11 ms·

It's tough. I've also seen what you describe, and it's kind of mind-boggling. The only red-ish flag seems to be overly long tenure at a single place. But at som

It's tough. I've also seen what you describe, and it's kind of mind-boggling. The only red-ish flag seems to be overly long tenure at a single place. But at some point in the career progression, it doesn't matter. I think the difference is this. Some people I've worked with were excellent coders but have now moved on to e.g. director roles. If you asked them to write code, they'll flat out say that they haven't coded in years. They know it isn't important for their role, and it isn't the value they provide. The bullshitters will never admit they can't do something.

johntiger1 3y ago
Would long tenure at e.g. Meta or Google also be seen as a red flag? I've heard other people say that the opposite (job hopping every 1-2 years) is a red flag.
- 59nadir 3y ago
  The average tenure at Google is apparently 1.1[0] years, so it's at the very least not typical to stay for very long. 0 - https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/04/19/whats-the-average-tenure-of-an-engineer-at-a-big-tech-company-ep-434/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/04/19/whats-the-average-tenu...
  - aitchnyu 3y ago
    Umm, do these companies factor average tenure to tweak vesting schedule and finetune how much stock they fork over to employees?
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Tenure isn't a good way to measure how long people stay. Median tenure (which this is reported to be) is even worse. All a median tenure of 1.1 years days is that about half the workforce was hired in the last 13 months, but it could be either due to the number of employees growing rapidly, due to people leaving the company, or some mix. We can't tell which just from these numbers. As a thought experiment, consider a company that nobody ever leaves, growing by 20% per year. They'd double in size in about 4 years, so the median tenure in steady state is also 4 years. But that doesn't mean that people only stay for 4 years; the turnover in the thought experiment is literally 0%. Also, the numbers the article (podcast?) is claiming are not supported even by their own immediate source. The reference they have for average tenure for software developers being 4.2 years doesn't actually say that. The article actually says that it's 4.2 years for all employees and that sofware developers are about 2 years. It also has such a different number for Google (2.3 years) than the number they chose to originally quote that the methodology just can't be the same. I would guess that the second source is using mean, not median.

johntiger1 3y ago

Would long tenure at e.g. Meta or Google also be seen as a red flag? I've heard other people say that the opposite (job hopping every 1-2 years) is a red flag.

59nadir 3y ago
The average tenure at Google is apparently 1.1[0] years, so it's at the very least not typical to stay for very long. 0 - https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/04/19/whats-the-average-tenure-of-an-engineer-at-a-big-tech-company-ep-434/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/04/19/whats-the-average-tenu...
- aitchnyu 3y ago
  Umm, do these companies factor average tenure to tweak vesting schedule and finetune how much stock they fork over to employees?
- jsnell 3y ago
  Tenure isn't a good way to measure how long people stay. Median tenure (which this is reported to be) is even worse. All a median tenure of 1.1 years days is that about half the workforce was hired in the last 13 months, but it could be either due to the number of employees growing rapidly, due to people leaving the company, or some mix. We can't tell which just from these numbers. As a thought experiment, consider a company that nobody ever leaves, growing by 20% per year. They'd double in size in about 4 years, so the median tenure in steady state is also 4 years. But that doesn't mean that people only stay for 4 years; the turnover in the thought experiment is literally 0%. Also, the numbers the article (podcast?) is claiming are not supported even by their own immediate source. The reference they have for average tenure for software developers being 4.2 years doesn't actually say that. The article actually says that it's 4.2 years for all employees and that sofware developers are about 2 years. It also has such a different number for Google (2.3 years) than the number they chose to originally quote that the methodology just can't be the same. I would guess that the second source is using mean, not median.