Makes total sense to me. I was a 'must have' at my previous job, I was the only developer left who understood all the phone systems that were the backbone of ou

Makes total sense to me. I was a 'must have' at my previous job, I was the only developer left who understood all the phone systems that were the backbone of our department (we built software supporting a health payer call center). They never laid me off despite several layoff rounds, and I got to just inherit more and more responsibilities and stress while my salary and title was frozen, and they kept taking away more and more benefits to save money. Eventually when my personal life got a little less chaotic, I finally bounced for a significant raise (about 60% increase) at a company that's was growing fast and there was lots of enthusiasm and investment. Boss's boss tried desperately to convince me to stay, but I was done and his corporate bosses didn't give him enough budget to let him match the raise I got, let alone the 100%+ raise it would have taken me to stay in the place I was sick of even longer. Now a couple years later and things are starting to slow down a bit at my current job, they're starting to raise alarm bells about upcoming recessions, probably prepping people for a layoff but not yet. So it may be time to try to find a place that's still growing (although that might be a bit harder right now, seems like most places are currently axing people... maybe time to switch to A.I. since that's got a lot of excitement (and trepidation) behind its advances recently?