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Comment by delphinius81 | Hacker News Reader

> Curious why someone would place an upper limit on time served?

If the person has the same title at a company after 4+ years (unless they are already in a lead/senior role), it's a bad sign. If this is in the first 10 years of someone's career, it tells me they might only be doing enough to get by. Whether it's because they a) are not ambitious enough, b) aren't talented enough, or c) the company they work for is terrible at recognition/promotion is something that I would have to find out during an interview (if everything else on paper looked ok).

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Some companies have very horizontal structure, there isn't much of a corporate ladder to climb. E.g., in trading firms a Quant is often just a Quant even after 10 years in the company. This doesn't mean at all, though, that the pay scale and level of responsibilities don't change drastically within a role over time.

That's a good point. I would hope to see evidence of the increased responsibilities on the person's resume then - whether it is through project leadership or personnel management, depending on what they are applying for.

In the case of a quant, they probably just have a much higher desired salary to move over to your company.

> If the person has the same title at a company after 4+ years (unless they are already in a lead/senior role), it's a bad sign.

It really depends. My company just has the role Developer. No junior, senior, lead, principal, etc.

There is a $300k+ difference in salary between the min and max pay so we have plenty of developers here who haven't moved up in title for 10+ years.

What company is that?

The same title wouldn't worry me but I would want to see a variety of projects and technologies (says someone who has worked on the same software for fifteen years).

>If the person has the same title at a company after 4+ years (unless they are already in a lead/senior role), it's a bad sign.

Not necessarily. I have a good friend in a consultancy firm who declines year by year a senior management position even though he has been with the company close to 8 years now. Why? He hates spreadsheets, reporting, meetings and just wants to get shit done. So he remains a senior developer in title. What he gets is constant yearly raises, praises and a lot of responsibility within the project. If/when he leaves, the company will be in big trouble replacing him.

This is addressed two sentences after the line you quote (emphasis mine):

> Whether it's because they a) are not ambitious enough, b) aren't talented enough, or c) the company they work for is terrible at recognition/promotion

Ambition presupposes that you want more responsibility/power/authority/money/something. Praise is great but you will never have the responsibility or authority of management if you don't have the title.

And this is fine, but if you're hiring and looking specifically for ambition, someone who has been "Senior Developer" for 8 years is probably not going to fit the bill.

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