay, in part, because "I have so many short stints on my resume, I need something longer, I should stay at least 2-3 years!" At 3 years, the large corporation we merged with posted nothing but losses every quarter for 2 years, raises were pretty much nonexistent, the bonus I was hired with got taken away during the merger, and our department had about a third the employees it had when I started...but then the pandemic happened, and they had already closed down our office space, so I was already fully remote, didn't have to deal with any uncertainty about being forced back into the office, so I stayed even longer than I should have.
So I've had short stints 5 times in a row, always being laid off for nothing that had to do with my performance or capabilities, and that led to me staying way too long at a shitty job to make up for it.
A long stint that almost wasn't, btw, as during one of those major layoffs after the first year, as I found out I was on one of the big layoff lists, until a few people quit before it happened and my boss could lay off less people as a result.
Been at my current job for a year, and so far it's been doing well and they've had 5 straight years of rapid growth, but we'll see. I sometimes joke that I'm the Ted McGinley[1] of software companies.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4549382
I think you read the parent comment uncharitably, and they were referring to job hops, not to layoffs or un-renewed contracts.
If I'm looking at your resume I see: 2 layoffs (not your fault), 2 temporary contracts. If you message that in your resume the contracts are a yellow flag (did they not get full time employment because they lacked chops?) but nothing here is telling me you're a runner. I'd happily hire someone with this job history if they interviewed well.
I'd be much more adverse to hiring you if you had been an employee at each of these places and stayed as long as you had.
If I'm looking at your resume I see: 2 layoffs (not your fault), 2 temporary contracts. If you message that in your resume the contracts are a yellow flag (did they not get full time employment because they lacked chops?) but nothing here is telling me you're a runner. I'd happily hire someone with this job history if they interviewed well.
I'd be much more adverse to hiring you if you had been an employee at each of these places and stayed as long as you had.
> I see: 2 layoffs (not your fault), 2 temporary contracts.
How would you figure out just by looking at a resumé that the 1 year job experience listed is a layoff?
How would you figure out just by looking at a resumé that the 1 year job experience listed is a layoff?
You ask. That's what I've done for folks with 4+ consecutive ~1y stints.
I've seen many resumes that say things like "company went bankrupt" or "Entire department was laid off"
>did they not get full time employment because they lacked chops?
People can elect not to go full time because they don't feel it's the right fit or it's a bad situation.
But they don't get any credit for sticking out a bad contract apparently
People can elect not to go full time because they don't feel it's the right fit or it's a bad situation.
But they don't get any credit for sticking out a bad contract apparently
the contracts are a yellow flag (did they not get full time employment because they lacked chops?)
I've seen this idea before but it seems like a very odd prejudice to me. Is it a particularly US-centric thing or something? Here in the UK a lot of good people in tech do independent work at some stage in their careers. Salaries for permanent employees tend to hit a ceiling. Contractors and freelancers can potentially price based on value and charge significantly more if they're worth it.
I've seen this idea before but it seems like a very odd prejudice to me. Is it a particularly US-centric thing or something? Here in the UK a lot of good people in tech do independent work at some stage in their careers. Salaries for permanent employees tend to hit a ceiling. Contractors and freelancers can potentially price based on value and charge significantly more if they're worth it.
> Here in the UK a lot of good people in tech do independent work at some stage in their careers. Salaries for permanent employees tend to hit a ceiling.
I would not view being a contractor in the way you describe as a yellow flag, but that's not OP's situation. OP looks like they were relatively inexperienced, had never held a job for 2 years. Even if OP didn't mention they were trying to convert to FTE in these roles and it didn't happen, the descriptions of them tell me that's probably what's happening.
I would not view being a contractor in the way you describe as a yellow flag, but that's not OP's situation. OP looks like they were relatively inexperienced, had never held a job for 2 years. Even if OP didn't mention they were trying to convert to FTE in these roles and it didn't happen, the descriptions of them tell me that's probably what's happening.
> OP looks like they were relatively inexperienced, had never held a job for 2 years.
The software dev job before that I had for 3 years. I just don't include it on my resume anymore, for length/ageism reasons (also it was VBA/original ASP, which I never want to touch again).
I'm not sure where you got two temporary contracts, I've only ever had one non-FTE job, and that was the 9 month one, and even then I was an employee for TEKsystems. They would have happily put me somewhere else (hell, they still reach out to me a couple times a year), but I really didn't enjoy my experience, so I didn't continue with them (I was actively interviewing for other jobs near the end of it, the contract ending was a surprise but also a relief). The benefits were the worst I ever had at any company before or since (poor medical insurance, zero PTO/paid holidays or any other benefits), and I got a 25% raise at my next company as a FTE, so it's not because I got better pay than elsewhere.
And if we go before that, I had a fast food job, a retail job, a warehouse job, a stocking job, a data entry job (all of these were at least a year, up to 2) hell, I even helped my dad with construction and apartment maintenance when I was as young as 14. But they're not software-related and basically ancient history at this point, so they haven't been on my resume for about fifteen years now.
The software dev job before that I had for 3 years. I just don't include it on my resume anymore, for length/ageism reasons (also it was VBA/original ASP, which I never want to touch again).
I'm not sure where you got two temporary contracts, I've only ever had one non-FTE job, and that was the 9 month one, and even then I was an employee for TEKsystems. They would have happily put me somewhere else (hell, they still reach out to me a couple times a year), but I really didn't enjoy my experience, so I didn't continue with them (I was actively interviewing for other jobs near the end of it, the contract ending was a surprise but also a relief). The benefits were the worst I ever had at any company before or since (poor medical insurance, zero PTO/paid holidays or any other benefits), and I got a 25% raise at my next company as a FTE, so it's not because I got better pay than elsewhere.
And if we go before that, I had a fast food job, a retail job, a warehouse job, a stocking job, a data entry job (all of these were at least a year, up to 2) hell, I even helped my dad with construction and apartment maintenance when I was as young as 14. But they're not software-related and basically ancient history at this point, so they haven't been on my resume for about fifteen years now.
The author agrees with you. From the article:
"You can absolutely explain those stints, and a reasonable interviewer won’t penalize you, but my lived experience is that landing a senior role requires passing multiple somewhat arbitrary process gates"
"You can absolutely explain those stints, and a reasonable interviewer won’t penalize you, but my lived experience is that landing a senior role requires passing multiple somewhat arbitrary process gates"
Yeah, and in my experience it's also about the pattern. There isn't a rule or anything. 1-2 short stints, totally fine. 3-4 short stints but with one or more 5+ year stints, probably also fine. 5 jobs, never for more than 9 months? Whatever is going on, it doesn't seem crazy to expect that it's going to manifest at job #6 as well.
> 5 jobs, never for more than 9 months?
So .. someone with less than 5 years on the workforce?
Look, I'm 60+ (ish) and still actively managing projects in code, engineering, mining, signal processing+interp - from my PoV anyone with less than five years on the workforce is still a child.
When I look for people to land roles that shepard a five+ year project through I'm looking for people with at least 8-10 years employed already with at least one two year run and a stated intent to "settle" into a position - ie maybe kids, perhaps a new house, maybe family in the area, etc.
Exposure to multiple bad projects is fine, especially if they can articulate how things went bad and how things might have been better managed to avoid that (ie big picture awareness).
You do have a point, however you might be setting the bar a little low .. less than five years in is barely a toe in the paddling pool of life.
So .. someone with less than 5 years on the workforce?
Look, I'm 60+ (ish) and still actively managing projects in code, engineering, mining, signal processing+interp - from my PoV anyone with less than five years on the workforce is still a child.
When I look for people to land roles that shepard a five+ year project through I'm looking for people with at least 8-10 years employed already with at least one two year run and a stated intent to "settle" into a position - ie maybe kids, perhaps a new house, maybe family in the area, etc.
Exposure to multiple bad projects is fine, especially if they can articulate how things went bad and how things might have been better managed to avoid that (ie big picture awareness).
You do have a point, however you might be setting the bar a little low .. less than five years in is barely a toe in the paddling pool of life.
Fwiw this perspective (talking about expectations of age, family status, background as conditions) would get you kicked as far away as possible from any hiring decisions where I work. I think mostly for legal / dei reasons to my understanding, but your whole statement reads like a radioactive hr bomb to me.
Expectations of 10 years of experience is absolutely not an HR bomb. You need to retake your DEI training.
To get what the op is looking for, you put the 10 year req, then structure comp ballooning towards the end of the vest and it will get you exactly those people op wants.
You don’t say, “must be settling with a family”. You offer something that is only enticing if you’re going to stay 5 years.
To get what the op is looking for, you put the 10 year req, then structure comp ballooning towards the end of the vest and it will get you exactly those people op wants.
You don’t say, “must be settling with a family”. You offer something that is only enticing if you’re going to stay 5 years.
I was referring to the family / kids but more than the 10 years.
If what you're saying is "that's what I'm looking for but I wouldn't say it..."
I dunno, that seems like exactly the sort of thing people would complain about.
If what you're saying is "that's what I'm looking for but I wouldn't say it..."
I dunno, that seems like exactly the sort of thing people would complain about.
So ... you have issue with people maybe having kids (whether their own / adopted, etc) or perhaps having family in an area (cousins, parents, etc) ?
This seems odd to say the least.
As I stated, for longer termed positions that require some stability matching the duration of a capital build project we look for people that have had exposure to a variety of past experiences and some demonstrated ability to stick something out coupled with some indication they making long term plans.
Which bit of that goes agin your HR policy?
This seems odd to say the least.
As I stated, for longer termed positions that require some stability matching the duration of a capital build project we look for people that have had exposure to a variety of past experiences and some demonstrated ability to stick something out coupled with some indication they making long term plans.
Which bit of that goes agin your HR policy?
You are both unprofessional and violating the law by discriminating against people based on legally protected parameters, like having children or not. Furthermore you're posting this on HN like an absolute fool. This is great evidence for people that claim discrimination is real in the tech industry.
> discriminating against people based on legally protected parameters, like having children or not.
Perhaps you might like to re-read what was written, slowly and very carefully.
Some people struggle with parsing meaning from English and jump to rash interpretation.
Perhaps you might like to re-read what was written, slowly and very carefully.
Some people struggle with parsing meaning from English and jump to rash interpretation.
I think he/she misread but one could argue what you wrote is anti-DEI in terms of those who don’t have kids, etc but I can’t imagine anybody proving it.
FWIW your approach is the most sound one I read on this thread and how most successful companies probably do it. I do feel it is slightly discriminatory though against those with un ordinary paths
FWIW your approach is the most sound one I read on this thread and how most successful companies probably do it. I do feel it is slightly discriminatory though against those with un ordinary paths
The problem is favoring candidates based on non-professional features, like their families, as you admitted to doing.
That's not what was said ...
Some positions require a degree of intelligence, there are many things that can demonstrate levels and types of intelligence.
Some positions demand a certain amount of physical endurance, there are many things that can indicate physical ability.
Some positions demand a level of stability and commitment to time scale, there are many different factors that can indicate that.
Some comments require a certain ability to read qualifiers and nuance in the English language, there are many that breeze right past such things and imagine things unwritten.
Some positions require a degree of intelligence, there are many things that can demonstrate levels and types of intelligence.
Some positions demand a certain amount of physical endurance, there are many things that can indicate physical ability.
Some positions demand a level of stability and commitment to time scale, there are many different factors that can indicate that.
Some comments require a certain ability to read qualifiers and nuance in the English language, there are many that breeze right past such things and imagine things unwritten.
> ie maybe kids, perhaps a new house, maybe family in the area, etc.
None are in any way indicators of professional capabilities.
None are in any way indicators of professional capabilities.
What rubbish, the only commitment for employees is to work to professional standards in lieu of money. If you need such long term commitments then hire like executives with retention, i.e. if you let go the employee before the term (except for misconduct/fraud etc.) then agreed compensation must be paid as per written contract, but you won't do it.
Many companies in Australia do not even put years of experience in job requirements as a HR policy. What matters is experience like "has build complex APIs for integration" not how many years you have been building APIs. Then if you are called for interview you will be compared against the other candidates.
This just seems like theater to me. Having built complex APIs for 2 years is obviously much less desirable than having built complex APIs for 10. You will have seen more, interacted with more, hit more edge cases, etc.
All this seems to do is make it harder for candidates to know if they're truly qualified, causing them to apply to more things, many of which they're not qualified for, wasting everyone's time.
All this seems to do is make it harder for candidates to know if they're truly qualified, causing them to apply to more things, many of which they're not qualified for, wasting everyone's time.
Sure, none the less,
if you're looking for someone (any age, any gender, any etc.) for a long term position who will stick through the good, the bad, and the ugly that might occur during a five to ten year time frame
then you're looking for any signs and indications that people have some past experience of sticking through things, are willing to stick through things in the future, and have an understanding of how things can go sour and what steps can be taken to mediate.
There are many indications of the ability to make a long term commitment and survive a rocky path, not all of them traditional and conventional, with the least common factor being some time at the pump.
if you're looking for someone (any age, any gender, any etc.) for a long term position who will stick through the good, the bad, and the ugly that might occur during a five to ten year time frame
then you're looking for any signs and indications that people have some past experience of sticking through things, are willing to stick through things in the future, and have an understanding of how things can go sour and what steps can be taken to mediate.
There are many indications of the ability to make a long term commitment and survive a rocky path, not all of them traditional and conventional, with the least common factor being some time at the pump.
This just smacks of wanting to treat people like shit. Given the tone of some of your other comments in this thread that actually makes perfect sense.
If you want people to "stick through...the bad and the ugly" compensate them accordingly and perhaps most importantly make sure their salary keeps pace with the market as a whole instead of the typical 2-3% raises most people see every year. But even that won't keep the best people, because the best people don't have to tolerate assholes at their job, they can just go get a better one.
If you want people to "stick through...the bad and the ugly" compensate them accordingly and perhaps most importantly make sure their salary keeps pace with the market as a whole instead of the typical 2-3% raises most people see every year. But even that won't keep the best people, because the best people don't have to tolerate assholes at their job, they can just go get a better one.
Wage slave mentality
Only on instagram and tiktok do they make someone a "CEO" a year out of school.
Even then it is daddy that made them CEO and they are CEO of tidying their bedroom.
Edit: seem I have triggered some 24 year old C suite excutives
Even then it is daddy that made them CEO and they are CEO of tidying their bedroom.
Edit: seem I have triggered some 24 year old C suite excutives
The owners of this website encourage and invest in startups helmed by people even younger.
And the sucess rate of those at the helm of companies the owners of this website encourage and invest in is <10%.
Imagine unironically saying that someone potentially just a few years from 30 "is still a child." That's nearly as bad as saying your hiring criteria includes someone with kids and a mortgage (presumably because these people are easier to lock into shitty situations as opposed to the "children" who can easily just leave and go elsewhere). Sorry, I mean those are the ones with demonstrated commitment.
Our time on Earth is limited, and five years is a non-trivial percentage of our working life. If you're a highly compensated engineer and you retire on the earlier side of normal for that cohort, you've got maybe 30-35 years.
Our time on Earth is limited, and five years is a non-trivial percentage of our working life. If you're a highly compensated engineer and you retire on the earlier side of normal for that cohort, you've got maybe 30-35 years.
Imagine unironically saying that someone potentially just a few years from 30 "is still a child."
They... didn't? A developer who has a typical graduate academic career, went straight into the software industry, and then had 5 jobs for less than 9 months each is probably in their mid-20s. In terms of technical skills and professional maturity anyone like that probably is still almost a child in terms of their career and the series of very short tenures definitely makes that more likely.
Our time on Earth is limited, and five years is a non-trivial percentage of our working life.
That's true. But as you point out yourself it's still only a relatively small part of our likely working life unless we luck out and reach FIRE status with a big exit or something. You can pick up some useful skills and develop an effective professional mindset in five years. But you'll do the same again in the next five and then again in the five after that.
They... didn't? A developer who has a typical graduate academic career, went straight into the software industry, and then had 5 jobs for less than 9 months each is probably in their mid-20s. In terms of technical skills and professional maturity anyone like that probably is still almost a child in terms of their career and the series of very short tenures definitely makes that more likely.
Our time on Earth is limited, and five years is a non-trivial percentage of our working life.
That's true. But as you point out yourself it's still only a relatively small part of our likely working life unless we luck out and reach FIRE status with a big exit or something. You can pick up some useful skills and develop an effective professional mindset in five years. But you'll do the same again in the next five and then again in the five after that.
>I was there to solve a problem and stayed no longer than was needed to solve that problem. What problems do you have that need to be solved?
Done. It's like people who stay at one job for year never practice for interviews or something.
Done. It's like people who stay at one job for year never practice for interviews or something.
Yep. This whole thing about not hiring "job hoppers" is a conspiracy to suppress wages by the management class. Companies will drop you without a second thought, you should have the right to do the same. I think more software engineers should move into consulting where the gun for hire nature of our industry isn't hidden.
Exactly, and most companies have shown they couldn't care less about keeping talent around. If they did, they would have spent a modicum of effort figuring out exactly why people like software engineers leave, which they don't seem very interested in. I've only ever experienced a single exit interview, and it was too little too late. I'm sure if I had said "low pay, shitty codebase, unreasonable deadlines, moving goalposts, no standards, management gave themselves raises during a layoff" that said feedback would disappear into an unlabeled file folder or a trash can.
Exit interviews are mostly just a formality, there is rarely any honest feedback given anyway.
I couldn’t disagree more. I want to see commitment, not leaving at the first sign of trouble. It costs a lot to acquire and hire talent.
> I couldn’t disagree more. I want to see commitment, not leaving at the first sign of trouble.
This goes both ways though - employees want to see commitment too - not layoffs at the first sign of trouble (or, often, no trouble at all, but just opportunity to improve short-term numbers by outsourcing to cheaper locations). Want people to stay for a long time with your company? Perhaps you should advertise a policy where you don't lay off staff even if company is in the red.
Notably, government agencies don't do layoffs, and people working there are much more loyal than people in the private sector, even though government pays less.
This goes both ways though - employees want to see commitment too - not layoffs at the first sign of trouble (or, often, no trouble at all, but just opportunity to improve short-term numbers by outsourcing to cheaper locations). Want people to stay for a long time with your company? Perhaps you should advertise a policy where you don't lay off staff even if company is in the red.
Notably, government agencies don't do layoffs, and people working there are much more loyal than people in the private sector, even though government pays less.
I’ll institute a policy of no layoffs if folks get paid the same as government jobs.
In all seriousness though this perspective is a double standard. Hiring managers can’t typically setup these policies, and when you leave after a short time they get screwed.
In all seriousness though this perspective is a double standard. Hiring managers can’t typically setup these policies, and when you leave after a short time they get screwed.
Then while the job market for this industry is fluid, you’ll need to find other ways to entice people to stay.
It seems that in a hot market hiring managers are each other’s enemy- they’re competing for labor, after all. They are providing incentives to get your workers to jump. So maybe the framing shouldn’t be employers vs. workers.
It seems that in a hot market hiring managers are each other’s enemy- they’re competing for labor, after all. They are providing incentives to get your workers to jump. So maybe the framing shouldn’t be employers vs. workers.
Then companies should reward stellar talent with raises that go beyond inflation and COL changes. Not job hopping is leaving money on the table. As you say, "It costs a lot to acquire and hire talent" then one would think that companies wouldn't be penny foolish and properly reward talent instead of giving tiny 3% raises to star performers. Stock options are great way to reward and encourage commitment.
If all you want is money go the FAANG route. There are a lot of people who grew up in the 90s/00s who are now hiring managers and they screen for passion not profit.
Make no mistake that we work to get paid.
But the motivation for working does have a tangible impact on the work product. This is why companies don’t want to hire people who job hop a lot. It’s not to save a buck. If I wanted to save a buck I would outsource.
Make no mistake that we work to get paid.
But the motivation for working does have a tangible impact on the work product. This is why companies don’t want to hire people who job hop a lot. It’s not to save a buck. If I wanted to save a buck I would outsource.
> It costs a lot to acquire and hire talent.
Probably because of your attitude towards it and throwing away people that follow the industry average churn rate.
Reminds me of someone who complains about how hard it is to find a date but has criteria tolerances for partners that would make aerospace engineer blush.
Probably because of your attitude towards it and throwing away people that follow the industry average churn rate.
Reminds me of someone who complains about how hard it is to find a date but has criteria tolerances for partners that would make aerospace engineer blush.
How do you know it's only the first sign of trouble?
Regular employees don't have the possibility to change companies from the inside, leaving is the only option.
Regular employees don't have the possibility to change companies from the inside, leaving is the only option.
Employees are finally starting to give employers the level of commitment they've received for decades, which is approximately none. We're all better off for it, in my opinion.
Something might be a red flag for an employee which causes them to immediately want to move on.
Companies look for red flags and pass on employees all the time.
Relatively, it's more expensive for employees to take a job then leave.
Companies look for red flags and pass on employees all the time.
Relatively, it's more expensive for employees to take a job then leave.
Here's the rub: the "bad situation" you are in is not independent of you as an individual. When you're young and early career you simply don't have the experience to judge what is good or bad (this is one of the reasons employers like hiring young people). You also haven't demonstrated what you are capable of, so why should anyone else hire you? Short of obviously toxic environments, the best bet early career is to put your head down and see what you can deliver in each job, build a network by impressing your colleagues, and keep an eye out for the next opportunity whenever the time is right.
It's very easy to fall into a self-pity or entitlement trap that can work against you. Just as bad employers sabotage themselves by not caring about employees, individuals can sabotage themselves by not recognize what they are being paid for.
It's very easy to fall into a self-pity or entitlement trap that can work against you. Just as bad employers sabotage themselves by not caring about employees, individuals can sabotage themselves by not recognize what they are being paid for.
That makes sense early to mid career. At some point you become responsible for creating the culture, not running away from it.
never thought of this but glad you said it. one thing i also think about if i was manager was creating a resilient system of employment. what happens if x leaves tomorrow? is x too critical and knows too much domain knowledge? how am i as a manager going to share that knowledge across my team so if any one person leaves we at least have some way to continue on.
You don't owe anything to a bad situation which treats you, the individual, poorly.
If someone says they're a senior and they're hired into a senior position but then it turns out that they're not really capable of doing the job of a senior that isn't the company's fault. Those are the people who companies are filtering out when they reject resumes with lots of short jobs.
The false negatives of people who left roles because the companies were bad are unfortunate but probably a lot less common.
If someone says they're a senior and they're hired into a senior position but then it turns out that they're not really capable of doing the job of a senior that isn't the company's fault. Those are the people who companies are filtering out when they reject resumes with lots of short jobs.
The false negatives of people who left roles because the companies were bad are unfortunate but probably a lot less common.
Uh, what? Whether someone is capable of doing a job is totally up to the employer. Yes, one has to self assess to an extent and apply to realistic roles, but for the most part the blame doesn't lie on the individual. A senior position at one role may mean something totally different from a senior position at another company. Is it really someone's fault that they were a senior engineer at BrownGrassCo and applied for a senior position at GreenGrassCo only to find out that their definition of "senior" more closely resembles something like a team lead with managerial tasks their previous position didn't involve at all?
This reminds me of that wojack meme with the normal distribution.
There are certainly people on the left side of the curve who just can't operate at a senior level. Nothing wrong with that, most projects need a solid mid-level or two who can chug through well-scoped tickets. They might have a lot of short stints on their resume.
But on the right side of the curve are the really great engineers who recognize a situation as bad pretty quickly, and are able to easily get another role.
You can't the difference between these two based on the resume, which is why I try to talk to all of them if I can.
There are certainly people on the left side of the curve who just can't operate at a senior level. Nothing wrong with that, most projects need a solid mid-level or two who can chug through well-scoped tickets. They might have a lot of short stints on their resume.
But on the right side of the curve are the really great engineers who recognize a situation as bad pretty quickly, and are able to easily get another role.
You can't the difference between these two based on the resume, which is why I try to talk to all of them if I can.
There's nothing wrong with job hopping, and I've seen no indication that patterns affect anything.
The fact is, we are all working for a wage. With the death of unions, and right to work, that's about all we're working for, personal motivation aside.
If a company is willing to pay more to hire you than your company is willing to pay to keep you, take it. Only suckers stick around out of some loyalty. See how loyal the company is when times are tough. In my personal experience, the tenured, high paid 40 and 50 year olds are the first to get the axe.
The fact is, we are all working for a wage. With the death of unions, and right to work, that's about all we're working for, personal motivation aside.
If a company is willing to pay more to hire you than your company is willing to pay to keep you, take it. Only suckers stick around out of some loyalty. See how loyal the company is when times are tough. In my personal experience, the tenured, high paid 40 and 50 year olds are the first to get the axe.
I fully agree. This loyalty myth is perpetuated by employers to discourage leaving in the face of poor wage adjustments and working conditions. We should work for the employer which treats us best. Always. That's how jobs work. Loyalty has nothing to do with it. If an employer has issues with a short stint of mine, I want nothing to do with them. They're clearly looking for people of which to take advantage.
I challenge you to find a company publicly expounding the idea of loyalty. The idea is actually perpetuated by old-school employees that are still drinking the koolaid.
In one sense, a company is nothing but a collection of people. So of course these attitudes are being perpetuated by people. It's the people in charge who are perpetuating them, and one could argue that the company leadership is the company. Of course, they won't advertise this publicly.
So an interviewer is not allowed to ask why you left a job?
They can certainly ask. If they have an issue with a short stint, then I walk.
It's less about loyalty to your current company, and more about the appearance of loyalty to your next company.
It's not about loyalty. It takes time for a new employee to be productive, especially in senior and leadership roles where understanding the context of the company is important, and building relationships is key to you performing your role. If you're gonna leave after a year it's not worth it to invest 6 months or more on ramping you up.
If companies don't want people to leave after short stints they shouldn't incentivize and even reward it so intensely.
Fuck I don't want to leave after a short stint either. But when the market is shifting fast as it has been for... my entire career, and people are getting hired in at 20%, 40% more than my salary while I'm on my third 4% CoL adjustment then yeah Imma bounce.
Workers didn't create this situation, companies did. They can figure out the consequences. Having a resume full of short stints never seems to have done me any damage and I don't buy this propaganda that it does.
Fuck I don't want to leave after a short stint either. But when the market is shifting fast as it has been for... my entire career, and people are getting hired in at 20%, 40% more than my salary while I'm on my third 4% CoL adjustment then yeah Imma bounce.
Workers didn't create this situation, companies did. They can figure out the consequences. Having a resume full of short stints never seems to have done me any damage and I don't buy this propaganda that it does.
Right to work didn't kill unions, Europe has right to work and unions do just fine, California doesn't have right to work and software engineers still don't unionize. Right to work is just a ruse trying to make you focus on the wrong thing.
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I think there's a matter of scale.
I won't hire someone who has been at 5 companies in the last 3 years, for example, unless they were explicitly a contractor.
But if you're jumping every 18-24 months, that's expected in your early career. When people are talking about job hopping today, it is contextual to that.
Managers should look at a longer average stay, though there is no shame in leaving a bad situation early or staying in a great situation. (I actually don't yet know what the right timing is for a manager role, honestly, though I'd assume 24-36 months from what I've seen.)
I won't hire someone who has been at 5 companies in the last 3 years, for example, unless they were explicitly a contractor.
But if you're jumping every 18-24 months, that's expected in your early career. When people are talking about job hopping today, it is contextual to that.
Managers should look at a longer average stay, though there is no shame in leaving a bad situation early or staying in a great situation. (I actually don't yet know what the right timing is for a manager role, honestly, though I'd assume 24-36 months from what I've seen.)
Well of course you only see the times the employer axes - but you never even hear about the times they don't.
I worked at the same company for a decade. There were three times the company did mass layoffs, and every time it trimmed a ton of long term employees.
Yes but you might be surprised how often "I think we need to do layoff" conversations happen and how often that a leadership team goes in to bat for keeping people for as long as financially possible.
I understand there are shitty companies. But if you're judging just by the "harshness of layoffs" you don't have the full picture.
Though to your point about laying off long term employees, depends on the country but it's often cheaper to cut shorter term ones (as they have less entitlements accrued, if that's a thing in your country). The other reason long term employees may be cut is they have accumulated too much in terms of small percentage pay bumps over the years and you end up with a team where 1 person is earning 50-100% more than the person next to them, and it's just an obvious cut.
I understand there are shitty companies. But if you're judging just by the "harshness of layoffs" you don't have the full picture.
Though to your point about laying off long term employees, depends on the country but it's often cheaper to cut shorter term ones (as they have less entitlements accrued, if that's a thing in your country). The other reason long term employees may be cut is they have accumulated too much in terms of small percentage pay bumps over the years and you end up with a team where 1 person is earning 50-100% more than the person next to them, and it's just an obvious cut.
This is not true for what we call “senior software engineers”, which is someone not in a high level position in the company. We have knowingly hired many people with the expectation that they will leave after 2 years on average.
> won't want to be the next stop on what they perceive to be a hot potato adventure
This is not how top tech companies think, and it’s the reason that the average job duration is so short at the top of the industry. It’s not viewed through some sour grape lens of “if I can’t have them for 10 years, I don’t want them!” It’s, if they work at least a year, it will be a great opportunity to build cool stuff for however long they are around.
What you’re saying might be true for some senior management side things where long-time relationships are more important, but it’s not for people who want to be highly ranked ICs.
> won't want to be the next stop on what they perceive to be a hot potato adventure
This is not how top tech companies think, and it’s the reason that the average job duration is so short at the top of the industry. It’s not viewed through some sour grape lens of “if I can’t have them for 10 years, I don’t want them!” It’s, if they work at least a year, it will be a great opportunity to build cool stuff for however long they are around.
What you’re saying might be true for some senior management side things where long-time relationships are more important, but it’s not for people who want to be highly ranked ICs.
"Senior" doesn't even mean the same thing from tech company to tech company. Couple that with misleading job postings and responses to question in the interview process and you're almost flipping a coin with the kind of employee experience you'll actually be getting for a role.
I straight up don't hire people with repeated short tenures. Their ego is always far beyond their capability, and there are plenty of now doomed VC-backed startups to fuel their path.
I would hope that by now, people won't be as privileged to assume that employment length is unrelated to other issues that people won't publicly talk about.
For URMs, short stints can be because of toxic environments, just as long tenure for immigrants might be due to visa requirements.
For URMs, short stints can be because of toxic environments, just as long tenure for immigrants might be due to visa requirements.
The poster would reject someone for being sexually harassed out companies before they were able to determine their own tenure
I'm interested in how you view consultants and contractors. They will be on the job for a few months, or a year or two at most, and move on to the next contract. How do you handle them compared to people with short tenures ?
(vice-versa: how would you deal with a full time employee that you know might not be there a year or two but could be valuable in the meantime)
(vice-versa: how would you deal with a full time employee that you know might not be there a year or two but could be valuable in the meantime)
The right metric should be to measure how many turnkey projects you have done.
If you are known to abandon projects midway hoping others to cleap up or build up after you. It should be plainly obvious, you are not some one who gets work done.
If you are known to abandon projects midway hoping others to cleap up or build up after you. It should be plainly obvious, you are not some one who gets work done.
It also means they don't stick around to deal with the consequences of the decisions they make.
It could also mean they stick around just as long as to notice that they have to deal with the consequences of the decisions they inherited and cannot change.
I agree in general, but i also think hoping in early career helps people get good experience. If you're over thirty, I don't understand it but in your early 20s you honestly need to to get a good role.
There are a lot of reasons why tenure might be short, but many short tenures, I agree are alarming because people are more lenient when a developer "ramps" up. If they are able to stick around and get promoted, that's a strong counter signal.
I'm curious, but not to pry the exact details, how long are your tenures on average -- and would you similiarly penalize someone who worked at one company for many years?
I'm curious, but not to pry the exact details, how long are your tenures on average -- and would you similiarly penalize someone who worked at one company for many years?
How do you feel about former contractors? A lot of (fairly lucrative) contract roles are often 6-12 months maybe a shade longer with extensions.
> How do you feel about former contractors?
Contractors with repeat business at the same client is a positive signal. Otherwise evaluating a former contractor for a role is about whether they’re interested enough to stick around long enough for the intended achievements of the role.
Contractors with repeat business at the same client is a positive signal. Otherwise evaluating a former contractor for a role is about whether they’re interested enough to stick around long enough for the intended achievements of the role.
> Contractors with repeat business at the same client is a positive signal
This is not universal and doesn't work for many countries like Germany where you need to avoid "shadow employment/scheinselbständigkeit" with the same client.
This is not universal and doesn't work for many countries like Germany where you need to avoid "shadow employment/scheinselbständigkeit" with the same client.
Drifters are always a problem, this doesn't happen just with their employment choices, but in general drifting is a habit, that applies to a spectrum of things in life.
The reasons go deep. They are often connected to being lazy, unmotivated and even just plainly unwilling to commit to any non-trivial effort work.
The reasons go deep. They are often connected to being lazy, unmotivated and even just plainly unwilling to commit to any non-trivial effort work.
How long are these "short tenures" less than 2 years?
FWIW, I've noticed candidates have started catching onto this and will do some sneaky resume adjustments involving leaving off some short stints. It gets explained as:
1. I just took some time off between Job A and C (when really there was a job B inbetween)
2. I tried to start a company between Job A and C (when really, again, there was another corp B)
3. I was at Job A the whole time (when really the progression was A -> B -> C -> A again)
4. I went straight from Job A to Job C (when, again, there was a job B) and the dates get fudged +/- a few months
I usually ask about the resume just as a conversational thing at the end of the interview, but my company's pretty strict about checking history so they get denied for any of the above reasons.
We appear to be the exception, since most candidates express a lot of surprise that we even bothered to check.
1. I just took some time off between Job A and C (when really there was a job B inbetween)
2. I tried to start a company between Job A and C (when really, again, there was another corp B)
3. I was at Job A the whole time (when really the progression was A -> B -> C -> A again)
4. I went straight from Job A to Job C (when, again, there was a job B) and the dates get fudged +/- a few months
I usually ask about the resume just as a conversational thing at the end of the interview, but my company's pretty strict about checking history so they get denied for any of the above reasons.
We appear to be the exception, since most candidates express a lot of surprise that we even bothered to check.
How do they check?
Most employers outsource payroll and those payroll companies sell the data. You can get the employment record of most applicants this way.
HR actually calls/emails to verify employment dates/eligible for rehire, though I wouldn't be surprised if some of it was automated (like the other poster noted) through payroll data to catch the omitted company B.
For most companies they'll just find them directly and call, and if they can't for whatever reason (company doesn't exist anymore, multiple companies with the same name) they'll ask the candidate to provide a point of contact.
Of course now that I said that out loud I suppose the next step for a candidate is to provide a fake number/email as a reference, but that doesn't really work if you say that you worked at Amazon/etc.
For most companies they'll just find them directly and call, and if they can't for whatever reason (company doesn't exist anymore, multiple companies with the same name) they'll ask the candidate to provide a point of contact.
Of course now that I said that out loud I suppose the next step for a candidate is to provide a fake number/email as a reference, but that doesn't really work if you say that you worked at Amazon/etc.
I think it depends on whether you want a career or just want money. I will take money. If at the end of my life, not a single thing I have coded has made a damn penny or been used by a single person, I am perfectly fine with that.
Employers want you to care about those things though, especially as you become more senior. That doesn't mean you have dedicate your life to work, but someone with 10-15 years experience who doesn't understand the big picture of how the software is used will make bad decisions. Don't let an overly mercenary attitude lead to a perception that you're a liability.
Eh, we all want things. In a practical sense, if the company wants me to stay, they should make the environment, where I want to stay. Staying just so that it looks good on the resume is a disservice to one's own career, but truly depends on available options and whether one can deliver in the short tenure they are at a given place ( and depending on what we mean by short tenure -- I think 2 years is acceptable ).
We are all mercenaries. If you buy into the mission statement, the management is actually good at selling their vision, you buy it because it resonates with you, you are the owner in some way or you are new to the game and are being used. Sadly, it is that simple.
I also disagree with the premise of "someone with 10-15 years experience who doesn't understand the big picture " example. Person in that example is an idiot. Doing something for over a decade and not knowing what they are doing after seeing different setups in different roles? I have yet to meet a person, who moved a lot, who does not have a well of experiences to draw from.
We are all mercenaries. If you buy into the mission statement, the management is actually good at selling their vision, you buy it because it resonates with you, you are the owner in some way or you are new to the game and are being used. Sadly, it is that simple.
I also disagree with the premise of "someone with 10-15 years experience who doesn't understand the big picture " example. Person in that example is an idiot. Doing something for over a decade and not knowing what they are doing after seeing different setups in different roles? I have yet to meet a person, who moved a lot, who does not have a well of experiences to draw from.
How you feel/what you think privately is very different to how you present yourself to your employer. Being predominantly interested in compensation is a goal best served by presenting yourself to employers as whatever it is they want you to be.
Sure, everyone maintains a boundary between the workplace and their private life or inner thoughts. Being adaptable and agreeable will get you somewhat far in the short term. Constantly thinking about your compensation and trying to optimize it by manipulating your employer doesn't sound like a great way to live, though.
Learning how to say no is a very important skill. I think it's even better for compensation to find positions in which you are an inherently good fit to create value, and then negotiate to a level of compensation favorable enough that you don't need to think about it for a while.
As the Rolling Stone song goes, "You can't always get what you want; But if you try sometimes, well, you might find; You get what you need".
Learning how to say no is a very important skill. I think it's even better for compensation to find positions in which you are an inherently good fit to create value, and then negotiate to a level of compensation favorable enough that you don't need to think about it for a while.
As the Rolling Stone song goes, "You can't always get what you want; But if you try sometimes, well, you might find; You get what you need".
Yeah agreed - you might be stuck in a job you don't necessarily like but you can stick it out for a reasonable length of time and maybe earn some good money until something better comes along by playing along but you're not going to be happy with that long term.
You could also use it as a stepping stone; be adaptable in the short term to build experience and salary, then you're in a stronger position further down the line when negotiating for the job you actually want.
You could also use it as a stepping stone; be adaptable in the short term to build experience and salary, then you're in a stronger position further down the line when negotiating for the job you actually want.
The easiest way to make someone think you care about something is to actually care about it.
It can be very hard to care about something that is inherently boring, 99% of companies don't work on anything that you could consider exciting.
I think GP is saying that even in your own self-serving interest, you're better off sticking around longer once you reach more senior levels. Otherwise potential employers will hesitate to hire you for fear that you will leave after a short time.
Even if you just want money, the long term consequences are worth considering.
Even if you just want money, the long term consequences are worth considering.
Why pick just one? It isn't a zero-sum game. Long term, the expected value of doing useful work is going to be higher than doing useless work. At my current company, the expectation from everyone is, "the best work of your life." Part of that expectation is fair compensation and a supportive and healthy work environment. As far as I know, no one is showing up just for the paycheck, but success would be quite lucrative for everyone.
If the expectation is 'the best work of your life' shouldn't compensation follow? Fair pay gets you fair work, not the best. 'Best compensation of your life' gives you 'the best work of your life', anything below that gives you just that, fair work
Yes. By fair, I mean proportionate, equitable.
There is endless supply of people who want money and don't care if they provide value or not, it is not that special attitude. Usually however the primary motivation is to want money without working, or at least with minimal amount of work. However naturally also the value of the work doesn't matter, the primary objective is just money, and then there are varying levels of aversion towards work.
I agree that hoping jobs can be seen bad. But isn’t it a chicken and egg problem?
If you don’t have interesting experience nobody will hire you. If you have too many job hops nobody will hire you.
I am exactly in this position. My current and previous role where both not very interesting on paper, so the interview ended when I was talking about my job in detail.
So is hoping jobs to get more valuable experience better or staying in a job just to demonstrate stability better? Nobody is saying hoping is good but not everyone has landed a great job yet…
If you don’t have interesting experience nobody will hire you. If you have too many job hops nobody will hire you.
I am exactly in this position. My current and previous role where both not very interesting on paper, so the interview ended when I was talking about my job in detail.
So is hoping jobs to get more valuable experience better or staying in a job just to demonstrate stability better? Nobody is saying hoping is good but not everyone has landed a great job yet…
How does this apply to switching teams within a company?
Currently on my first real job out of college and after 6 months not really feeling this team. I know Amazon has more dev-ops work than most companies for SDEs, but my current team feels like it has too much. I don't feel I'm actually learning much about programming or software design.
I am considering switching teams to try and find something a bit more programming focused. Interested in hearing feedback.
Currently on my first real job out of college and after 6 months not really feeling this team. I know Amazon has more dev-ops work than most companies for SDEs, but my current team feels like it has too much. I don't feel I'm actually learning much about programming or software design.
I am considering switching teams to try and find something a bit more programming focused. Interested in hearing feedback.
If you read this: I would feel free to try to switch teams without anxiety, all else being equal. IME you can hop a few times without anyone thinking twice, especially early in your career.
The point is that you just don't want to establish a pattern of "something always seems to prevent this person from staying at a job for more than ~1 year". If the job content is better on the new team that's really important early in your career.
Good luck!
The point is that you just don't want to establish a pattern of "something always seems to prevent this person from staying at a job for more than ~1 year". If the job content is better on the new team that's really important early in your career.
Good luck!
Thanks for the feedback! Good to know
this speaks to the power dynamics between employers and employees. it’s predatory to not give raises that would match finding a new job. it’s also unfortunate finding a new job is the only way to get a raise due to the lack of productivity in ramping up for X months every job, and having to reform networks.
the simple solution to not encouraging job hopping is to.. wait for it.. pay people what they’re worth on the open market.
the saddest part about this to me is that people on an interview panel have some sort of subconscious bias/loyalty to the company and will say, “well they have several short stints,” and perpetuate the bullshit.
the simple solution to not encouraging job hopping is to.. wait for it.. pay people what they’re worth on the open market.
the saddest part about this to me is that people on an interview panel have some sort of subconscious bias/loyalty to the company and will say, “well they have several short stints,” and perpetuate the bullshit.
Reducing time spent interviewing and onboarding candidates might not have anything to do with company loyalty. Some of us don't enjoy the process and take steps to reduce the amount of time spent on it.
Yes. If you are moving around in short bursts, you have to show up with enough convincing results to make it seem worth hiring you even for a potentially short time.
It's a dead strategy if it takes you 6 months to get familiar with the company, 3 month to start delivering some small improvements and proceed to leave after one year.
It's a dead strategy if it takes you 6 months to get familiar with the company, 3 month to start delivering some small improvements and proceed to leave after one year.
I'm actually experiencing this and feeling very down especially as an Asian targeting roles in Europe and remote roles at US-based companies.
My career trajectory after undergrad:
4 months: Project manager at a bank. Management development program that I left to join a startup in Berlin.
5 months, internship: promising startup in Berlin that I joined as intern. Founder passed away so the company almost went down under and they couldn't support me with visa.
1 year: Well-known German startup, notable turnkey projects. Left to home country due to family issues (closer to ageing relatives)
2 years 8 months: Rising Asian unicorn, notable turnkey projects, some good impact here. Left after a while to switch industry
3 months: Remote role at a US-based startup. Loved the time here and was actually able to scale a program. Laid-off along with half of the company due to investor pulling funds.
Am I a serial job-hopper? There are reasons behind every move. Some decent impactful projects as well and I can provide strong references from my previous employers. But this is not immediately evident to a recruiter and raises questions, more so in this market.
Now I'm job-searching while simultaneously freelance consulting on the side but as a generalist, non-tech, I'm somewhat jaded with job-hopping and want to aim for longer run at a stable company.
My career trajectory after undergrad:
4 months: Project manager at a bank. Management development program that I left to join a startup in Berlin.
5 months, internship: promising startup in Berlin that I joined as intern. Founder passed away so the company almost went down under and they couldn't support me with visa.
1 year: Well-known German startup, notable turnkey projects. Left to home country due to family issues (closer to ageing relatives)
2 years 8 months: Rising Asian unicorn, notable turnkey projects, some good impact here. Left after a while to switch industry
3 months: Remote role at a US-based startup. Loved the time here and was actually able to scale a program. Laid-off along with half of the company due to investor pulling funds.
Am I a serial job-hopper? There are reasons behind every move. Some decent impactful projects as well and I can provide strong references from my previous employers. But this is not immediately evident to a recruiter and raises questions, more so in this market.
Now I'm job-searching while simultaneously freelance consulting on the side but as a generalist, non-tech, I'm somewhat jaded with job-hopping and want to aim for longer run at a stable company.
This is a personal pet peeve of mine.
Workers react to the environment they are in. Calling it a "graph algorithm / hot potato" is belittling, especially in the sense that most people who switch jobs; don't even want to do so in the first place.
However, as a company, if you are unwilling to stay in line with the market; worst yet hand out relative pay decreases (2% raise with 12% inflation anyone?) then obviously people will leave. If you have a culture with issues that everyone and their grandmother know on your company, and can't even give hope that it'll improve even the slightest bit; people will leave.
The issue is, it is far too common for what I just explained to be your 1st, 2nd, 5th company and so on. If you want long term commitment & loyalty from workers; you better make sure to give them something, anything that they can at least sleep well at night and not feel royally f'd & bitter.
And if you are a hiring manager who passes on people because the environment in general is this way; then you are delusional. Glad we are not working together in the first place; you aren't looking for people who can commit, you are looking for subservience.
Workers react to the environment they are in. Calling it a "graph algorithm / hot potato" is belittling, especially in the sense that most people who switch jobs; don't even want to do so in the first place.
However, as a company, if you are unwilling to stay in line with the market; worst yet hand out relative pay decreases (2% raise with 12% inflation anyone?) then obviously people will leave. If you have a culture with issues that everyone and their grandmother know on your company, and can't even give hope that it'll improve even the slightest bit; people will leave.
The issue is, it is far too common for what I just explained to be your 1st, 2nd, 5th company and so on. If you want long term commitment & loyalty from workers; you better make sure to give them something, anything that they can at least sleep well at night and not feel royally f'd & bitter.
And if you are a hiring manager who passes on people because the environment in general is this way; then you are delusional. Glad we are not working together in the first place; you aren't looking for people who can commit, you are looking for subservience.
I mostly agree with this, especially on senior roles. But what constitutes a short stint? How many short stints does it take to negatively impact future opportunities? Does 2 yrs suffice to demonstrate real impact?
There is a lot of grey area here. Almost everyone can agree that less than a year consecutively in a role is a short stint. But people have begun to gamify the system. I see many resumes with ~2yrs exp in each role before they jump on to next. Where would you classify them?
There is a lot of grey area here. Almost everyone can agree that less than a year consecutively in a role is a short stint. But people have begun to gamify the system. I see many resumes with ~2yrs exp in each role before they jump on to next. Where would you classify them?
Curious about this as well. What’s the difference of 2 years of experience, vs. 2.5, vs. a full 3 years? Sure, everyone can agree 4 years, a fully vested tenure is commitment by this industry’s standards. But where is the line between 2-3?
I have personally seen scores of people employed to senior and executive opportunities whos resume is a total joke. 6 months here, year there, 3 months somewhere else, etc. having worked with and under such people so many times for 6-12 months before they inevitably move on, I am not at all impressed.
But then, every time, mega corp pas them a 6 fig sign on with gauranteed bonus, 2 levels higher than their last role, so what would I know.
But then, every time, mega corp pas them a 6 fig sign on with gauranteed bonus, 2 levels higher than their last role, so what would I know.
Depends on what you mean by “senior”. If a company has only been around for 3 years or or less, what’s so wrong with a candidate who only sticks at a place for 1.5 years.
I have found the senior tag to be a bit inconsistent. Some roles it meant more experienced, more challenging work and more architectural input was expected. In other roles it meant less software and more soft skills were expected, talking to clients, being a defacto project manager for a particular project team etc.
My unsolicited advice to anyone applying for a senior role is to ask what they mean by senior, because the job descriptions often look identical, but actual expectations differ.
My unsolicited advice to anyone applying for a senior role is to ask what they mean by senior, because the job descriptions often look identical, but actual expectations differ.
This is a great take, even within the same firm I've found huge mismatches in expectations when a "senior" is hired for soft skills, but internally the role aligns to hard skills - or visa versa.
Throwing a project master at a hard tech problem will usually result in disaster. However the same is often true of a hard tech researcher. Eventually people tend to acquire relevant skills from both sides or move into management.
Throwing a project master at a hard tech problem will usually result in disaster. However the same is often true of a hard tech researcher. Eventually people tend to acquire relevant skills from both sides or move into management.
My own experience has been that upper level executives are the most frequent job hoppers.
I was told in a business ethics class that the average tenure of executives is 6-8 years. The professor did not think this was optimal as consequences of their decisions were not yet apparent by the time of their exit.
radical job hopping is THE way. I will hop for 30% increment( all else being equalish).
Screw the fearmongering. I would've lost hundreds of thousands every year if i cared about tenure on my resume.
Local optimization is the way to go. Sure have a long term career plan and it is important to work on critical projects and get promoted but don't get taken advantage of by employers paying you 30% less than someone who just hopped into the same job from outside. Are you really going to be able to tolerate this and stick out for some supposed 'long term' .
Screw the fearmongering. I would've lost hundreds of thousands every year if i cared about tenure on my resume.
Local optimization is the way to go. Sure have a long term career plan and it is important to work on critical projects and get promoted but don't get taken advantage of by employers paying you 30% less than someone who just hopped into the same job from outside. Are you really going to be able to tolerate this and stick out for some supposed 'long term' .
Some key bits of advice I found useful. If you were in the job market in 2008-9 or 2001-3 you may view this article as very pessimistic. I don't think it is.
"If any given role can prioritize profit, pace, learning, prestige or people, then this is a good time to be focused on working with good people in a role where you’re learning. There’s a lot to learn right now as many companies are abruptly shifting from long-term growth-oriented goals to short-term, profitability orientation" See https://lethain.com/forty-year-career/ for more."
"it’s a tricky time to chase prestige as many companies that were prestigious a year ago like Netflix are in an awkward place or going through a hiring freeze like Meta. Although FAANG will remain prestigious, the most prestigious companies of 2025 are far less obvious than they were twelve months ago" See https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/18/23125571/meta-hiring-free...
Related
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/07/19/apple-sl...
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/09/21/heres-ho...
"If any given role can prioritize profit, pace, learning, prestige or people, then this is a good time to be focused on working with good people in a role where you’re learning. There’s a lot to learn right now as many companies are abruptly shifting from long-term growth-oriented goals to short-term, profitability orientation" See https://lethain.com/forty-year-career/ for more."
"it’s a tricky time to chase prestige as many companies that were prestigious a year ago like Netflix are in an awkward place or going through a hiring freeze like Meta. Although FAANG will remain prestigious, the most prestigious companies of 2025 are far less obvious than they were twelve months ago" See https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/18/23125571/meta-hiring-free...
Related
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/07/19/apple-sl...
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/09/21/heres-ho...
> many companies are abruptly shifting from long-term growth-oriented goals to short-term, profitability orientation
Pull the other leg. Companies haven't care about anything but the next quarter's results since the 80s.
Pull the other leg. Companies haven't care about anything but the next quarter's results since the 80s.
But what is important in the next quarter's results has shifted. A company that might have prioritized reporting strong user acquisition might now prioritize cash.
This treats it as too binary IMO.
Maybe the 80s marked a shift where companies started caring more about next Q than they did in the decades prior - but there is still plenty of long term execution happening at larger companies that can be reined in for more short term focus.
Maybe the 80s marked a shift where companies started caring more about next Q than they did in the decades prior - but there is still plenty of long term execution happening at larger companies that can be reined in for more short term focus.
>It’s a rough time to prioritize profit, because much of tech compensation is grounded in equity valuations. The prevailing wisdom has been that FAANG companies are the easy path to outsized compensation, but Netflix has dropped from $691 to $179 in the past 8 months, and Google has dropped from $2,965 to $2,181.
This is, arguably, backwards. Your package is salary + equity and the amount of equity is based off of current valuation. As an example, Google going from ~3k to ~2k means you get 50% more stock for the same dollar amount equity package.
It's probably the best time to join a FAANG. Certainly much better than those that joined this time last year and have taken a hefty haircut on their equity.
This is, arguably, backwards. Your package is salary + equity and the amount of equity is based off of current valuation. As an example, Google going from ~3k to ~2k means you get 50% more stock for the same dollar amount equity package.
It's probably the best time to join a FAANG. Certainly much better than those that joined this time last year and have taken a hefty haircut on their equity.
Yes, it is the n-best time to join after a long list of times that start with Employee #1.
> next year as the downturn ends and the upswing begins
Who says the downturn ends next year?
VCs act like it's all 2008: someone will come and bail them out. Yet, we are literally one Powerpoint away from a multi-year dumpster fire.
Who says the downturn ends next year?
VCs act like it's all 2008: someone will come and bail them out. Yet, we are literally one Powerpoint away from a multi-year dumpster fire.
To be perfectly fair; when it comes to the economy, belief somehow follows reality.
If “the economy” believes there will be a recession, there almost certainly will be one. Even if it wasn’t going to happen by itself.
VCs dumping money into the “bottom point” of the market will also stimulate the economy a lot, leading to a recovery.
If “the economy” believes there will be a recession, there almost certainly will be one. Even if it wasn’t going to happen by itself.
VCs dumping money into the “bottom point” of the market will also stimulate the economy a lot, leading to a recovery.
> If “the economy” believes there will be a recession, there almost certainly will be one. Even if it wasn’t going to happen by itself.
There have been beliefs there will be a recession from the end of the 2008 recession to date. There has been beliefs that things are great and there will never ever ever be a recession ever again.
People who believe a recession is coming are like broken clocks, many of whom have prediced 45 out of the last 3 recessions.
There have been beliefs there will be a recession from the end of the 2008 recession to date. There has been beliefs that things are great and there will never ever ever be a recession ever again.
People who believe a recession is coming are like broken clocks, many of whom have prediced 45 out of the last 3 recessions.
In a world of billions of individuals you can always find some that believes in whatever it is you're looking for people to believe.
OP's point as I read it is that once those beliefs hit a critical mass amongst the general population they tend to come true via self fulfilling prophecy. Correlation/causation aside - the point is not "if my uncle thinks a recession is coming, there is", it's "if 100mm American adults think a recession is coming, there is"
OP's point as I read it is that once those beliefs hit a critical mass amongst the general population they tend to come true via self fulfilling prophecy. Correlation/causation aside - the point is not "if my uncle thinks a recession is coming, there is", it's "if 100mm American adults think a recession is coming, there is"
The other thing going on is... the system is such that they have to spend the money on something, sooner rather than later.
These VC funds made a lot of money last year, and if they can't make up a reason to re-invest it they have to return it to the next layer up, who face the same decision.
They are probably getting paid on assets under management, so their incentive is to support current valuations by swapping funding rounds at good valuations with other funds, and generally putting the money away before things get any worse.
These VC funds made a lot of money last year, and if they can't make up a reason to re-invest it they have to return it to the next layer up, who face the same decision.
They are probably getting paid on assets under management, so their incentive is to support current valuations by swapping funding rounds at good valuations with other funds, and generally putting the money away before things get any worse.
> Who says the downturn ends next year?
That's just the premise of the article base on a historical observation that recessions last around 15 months...this was explained clearly.
If your personal outlook is that we're walking into a multi-year dumpster fire then the advice in the article should be adjusted accordingly.
That's just the premise of the article base on a historical observation that recessions last around 15 months...this was explained clearly.
If your personal outlook is that we're walking into a multi-year dumpster fire then the advice in the article should be adjusted accordingly.
> If any given role can prioritize profit, pace, learning, prestige or people, then this is a good time to be focused on working with good people in a role where you’re learning
Prestige comes from past endeavor therefore prestige can end up depreciating fast. I'd argue that one should always focus on learning, or more generally, on growth. FAANG companies do give their employees prestige, yet prestige alone does not carry too much weight, especially during an interview. It is the combination of the growing success of a company and an employee's contribution to the success that gives the true prestige and handsome reward to the employee.
Case in point, a Googler 18 years ago would automatically get tons of respect because Google launched a slew of groundbreaking products and popularized a slew of amazing technologies. GFS, Big Table, MapReduce framework, draggable and zoomable Google Maps by AJAX (even though XMLHttpRequest was invented by MS), 1GB of Gmail storage, amazing search infrastructure that goes way beyond the classic methods in the book Managing Gigabytes, large-scale machine learning for both universal search and semantic understanding of Google search, large-scale Google Ads, and the list goes on. FB employees 15 years ago would likely (likely as there will always be exceptions) got a lot more prestige than today because FB scaled its business to hundreds of millions of users, invented a novel architecture for social networking especially for serving feeds, scaled MySQL along the way, invented technologies like Tao, Haystack, React, HVM, Scruba, large-scale memcached, and the list can also go on. Netflix grew its subscribers from a few million back in 2008 to 70 millions about 7 years ago. Along the way, they showed the world how to be productive with merely a few hundred engineers by building tools. They popularized the concept of circuit-breaking by giving the world Hystrix (yes, I know the concept was quite well known to readers of Release It! and Netflix mentioned that they learned that concept from that very book). They built Asgard and later Spinnaker. They built predictive autoscaling service years before AWS built the same feature. They built discovery service and fast loggers and RxJava and Iceberg and a long list of other systems. Along the way, the Netflix in that era enjoyed prestige.
I'm sure people can come up with equal number of negative examples, like the dude who was L6 in Google but spent the last two years solely coordinating teams to using his team's user embedding, and therefore wondered why other companies kept down leveling him after interviews. Of course, I made this example up but you get the idea.
So, chase growth and therefore prestige in the near future, even in the downturn.
Prestige comes from past endeavor therefore prestige can end up depreciating fast. I'd argue that one should always focus on learning, or more generally, on growth. FAANG companies do give their employees prestige, yet prestige alone does not carry too much weight, especially during an interview. It is the combination of the growing success of a company and an employee's contribution to the success that gives the true prestige and handsome reward to the employee.
Case in point, a Googler 18 years ago would automatically get tons of respect because Google launched a slew of groundbreaking products and popularized a slew of amazing technologies. GFS, Big Table, MapReduce framework, draggable and zoomable Google Maps by AJAX (even though XMLHttpRequest was invented by MS), 1GB of Gmail storage, amazing search infrastructure that goes way beyond the classic methods in the book Managing Gigabytes, large-scale machine learning for both universal search and semantic understanding of Google search, large-scale Google Ads, and the list goes on. FB employees 15 years ago would likely (likely as there will always be exceptions) got a lot more prestige than today because FB scaled its business to hundreds of millions of users, invented a novel architecture for social networking especially for serving feeds, scaled MySQL along the way, invented technologies like Tao, Haystack, React, HVM, Scruba, large-scale memcached, and the list can also go on. Netflix grew its subscribers from a few million back in 2008 to 70 millions about 7 years ago. Along the way, they showed the world how to be productive with merely a few hundred engineers by building tools. They popularized the concept of circuit-breaking by giving the world Hystrix (yes, I know the concept was quite well known to readers of Release It! and Netflix mentioned that they learned that concept from that very book). They built Asgard and later Spinnaker. They built predictive autoscaling service years before AWS built the same feature. They built discovery service and fast loggers and RxJava and Iceberg and a long list of other systems. Along the way, the Netflix in that era enjoyed prestige.
I'm sure people can come up with equal number of negative examples, like the dude who was L6 in Google but spent the last two years solely coordinating teams to using his team's user embedding, and therefore wondered why other companies kept down leveling him after interviews. Of course, I made this example up but you get the idea.
So, chase growth and therefore prestige in the near future, even in the downturn.
> like the dude who was L6 in Google but spent the last two years solely coordinating teams to using his team's user embedding
This seems inevitable at large companies. The amount of bureaucracy appears to outweigh the amount of work.
This seems inevitable at large companies. The amount of bureaucracy appears to outweigh the amount of work.
This happens to me a lot. I left my last job because bureaucracy got so tight, that my entire tenure there I was unable to actually do any work on the project I was hired for because some higher ups couldn’t stop arguing about it.
I found the option repricing history fascinating.
"what about me", cries the person with a $300 RSU price while the stock is trading at $100 -- it always seems like the first thing that comes up in company chat when the company stock tanks. Part of the deal I suppose. Other option is to jump ship, but that's scarier in a bear market.
Also jibed with:
> my general advice to folks would be to stay where you are as long as you’re reasonably happy day to day and feel like you’re learning at a good rate. Even if your effective compensation has declined a bit, it’s very hard to determine if the compensation at any other company will hold up either.
"what about me", cries the person with a $300 RSU price while the stock is trading at $100 -- it always seems like the first thing that comes up in company chat when the company stock tanks. Part of the deal I suppose. Other option is to jump ship, but that's scarier in a bear market.
Also jibed with:
> my general advice to folks would be to stay where you are as long as you’re reasonably happy day to day and feel like you’re learning at a good rate. Even if your effective compensation has declined a bit, it’s very hard to determine if the compensation at any other company will hold up either.
What about it? Someone with an option actually paid money to exercise it. They actually loose some of their own money based on their own decision.
Someone with an RSU they thought was worth $300 when they negotiated and thought it would be at $600 by the time it vested and they could sell it now only get $100 per RSU they actually sell.
My answer to "What about me"? Well boo hoo!
Random internet search yields and example on blind:
Someone with an RSU they thought was worth $300 when they negotiated and thought it would be at $600 by the time it vested and they could sell it now only get $100 per RSU they actually sell.
My answer to "What about me"? Well boo hoo!
Random internet search yields and example on blind:
FB offer $185k base + $200k RSU/year = $385k total comp
> Someone with an option actually paid money to exercise it.
If you still have the option, then you haven't paid to exercise it. Once you exercise it, you have a stock (or the sale proceeds in the case of an exercise-and-sell transaction).
If you still have the option, then you haven't paid to exercise it. Once you exercise it, you have a stock (or the sale proceeds in the case of an exercise-and-sell transaction).
The industry decided it was cheaper for them to hire and retain by compensating in stock rather than cash. Now that this is no longer as sweet carrot, employers should also face the consequence, and realize they need to adapt compensation, or loose employees.
why would it be scarier to jump in a bear market? If you are jumping, you wouldn't jump into a worse situation if you had a choice.
If the fear is getting laid off, why would you jump to a company that is going to lay you off? On the other hand why would staying put in a bear market be safe? You might get laid off anyways.
If the fear is getting laid off, why would you jump to a company that is going to lay you off? On the other hand why would staying put in a bear market be safe? You might get laid off anyways.
This still talks about relatively healthy company. I'll always remember an engineer from Palm telling me circa 2002 the hard-earned wisdom of Silicon Valley is "never be the last one left who has to turn the lights off" (because likely his last paycheck will bounce).
> If you find my following perspective to be overly conservative, I’d gently push back with the observation that most folks I know in or pursuing executive roles view my career decisions as moderately risk-seeking
I wonder if this reflects the demographics of people in executive roles more than anything else.
People who need to take risks to end up in an executive role are naturally filtered out due to risky behaviour, whereas people who have better 'pedigree' (You know what I mean) don't have to take many risks.
I wonder if this reflects the demographics of people in executive roles more than anything else.
People who need to take risks to end up in an executive role are naturally filtered out due to risky behaviour, whereas people who have better 'pedigree' (You know what I mean) don't have to take many risks.
People end up in executive positions largely do so because of connections, with expertise second, at best. They just view life and success as expected because of who they are, so why take risks? If you're a white, male, Ivy League graduate, you're going to succeed regardless. Just coast.
You think all 40,000 per year are going to be successful if they coast? And doesn't it require some tenacity to get into an Ivy school, meaning they're the type of person less likely to coast? This comment comes off as somewhat sour.
> doesn't it require some tenacity to get into an Ivy school
Ivy schools are famously cagey about the number of "legacy" admissions, but the best research suggest they weigh legacy many times more than any other criteria, and legacy admissions make up some %15 of the total. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/legacy-admissions-coll...
Ivy schools are famously cagey about the number of "legacy" admissions, but the best research suggest they weigh legacy many times more than any other criteria, and legacy admissions make up some %15 of the total. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/legacy-admissions-coll...
Good, so 85% of students worked hard to get into the Ivy League. But because of the 15% you say that their accomplishments is nothing?
Unironically I have to have conversations with people who rant about private school A grades being worth D's because their accomplishments are nothing.
Naturally now they are sending their children to private school, their children are not being handed everthing on a plate and their grades are great accomplishments.
Envy really does destroy the functional parts of the brain where intellectual honesty resides.
Naturally now they are sending their children to private school, their children are not being handed everthing on a plate and their grades are great accomplishments.
Envy really does destroy the functional parts of the brain where intellectual honesty resides.
Yep. I went to a good private school (a so called public school in England) and can confirm it does not result in good grades lol. It still requires some drive and care about school to succeed.
This is a joke shared with me in Cambridge:
The difference between the ivies and the others is that the dumbest person at an ivy may well be its richest.
Make of that what you will.
The difference between the ivies and the others is that the dumbest person at an ivy may well be its richest.
Make of that what you will.
Cambridge isn't exempt - if you're a great rower you can get into Land Economics pretty easily ;)
Something tells me you don’t have much exposure to executives?
This isn’t true at all.
It’s not pure merit, but no job is. But I’ve seen plenty of executives turfed out of jobs when the CEO failed to hit their numbers and needed a scapegoat.
This isn’t true at all.
It’s not pure merit, but no job is. But I’ve seen plenty of executives turfed out of jobs when the CEO failed to hit their numbers and needed a scapegoat.
15 years ago, freshly equipped with an Ivy League degree and a PhD, I was staggered to interact with so many senior executives that had exactly 0 degrees.
A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD. I got it in the middle of the dot com boom. It's a nice conversation piece but otherwise has zero relevance to what I do. Instead of getting rid in one of the bubble companies or taking a fat salary solving the y2k problem for some boring consulting company, I went off and did research.
Then I pivoted to become a software engineer, and I went back to doing research at an industrial research institute. And via a brief stint doing some more software development I ended up being a startup entrepreneur in my late thirties. That was ten years ago.
In Germany where I live it's an almost automatic salary booster, which is nice except I don't get a salary because I'm a freelance consultant and a bootstrapped startup CTO (might get a salary out of that soon). It's what I did after I got my degree that enables me to charge premium rates when I'm freelancing.
Entrepreneurial mindset and straight career paths via some big name university are two things. One requires taking risk, the other is basically about risk averse careers. Big name universities, followed by big name companies and big title career paths. Again nothing wrong with that. But not a likely path for starting your own company, which is risky.
Then I pivoted to become a software engineer, and I went back to doing research at an industrial research institute. And via a brief stint doing some more software development I ended up being a startup entrepreneur in my late thirties. That was ten years ago.
In Germany where I live it's an almost automatic salary booster, which is nice except I don't get a salary because I'm a freelance consultant and a bootstrapped startup CTO (might get a salary out of that soon). It's what I did after I got my degree that enables me to charge premium rates when I'm freelancing.
Entrepreneurial mindset and straight career paths via some big name university are two things. One requires taking risk, the other is basically about risk averse careers. Big name universities, followed by big name companies and big title career paths. Again nothing wrong with that. But not a likely path for starting your own company, which is risky.
More to my point, the assumption that every executive is a white ivy league educated male is as accurate as the assumption that everyone in Silicon Valley dropped out of their CS degree at Stamford after a year.
> A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD.
Yeah, but I’d expect an executive to be that sort of person.
Yeah, but I’d expect an executive to be that sort of person.
Wouldn't someone who conforms to the norms tend to become the average of that environment?
Depends if you work in a change resistant, conservative environment; or a competitive company that needs to be ruthless and non dogmatic about what it does, why it does it, how it does it, etc.
Very different career paths.
Very different career paths.
> If you’re an executive or senior leader, this is asking for the company’s P&L statement and someone on the finance team to walk you through it.
Companies are onboard with this? Sharing pl data with someone that isn’t even an employee yet seems improbable to me.
Companies are onboard with this? Sharing pl data with someone that isn’t even an employee yet seems improbable to me.
As a former CRO and regional GM, financial statements are not that secret. Public companies disclose that every quarter. Private companies need to disclose this if they want to get financing.
In some countries even private companies' annual financial statements are in the public record. This is the case in Sweden and Finland, at least.
Surprisingly few people seem to look up these records when joining a start-up though. But it's definitely useful for business journalists and presumably competitors.
Surprisingly few people seem to look up these records when joining a start-up though. But it's definitely useful for business journalists and presumably competitors.
I’ve asked for PL statements during interviews for every PM job I’ve taken. PMs are generally responsible for PL for their line of business, and it’s foolish to not find out what you’re walking into. PL statements have “smells” just like code and stack choices do that you’d ask about in an SWE. A company refusing to share this during executive interviews is a huge red flag.
Considering most of the market will only hold stock for under 4 months, one may find the idea of a long-term investment hard to justify.
In general, shifting your equity into index funds, and keeping 7% in high-risk markets is a good balance. If you are a family with young children, than that risk-exposure ratio should drop to under 2.5%.
Depending where you live, additional community programs can offer substantially higher than normal returns with tax resistant programs like Education funds for your kids, Disability savings accounts, and First-time home-owner grants.
As a side note, it has been my observation that few people ever see an actual return on in-house stock options in startup tech-companies. Additionally, a purge of senior-staff often happens before a firm transitions into the markets. It turns out, that more often than not these contractual incentives are just a tool to help drive down salaries, or even work for free with the truly audacious cons.
Some have found utility in copying those who can break Market restrictions. ;)
Congress member holdings report:
http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-search.aspx
Senate member holdings report:
https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/
In general, shifting your equity into index funds, and keeping 7% in high-risk markets is a good balance. If you are a family with young children, than that risk-exposure ratio should drop to under 2.5%.
Depending where you live, additional community programs can offer substantially higher than normal returns with tax resistant programs like Education funds for your kids, Disability savings accounts, and First-time home-owner grants.
As a side note, it has been my observation that few people ever see an actual return on in-house stock options in startup tech-companies. Additionally, a purge of senior-staff often happens before a firm transitions into the markets. It turns out, that more often than not these contractual incentives are just a tool to help drive down salaries, or even work for free with the truly audacious cons.
Some have found utility in copying those who can break Market restrictions. ;)
Congress member holdings report:
http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-search.aspx
Senate member holdings report:
https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/
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I think this is great advice, and it runs counter to advice from sites like Blind that essentially encourage you to treat your career as a graph search algorithm optimized for any incremental increase in compensation. Hopping around is fine in small amounts and can work for increasing comp. But if you establish a pattern people notice, and they won't want to be the next stop on what they perceive to be a hot potato adventure (whether that's fair or not doesn't matter in practice). Also a good callout that this is extra true for senior roles where it will be more complicated to replace a short-tenured leader.