To stay at my second job out of college for nine years from 1999-2008. As bonuses were decreased and with 3% raises, I only grossed $8000 more at the end of ye

To stay at my second job out of college for nine years from 1999-2008. As bonuses were decreased and with 3% raises, I only grossed $8000 more at the end of year 9 than I made in 2001. I got a large at the time raise in 2000. By 2008, I was an “expert beginner”. I was still doing VB6 that had been deprecated in 2001 and programming on Windows in C and C++ using COM and DCOM. It took me until 2014 at 40 years old until I became a competent, competitive “senior” [sic] enterprise dev and even then I was making around 20% less than the local market median. I never made that mistake again after 2008. I kept my skills sharp and job hopped aggressively after that. I have had 8 jobs since 2008.