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> For one thing, I have relatives that got into the tech scene after me, but rack in much higher salaries than me. I'm not sure what it is, but probably staying

> For one thing, I have relatives that got into the tech scene after me, but rack in much higher salaries than me. I'm not sure what it is, but probably staying in their jobs for more than two years helps. Interesting perspective, I usually hear the opposite advice. That it's easier to find a new job that pays more rather than get a raise through your existing job. I suppose at some point that can have diminishing returns, I imagine particularly in management positions.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Job hopping can have a high ROI for junior people who enter the industry at the bottom end of the compensation curve. Someone starting at a $60K entry-level job at a small, no-name company generally has no good options for significant salary increases other than changing to another job. On the other end of the spectrum, someone who joins a Big Tech company right out of college has a lot to gain by staying, learning how the promotion system works, and then working their way upward through the promotion ladder. I think the job-hopping advice has lost a lot of context after being reduced to a short aphorism. The companies that compensate toward the top end of the curve are actually great places to establish long tenures and move up the comp ladder. The longer you stay, the more allies you have within the company and the more knowledge you have of how the system rewards people.
hsn915 4y ago
> That it's easier to find a new job that pays more rather than get a raise through your existing job. Yes, but after you have spent 3+ years in your current job. It also helps to have the ability to put up with all kinds of bullshit - which I don't have. One time I quit a job because the "boss" talked to me in a bad tone. Two times I threatened indirectly to leave when someone tried to use their "authority" to talk bullshit to me. Everytime when the project was setup with complex/confusing maze of docker/k8s scripts, I simply refused to learn their config system because I viewed it as beyond bullshit. But my relatives who get paid a lot more than me are all just "suffering" this kind of bullshit to keep the job.
- mplanchard 4y ago
  I mean honestly you sound like a pretty difficult person to work with. I wonder if this, rather than job hopping, is what’s limiting your upward mobility. It’s important to be able to learn how to work with things that aren’t perfect, and how to go about making them better or more tolerable. Without learning a tool, you’re criticizing it from a place of ignorance, which makes your criticisms hold less weight. It’s impossible for everything to be 100% perfect even if you run everything, because you’ll have to deal with your own mistakes from when you lacked context or experience. “Dealing with bullshit” is part of the job, no matter how you slice it.
  - to11mtm 4y ago
    > I mean honestly you sound like a pretty difficult person to work with. I wonder if this, rather than job hopping, is what’s limiting your upward mobility. It’s important to be able to learn how to work with things that aren’t perfect, and how to go about making them better or more tolerable. It could go either way for GP. I've seen people that bounced from place to place before finding a 'happy spot'... In smaller shops it is easy to either be non-insulated from general corporate culture (which can be far better/worse than IT, often worse in smaller orgs) or just have to work with 'that guy' too much. Large orgs with a good strategy will often try to fit a candidate to a team. Sometimes that means interviews with multiple teams. Sometimes that might mean a group interview with leaders (Yes, this leans on the leader more, so risk might go up.) Devil's advocate; I have -some- empathy when it comes to terraform infrastructures that are so rigid you are -forced- to deploy thing 1 to an environment, then update thing 2 with some token/IAM you got back from deploying thing 1... A worst of both worlds situation I have encountered (or an analogue of) more than once. > It’s impossible for everything to be 100% perfect even if you run everything, because you’ll have to deal with your own mistakes from when you lacked context or experience. “Dealing with bullshit” is part of the job, no matter how you slice it. One more DA: There's bullshit on the level of (1) 'fill out a Capex/Opex Timesheet', (2)'do this task that you know you could do differently now and not have to refactor 1-6 months later, but I want it -this- way', and (3) 'hey we just finished standup and we have a meeting in 10 minutes, I said you were the SME of %ThingYouhaveSecondLeastExperienceOnComparedToTeam% and would help answer questions' or 'hey you didn't invite a BA to an engineer-only meeting. I'm going to invite them anyway and talk to you about it in a passive aggressive tone while you are outside'. I've done all of the above. I don't mind 2 overall, my answer to 1 is a teeth-grit 'Is there a column to track the time I'm doing the timesheet', 3 is an obvious power-play or sign of toxic corporate culture. I regret the time I didn't leave over #3. I don't regret the time I did.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Job hopping can have a high ROI for junior people who enter the industry at the bottom end of the compensation curve. Someone starting at a $60K entry-level job at a small, no-name company generally has no good options for significant salary increases other than changing to another job. On the other end of the spectrum, someone who joins a Big Tech company right out of college has a lot to gain by staying, learning how the promotion system works, and then working their way upward through the promotion ladder. I think the job-hopping advice has lost a lot of context after being reduced to a short aphorism. The companies that compensate toward the top end of the curve are actually great places to establish long tenures and move up the comp ladder. The longer you stay, the more allies you have within the company and the more knowledge you have of how the system rewards people.

hsn915 4y ago

> That it's easier to find a new job that pays more rather than get a raise through your existing job. Yes, but after you have spent 3+ years in your current job. It also helps to have the ability to put up with all kinds of bullshit - which I don't have. One time I quit a job because the "boss" talked to me in a bad tone. Two times I threatened indirectly to leave when someone tried to use their "authority" to talk bullshit to me. Everytime when the project was setup with complex/confusing maze of docker/k8s scripts, I simply refused to learn their config system because I viewed it as beyond bullshit. But my relatives who get paid a lot more than me are all just "suffering" this kind of bullshit to keep the job.

mplanchard 4y ago
I mean honestly you sound like a pretty difficult person to work with. I wonder if this, rather than job hopping, is what’s limiting your upward mobility. It’s important to be able to learn how to work with things that aren’t perfect, and how to go about making them better or more tolerable. Without learning a tool, you’re criticizing it from a place of ignorance, which makes your criticisms hold less weight. It’s impossible for everything to be 100% perfect even if you run everything, because you’ll have to deal with your own mistakes from when you lacked context or experience. “Dealing with bullshit” is part of the job, no matter how you slice it.
- to11mtm 4y ago
  > I mean honestly you sound like a pretty difficult person to work with. I wonder if this, rather than job hopping, is what’s limiting your upward mobility. It’s important to be able to learn how to work with things that aren’t perfect, and how to go about making them better or more tolerable. It could go either way for GP. I've seen people that bounced from place to place before finding a 'happy spot'... In smaller shops it is easy to either be non-insulated from general corporate culture (which can be far better/worse than IT, often worse in smaller orgs) or just have to work with 'that guy' too much. Large orgs with a good strategy will often try to fit a candidate to a team. Sometimes that means interviews with multiple teams. Sometimes that might mean a group interview with leaders (Yes, this leans on the leader more, so risk might go up.) Devil's advocate; I have -some- empathy when it comes to terraform infrastructures that are so rigid you are -forced- to deploy thing 1 to an environment, then update thing 2 with some token/IAM you got back from deploying thing 1... A worst of both worlds situation I have encountered (or an analogue of) more than once. > It’s impossible for everything to be 100% perfect even if you run everything, because you’ll have to deal with your own mistakes from when you lacked context or experience. “Dealing with bullshit” is part of the job, no matter how you slice it. One more DA: There's bullshit on the level of (1) 'fill out a Capex/Opex Timesheet', (2)'do this task that you know you could do differently now and not have to refactor 1-6 months later, but I want it -this- way', and (3) 'hey we just finished standup and we have a meeting in 10 minutes, I said you were the SME of %ThingYouhaveSecondLeastExperienceOnComparedToTeam% and would help answer questions' or 'hey you didn't invite a BA to an engineer-only meeting. I'm going to invite them anyway and talk to you about it in a passive aggressive tone while you are outside'. I've done all of the above. I don't mind 2 overall, my answer to 1 is a teeth-grit 'Is there a column to track the time I'm doing the timesheet', 3 is an obvious power-play or sign of toxic corporate culture. I regret the time I didn't leave over #3. I don't regret the time I did.