How often did this happen? Did you have problems with being perceived as a job hopper?
It’s about having a story to tell and yes you do have to be able to have a good explanation without sounding negative. It also helps that I have the CTO of the first company as a reference and the hiring manager of the third company as a reference who had the same issues I had.
1. The company went out of business - that was an easy one.
2. Large company hired fast to develop a new .net project but two years in all of the business was on their legacy PHP product, no one wanted to do PHP. There is no money in saying “I developed a PHP app”
3. Cant go into details without doxing myself but it was highly political and we working in a remote office away from the seats of power.
4. It was a contract to perm and when they gave me a permanent offer they told me up front that they didn’t want to be a software development shop but they wanted me to lead two initiatives. I saw the writing on the wall.
There were other reasons for leaving the 2-4 one but that’s the story I tell which are all true.
Now, things are different. I’ve come close to maxing our as an individual contributor in my local market, I have no desire to be a manager, and a dev lead position doesn’t pay enough more (about $10-$15K) to be worth the extra headache (been there done that).
I am continuously learning to keep my options open in case something changes, but I really like my job even though it can get crazy but its not because of the people.
As much as I say in theory that you should always leave a job if you feel like you’re stagnating, I’m not sure that I would have the discipline to leave a job a like just for that reason as long as I’m making enough to live the lifestyle I want and my compensation is not to out of whack with the market.
My job is fine in terms of paycheck and learning, but it feels like I'd have an easier time if I just ignored issues but that's not really the kind of person I want to become.