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Comment by joss82 | Hacker News Reader

The impact on your career should not be much.

As an employer, I would not turn down any ex-Uber, as long as he or she did not trigger warning lights during the interviews.

Just focus on the technichal side and the money. If you feel good every morning when you wake up to go working for them, then stay.

If not, then that would make a great explanation to your next employer for him/her not to consider you a job hopper. Along the lines of "I quit at Uber because, as you very well know, the culture there was toxic and yours looks much more interesting, blah blah...".

Good luck!

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That it is worth mentioning warning lights and triggers in the context of interviewing an ex-Uber suggests that there is some assessment of a unique risk. The common way to handle risk in hiring is 'no' when it comes to applicants that provide somewhat fungible rewards.

To put it another way, an ex-Uber might be asked something like "What do you think about Fowler's statement?" to assess those warning lights and triggers at a company with an orthogonal culture. And a perfectly reasonable answer might be looked at with suspicion. Not that all hires are made on such a basis.

If anyone, at any company, asked you "What do you think about Fowler's statement?" as part of the interview process, you should run from that company as fast as you can.

Any HR org that is at least 1% more competent than Uber's is alleged to be would absolutely put the kibosh on those kinds of questions. HR orgs know those kind of questions are destined to get useless responses, and they could easily lead to a situation where an interviewer could put the company into legal jeopardy.

Not even the people in their HR department or sr leadership team?

Or the people that worked on the Greyball project? I wouldn't touch those people with a ten foot pole, it would be like hiring one of the VW people working on emissions. "I was just following orders" can only go so far.

Thanks!

As long as I stayed with that employer for longer than a year I would be fine, or would the period of job-hopping look bad permanently?

Any job you stay less than two years at is going to look funny and require some sort of explanation.

If you're at a job for less than six months, the assumption people will make is that you and the company were a bad fit. "Bad fit" can be interpreted as "applicant was incompetent and hired by mistake" so, having your own explanation about why you were a bad fit helps. Maybe you don't even list this job on your resume.

If you're at a job for less than a year, then the assumption people could make is that you got a bad first performance review, and you're changing jobs now instead of getting fired later.

If you've been at a job for at least two years, then people will assume your performance has been reviewed at least twice and that if you were actually bad, you would have been fired.

I'm going to disagree with a lot of the other responses you are receiving.

If it happens once or twice and there is a good story/explanation that goes along with it that is fine, but I actively avoid candidates who switch jobs every year or so. In my opinion it takes a decent amount of time to understand everything within any given company or codebase (especially one that has a decent level of complexity or specialized knowledge). I don't want an unstable environment where people are leaving just as they begin to fully understand things to the point where they are extremely productive.

Along those same lines I think it is the responsibility of an employer to give raises that are equivalent to the salaries they would pay to poach people with a similar level of experience. If you are willing to give someone a significant raise to leave their current company you should be willing to do that for someone within your own company.

> Along those same lines I think it is the responsibility of an employer to give raises that are equivalent to the salaries they would pay to poach people with a similar level of experience. If you are willing to give someone a significant raise to leave their current company you should be willing to do that for someone within your own company.

What would you say is a reasonable amount of time for an employee to stick around if an employer isn't providing pay increases?

What would you say is a reasonable amount of time for an employee to stick around if an employer isn't providing pay increases?

Two years. If you came in at market value, the median market value shouldn't increase that much. Two years is also about the time to get enough experience to "level up"

Appreciate it!

Sure, most large codebases need at least a year to get to know your way around them.

But keep in mind that the majority of job switching happen unilaterally from the employee side. So that could also be a sign that the employee is not afraid to quit because she knows her value on the market.

edit: grammar

I don't think job hopping is as big a deal in software as it is for other industries - a new job every 2 years seems typical for many, but less than a year wouldn't get looked down upon, especially if you cite a "toxic environment" as the reason you quit. 6 jobs in a year (that aren't contracts) would be a red flag, but one or two isn't really a problem IMO. Demand is too high.

I've never agreed with the angst towards 'reasonable' job hopping. We all recognize that interviews and research of a company can only take you so far in truly determining fit (on both sides) within an organization. There are also variables within the company that can change that are completely out of your control, such as leadership, company strategy, or team composition.

And there are also cases where a company promises a certain role or duty, the candidate joins, and then they aren't doing what they thought they'd be doing.

The ability of the hiring company to determine any of these situations is minimal though. Those trying to play safe will make assumptions, unfortunately.

I've job hopped quite a bit (7 times in 6 years). There's plenty of valid reasons to leave a job, most of my moves have been due to skill stagnation at a certain company. Also, increases in salary is ridiculous when switching. If you stay at a single job you run the risk of stagnating your salary as well.

If you can articulate to the company your reasoning behind switching jobs, and why you're genuinely interested in the company and the value you bring, I believe you'll be alright.

Has yet to bite me in the ass (Chicago) and the experience you gain between companies (small-large, workflows/methodologies, stacks, etc) is priceless.

I've got to disagree. I've job hopped over the past 8 years - 4 full time jobs and one short term contract. I would think two years is the minimum unless you were a contractor or were laid off.

I'm at a point now where I need to stick around a job for at least three years.

What's the reasoning behind your disagreement? Have you noticed any skepticism while interviewing?

I do believe 2 years is a great norm, 1 year for getting up to date, 1 year for giving the company a chance. But, we're in high-demand (mostly) and if you don't feel comfortable at a company, life's short, not worth staying imo.

I'd also like to point out, while I have a great track record of interviewing, it seems (pointing to the quantity of positions I've held) that I need to do a _much_ better job of asking questions about the company in the interview phase itself.

While I do feel stuck at my new job (2 mos), I have a different approach mentally for keeping myself happy.

It's all contextual/anecdotal to the person involved. Though I'll tell you, my mother is always worried about the short-term positions. Just for a personal reference.

For the first time, the last time I looked for a job, people started asking questions. I consider myself a great interviewer --the last time I looked I got no rejections, two offers, and 8-10 other positions I withdrew from the process after accepting an offer.

As far as asking questions. I use a modified version of the Joel Test:https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...

Basically, getting rid of the last 2 questions and asking about automated testing, code reviews, continuous integration, etc.

I always of course ask about the technology stack and the amount of autonomy developers have.

Great idea, going to save this reference. I believe StackOverflow has this at the bottom of all their career posts.

Need to use this next time :}

I'm in a similar boat. When you got the question about job hopping this time around, how did you answer it?

2011 - company acquired, everyone laid off and I went to do a short term contract with one of my former company's clients

Early 2012 - contract over self explanatory

Mid 2012 - I was brought in to work on a new .Net project and to convert a PHP project to .Net. Two years later they abandoned the .Net initiative and everyone was working on PHP. That wasn't a career direction I wanted to go in.

2014 - I was brought in by a manager who wanted people who would aggressively pursue change and modern best practices, they pushed him out and all of the people who didn't want to hear about change started pushing back on his hires.

So when I was looking for a job late last year, I was very specific about the technology stack I wanted and the coding practices that were in place. Ironically, I ended up accepting an offer with a company that ranked 2 out of 14 on my modified Joel Test. But I was promised the support of the manager to come in and implement best practices.

I don't really know how things are in the US, but here in Europe, the employer's need for a developer will often overcome his fear of hiring a "job hopper".

Be ready to answer questions about the reason why you quit your jobs, though. Just telling the truth is usually enough. "The commute was too much", "I was not growing/learning any more"...

Job hoping is nowhere near as bad a signal in tech as it is in other industries. I would even go so far to say that some job hoping is expected as long as you don't go overboard.

If you stayed at one job for less than a year, nobody will notice or care. If you stay for 6 months at three consecutive jobs, then you might get a question about that.

As a friend who is a recruiter explained it to me, candidates who have a history of job hopping WILL get the question in the interview and MUST have a reasonable answer for it.

Assuming that you pass that formality, the question doesn't seem to affect anyone's actual decisions afterwards. (Even though people may claim otherwise.)

"Hey Bro, thanks for seeing me. Yeah, I know, I am hot stuff, did you wear gloves when reading my resume? Shit is hot, yo. Eh, before we get started, are you banging that chick out in front, she is tight. Ok my man, you have some q's for me?"

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