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Comment by squeeeeeeeeeee | Hacker News Reader

> you still have to leave after a year to get more than inflation

This hits home. I've been in software development for quite some time (10 years), I've been with 4 employers so far (full time) and pretty much all my significant raises have come as a result of me looking for a better paying position and then leaving. I may have been unlucky (I also did not work for a really large company yet), but I feel like the "career develoment" opportunities within software engineering companies are way under the level they should be.

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I think this has been the way of the tech industry, and particularly SV, for a long time now. My uncle, now passed away, started at Atari in the early 80s and hopped companies every three years until his final job with Nvidia in a fairly senior position. He stayed with Nvidia until his death a little over a year ago.

Each time he switched it up he grew his salary exponentially.

Exponential growth, every three years, since the 80s... sounds a bit hyperbolic, doesn't it? Just how much did he make at Nvidia??

Exponential growth means just constant growth rate. Doesn't mean it's a big growth rate. 2% a year will double the starting salary in... 35 years.

;).

No it doesn't. It means an exponent is present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth

The formula for constant growth over time, for example, a 2% increase every year, would be starting salary * 1.02 ^ t where t is the number of years. So there is an exponent present, and constant growth is an exponential process.

Constant growth rate gives rise to a quantity that is an exponential function of time [not to be confused with a constant rate of increase, which gives rise to a linear function of time].

As that Wikipedia article says, the continuous-time equation for exponential growth, x(t) = x(0) e^(kt), arises as the solution to the ODE x'(t) = kx, where k is the constant growth rate.

Similarly, in discrete-time, exponential growth follows the equation x_t = x_0 (1+r)^t, where r is the constant growth rate.

I stand corrected.

Maybe Nvidia was his second job?

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