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If we were talking about SWEs, I'd say short tenures are now considered a pro, not a con. Likewise, staying too long at a company (say, 5+ years), seems to be c
by decafninja 5y ago
If we were talking about SWEs, I'd say short tenures are now considered a pro, not a con. Likewise, staying too long at a company (say, 5+ years), seems to be considered a big red flag now. Exceptions given if company is FAANGMULA or similar caliber.
For a managerial or leadership position? I can't say, to be honest, but what you say makes sense. Then again, I'd say long tenures as a SWE ought to be considered a positive too (or at least not a negative), but it isn't, so...
- VirusNewbie 5y agoI think the opposite. Usually a short (sub 2 years) tenure at a company means they're on the chopping block, bonuses didn't come through, refreshers weren't granted, stock options didn't continue, etc.
- novok 5y agoOr stock performance has been bad for the past 2 years? Or they got a bad team and its time to move on?
- decafninja 5y agoI mean, I agree, personally. But my encounters in the wild while interviewing, plus comments on Blind, etc. would indicate the wider consensus is that short tenures are preferable to long tenures.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y agoHow can you assume that? Especially when people are moving around constantly due to lack of promotions, compensation or recognition. It’s essentially religion at this point to hop every 2 years to “level up”.
- wyclif 5y agoYup. It's common knowledge that in average Big Tech company culture, the easiest way to get a raise, better total comp, or a promotion is to get a new job every 2-3 years. Why would any engineer put himself/herself through a review process to get a measly sub-10% increase when they can get 20%+ by interviewing?
- decafninja 5y agoSpeaking as someone who was recently outside of FAANGMULA type companies, but now finally got in... Right now I'm just thankful where I am now. My compensation quadrupled coming from an investment bank. I actually suspect my compensation might actually be a bit lower than my peers at this company or those like it, relatively speaking, but at this point I don't care. Combined with the fact that the work and project are super interesting, I could live with this compensation and title until I retire (in my late 30s now). I'm certainly in no hurry to put myself through leetcoding again, though to cover all my bases I probably ought to follow the principle of "a leetcode a day keeps unemployment at bay" sooner rather than later again.
- angrais 5y agoHow do you reconcile that your peers likely earn more than you, and perhaps then, you were underpaid for your (negotiation) skills of the same position?
- decafninja 5y agoI don't imagine the delta is extreme. I know the delta exists because post-hire, my manager implied it, and that he would do his best to close it. Part of it is my lack of negotiation skills as you say (also implied by my boss), and part of it is because my background is coming from an unsexy non-tech company (implied by the internal recruiter). But even if the delta remains, I'm just plain thankful*. The amount I'm earning now is jawdropping for my wife and I. When I was interviewing around, we were half-joking how awesome it would be if I could replicate those stories you see on Blind about people doubling their compensation. That it quadrupled instead is shocking. * Probably not a popular thing to say in tech circles, but my wife and I are Christian, and suffice it to say we are mindblowingly thankful to God for this. I don't endorse prosperity gospel, but I'm now earning more than we know how to utilize. We've committed to using at least some of it for good causes - my first month's salary was given wholesale to a charity trying to rescue/resettle/support Afghan refugees.
- 5y ago
- vultour 5y agoExcept for the first one these all seem like a good reason for leaving, why would you hold that against someone?
- VirusNewbie 5y agoIn wouldn’t hold it against them I wouldn’t just assume a short tenure is good thing and I’d want to ask for more info.
- friedman23 5y agoIf I look at someone's linkedin and all their positions have been for <2 years it's a major red flag.
- decafninja 5y agoI mean, I agree, personally. But my encounters in the wild while interviewing, plus comments on Blind, etc. would indicate the wider consensus is that short tenures are preferable to long tenures.
- friedman23 5y agoTo whom? Maybe to recruiters who get a commission for every person they bring on?
- decafninja 5y agoInterviewing SWEs, hiring managers, etc. Apparently long tenures denote being an expert beginner, 1 year of experience repeated 5 times instead of 5 years of experience, complacency, laziness, things like that. Again, I don't agree with this personally, but this seems to be the prevailing attitude. People like you and I being a minority. There seem to be exceptions - the chief one being if you stuck around at a top company versus a mediocre one, that doesn't ding you much.
- aix1 5y agoI work at one such "top company". Internal mobility is very, very easy and well-supported by the company (great business choice IMO). I am not sure if would even make sense to talk about "sticking around" at the company level. One can easily choose between 1x5yrs of experience, 5x1yr or anywhere in between. (This is obviously orthogonal to your point about perceptions and attitudes, but I felt compelled to chime in.)
- jonas21 5y agoIsn't this just another way of saying that working for a mediocre company isn't a negative signal unless you stay there a long time?
- atty 5y agoAt my company at least, we definitely prefer longer average tenures over shorter ones. Very short stays (say less than 2-3 years) and many hops implies you’re more interested in filling out your resume and jumping to the next pay raise than you are in making any meaningful contribution to the work our team is doing. I would never consider someone staying at their current job for 5+ years a negative, unless it is accompanied by negative references from coworkers.
- MattGaiser 5y agoWhere are you that 2-3 years is short? At any company I have been with, 3 years would make you an absolute veteran. This is for the usual reason of not getting raises, so veterans tend to be very underpaid.
- lovich 5y ago+1 for this. At six months At my current place I am in the top half of engineers for seniority and this has been one of the nicest places I’ve ever worked. At previous companies I’ve been in meetings where high level managers veto prospective hires the entire team wanted because they had been at their current company for “too long” where “too long” was 4 years without moving into management. It’s not uncommon in my experience to hear engineers say they would view tenures of 2-3 years as a red flag for hiring other engineers, but the hiring managers who actually make the decision have always preferred short tenures of hopping around or staying at one place only if there’s a title change every ~2 years.
- xvilka 5y agoIt makes sense since such people have more diverse experience and more adaptive, agile. They could bring new perspective to the team. I would say balanced approach is better - part of long tenure applicants and part of the hopping ones.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI get why engineers hate it. I am on a team where at 2 months, if we become fully staffed at some point, I will be in the top half of seniority between resignations and transfers to new teams. It is quite concerning to see so much knowledge about how things work walk out the door and it is miserable if something goes wrong and nobody left knows it existed. So I get why engineers view a year as hit and run. But yes, companies seem to interpret staying a year or two as evidence of growth/a highly desirable candidate.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pixelatedindex 5y agoI have heard of FAANG, but what is MULA?
- igetspam 5y agoMicrosoft... Uber... LinkedIn... Another... ? Total guess.
- chris_hawkes 5y agoThat is right, along with Airbnb
- decafninja 5y agoAlways thought the "L" was for Lyft, but I suppose LinkedIn works too.
- whiskyant 5y agoLinkedIn is basically Microsoft, so it's covered by the M.
- pixelatedindex 5y agoI had no idea Lyft and Uber both paid as much as FAANG - the stock prices don’t seem to correlate (it’s sub-50 compared to the rest), nor did I think they paid as well as Google, Microsoft or Facebook. Since when was this a thing? I guess I was under a rock when it came to this :)
- decafninja 5y agoIt's been a while. For that matter, I think Lyft, Uber, & Airbnb are capable of paying more on average than Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon at least. Or at least that's the impression I get on Blind.
- comeonseriously 5y ago"Sorry Fred, you meet, even exceed, all of our expectations for the position, however you prefer to stay too long, so fuck right off." Seriously? This is absurd.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoI think it depends on whether Fred continued to find opportunities for growth during his long stay. If he can describe how he was meeting his career goals while also staying in the same position for nine years, then there's no reason to avoid him. But if he spent the last six years stagnating, it might be worth giving extra scrutiny to how up-to-date his skillset is.
- yardstick 5y agoReplace “career goals” with “value to the business” and I would agree. I don’t care about personal development to the same degree as making money. That’s what the business is about after all.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- decafninja 5y agoAlso I don't think anyone will outright reject you for staying too long at one company. What they'll do is see it as a red flag and dig into it and find out what the circumstances were. If they feel those circumstances are ok, then you're fine. If they feel they were not ok, then you'll get dinged. Versus back when I started my career, it would have been a universally positive indicator, that would score you points over a "job hopper". Nowadays it seems the job hopper is in a better position.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoI dunno, if I make a list of leaders I've worked with that I'd want to hire if I started my own thing... I'm sure keeping the machine alive and the paychecks flowing was near the top of their priority list, but most of their decisions seemed motivated by other things. Improve safety for the users. Preserve the sanity of the ops team. Start actually competing for our business instead of relying on relationships with politicians. That sort of thing. Most often these hireworthy behaviors correlate with bringing value to the business, but sometimes the business's values need correcting.