Written from a limited perspective; novice expert wisdom. Certainly it's valuable to stick around to really understand long term effects of things your immediat

Written from a limited perspective; novice expert wisdom. Certainly it's valuable to stick around to really understand long term effects of things your immediate predecessors and then you yourself did. You do start to understand things. I agree that staying at one job for 5 years, not 5 jobs over 5 years, makes one senior. You also have to be capable of learning such wisdom within whatever constraints may be in place. But you don't then need to repeat this ad nauseam. Once you then go into your next job after your first long stint, you should instantly recognize the tradeoffs and be able to ascertain whether they were known or unknown. After a few years doing that, then you are probably ready to be staff level, although the likelihood of internal promotion is likely slim. I'd say the ideal tenure history looks similar to (not precisely): new grad > 1-2 years > 1-2 years > 5 years > 3 years > whatever You need those quick hops initially to a) see at least a couple different work environments, and b) to get your salary up quickly, which is especially important early on. Then, yes, after 2-3 of those shorter stints you need at least one longer stint to gain the real wisdom that you didn't get with your early on "same year of experience multiple times". Then you need to hop again for both salary and promotion, and to see how your wisdom applies to another environment. After that, optimize for whatever your life wins and losses have guided you towards. Of course (!) YMMV. Sh_t happens. Or you might have hit a lottery at your very first company. Who knows what else. I'm just suggesting what an "ideal" progression might look like, not considering how life throws things at you, or how companies vary in their quality making it bad to stick to some prescribed progression. EDIT: I see the author actually followed (is following) my exact suggested trajectory. I find it a little odd then that the advice given doesn't capture that at all.