Ask HN: Is it still worth it to switch companies every few year? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it still worth it to switch companies every few year?

56 pointsyeetman2147 comments

Hi! Is it still worth it to switch companies every few years if ur already high paid? This is not meant to be a humble brag or anything but I just started outa college and make 180k and if I get a promo to ic4, I’ll basically get a 33% pay bump and then to ic5 is another pay bump. My mentors/ friends all say to get to ic5 is just a matter of time as long as ur competent. I hear people say u should be switching jobs every 2 to 4 years and what not but wouldn’t that make me lose all the “political” capital within the team and org and delay promo?

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This is separate from your question, but never trust someone who says “you’ll get promoted in X time” unless that person is directly responsible for making that happen. Promotions in large companies are done by committee, and you can be denied a promotion for a variety of reasons. When applying for a new job, the hiring manager has much more discretion over the leveling of your new job, so it’s almost always easier to get promoted via changing jobs. My wife was strung along at her last job with a promotion that was just out of reach. She finally got fed up and left. Within 3 months they reached out and asked her to come back at a higher level.

As for your question, the answer actually has very little to do with promotions and more to do with the company you’re leaving and the company you’d be joining. Software engineers get a majority of their salary as stock. If you have a large grant at a company with an extremely bright future, it can be very lucrative to stay. Similarly, moving (or even getting promoted) at the wrong time can be disastrous if the stock drops significantly. Whether or not you join or leave should be mostly based on the outlook of the company.

I work with this guy who’s sort of an “automation” guy. He’s responsible for automating or at least partially automatic really complex processes. I’ve seen the guy automate away whole departments. Generally speaking my point is that he delivers huge value for the company. And a few months ago his supervisor emailed me asking if I could send in recommendation for him as he was up for a promotion, so I created quite a detailed list of all the things we’ve worked on and how they drove substantial business value. And I fully expected this guy to get promoted…and he didn’t. The board rejected his promotion.

My theory is that he’s too valuable where he is, and that they don’t want to move him elsewhere. But he just got an offer down the road somewhere else and will be putting in his notice next week.

At that point why not give him a considerable raise or company stock and outright tell him how valuable on the grand scale of things his work is?

I just despise how companies expect strategically important workers to stay on the company without raises when it is clear for both parties just how much value they as workers bring to the table, it is insulting

There is no faster way to get someone to quit than to deny a promotion. That causes so much ill will that these stupid promotion boards never think about.

"My theory is that he’s too valuable where he is, and that they don’t want to move him elsewhere."

Assuming the "they are too valuable here to be promoted elsewhere" hypothesis is true, and it may be true in some cases (and not true in the majority of cases), there is always an increase in compensation in the form of increased base salary, bonus, or equity, depending on the company, available. A promotion is both a reward and a belief that the person would have a greater impact in another position. More money is also a reward.

And why does he have to move elsewhere if he is promoted? Can't he remain where he is, with a new title and more money?

Even if he has to move to a different section of the company if promoted, I'm sure there a plan can be put in place to hire and train a replacement.

We're all speculating in the dark here, but from what has been written, it certainly seems that this person has given the company a lot and deserves to be compensated.

Wow. Haven’t seen this articulated in writing recently (maybe ever) but it is real because I hear it from senior mgmt. at my firm - “you can’t rotate to this position or try this other thing because you are very valuable where you are. Happens to many employees.

It's something I really can't get into my head. Why build a structure where promotion only means upwards in responsibility/into management. Just pay good people more to extend their tenure.

You’re supposed to automate your job away. That or develop enough material for someone else to take it over.

I agree with you. But the flip side is part of the value you provide is because of resource scarcity. In other words, you’re valuable because you do the job well, but automating / documenting is a drain on time that is often occupied by fire drills that come from those same senior people.

Your problems is similar to the Secretary problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem.

There is a perfect mathematical sound answer to your question: for the first n/e year n is the number of working years, e is Euler's constant) you should regularly switch jobs every 2 to 4 years. After these first n/e years you continue switching jobs regularly until you end up with a job that's better than all previous jobs you had. That's, with the highest probability, the best job you would ever get in your life. Don't switch jobs with others after that!

E.g. You would work around 50 years (from 16 to 66), which means that for the first 50 / e = 18.3 years you should switch jobs regularly. After these years you should be think twice before changing jobs.

Not quite the same because you would typically have some idea about the quality of a company before joining.

All else being equal, more money is better. But all else isn’t equal. Generally changing jobs repeatedly will bring you advancement and pay faster, as it allows you to shop around for a company that’s willing to take a chance on you, but there are some trade offs that come with that

You need to evaluate your quality of life outside just the monetary and career aspect, and decide if the stress of job changing and potential increases in work expectations are worth the benefits of more status and more money. It would be a shame to get a new job and discover that you dislike your new colleagues or your work life balance is bad.

Do not underestimate the level of persistent stress job hopping will give you; it takes a few months for that to wear off. I’ve done a lot of it myself, and in the balance it was worth it, but it’s also worn me down a bit too. Personally I’d like to be done with it and settle down for long periods of time and not worry about chasing the next promotion.

I've hopped, but it's mostly been driven by mergers and such. When the company ceases to be the company that hired me, I move on. This has still resulted in changing jobs every 3 years or so.

Yeah, that’s a good reason to job hop. Mergers are no fun.

I think location plays a role in the decision. If you live in SV, then maybe it would be worth switching in a few years. If you're just about anywhere else, I would say that $250k is great and not to look anywhere else. Either way, $180k straight out of college is awesome.

Just my opinion as a dev making under $100k.

We, poor Europeans, can only dream about such salaries. Communism has won and now there is little motivation to do anything at all. Your tiny salary == social payments without doing any work.

There are areas of Europe that have good salaries. I think Switzerland is one. It's also hard to compare salaries due to how taxes and benefits work.

For example (hypothetical), you could be spending few thousand per month to give your family healthcare in the US. This could take the median US dev salary from about $105k down to about $75-85k, or even lower depending on a bunch of factors. Then we would have to compare cost of living in both countries, including if healthcare is covered in an indirect manner in the other country.

Cost of living tends to be lower in most of the US relative to Western Europe. Not to mention VAT.

There is some truth in what you are saying. Possibly contracting in the EU is more similar to employment in the US (compared to employment in the EU where you don’t need need to constantly produce value).

But even taking all that into account, the US is just wealthier than even the „rich” EU countries.

Sounds like you're at a good company with a structured plan for retention/promotion, don't worry about it. At a good company like that you're probably also learning a lot. If you start to feel like there's no way up or skills are stagnating, start switching jobs every 1-3y for similar or bigger pay bumps.

Eventually you hit a point where you feel financially secure or you're hitting the max rate for your skills and your decision to stay/leave gets more nuanced and less about money

This. The switching every 2-3 years are for those in somewhat typical companies that don’t really pay top rate and mostly plan around the fact that people will leave in that time frame. This allows the company to maintain their salary cap with new people that will start lower and cap out at about 2-3 years (salary wise and level wise). These companies are simply structured that way whether they know it or not.

But I’ll add, even with all that said, you don’t want one company on your resume. A track record of a few good companies is a strong signal that you have your career in order, so I’d still aim to leave no later than the 4-5 year mark.

Unless you are in leadership position, a serious one, not just a nominal one (you just got the title but still chump change at the place), stick to this type of plan.

> These companies are simply structured that way whether they know it or not.

Dang, I love this. This is so true. Never listen to the recruiting marketing about how we love our people or reassure yourself by looking at people who have been at the company for so long (6-10y). Look at what realistically happens to the everyday programmer who makes B+ effort and be frank with yourself

But yeah OP, you sound fine for now. Enjoy being young with some cash and save some

Job hopping is mostly for people trying to move up to better companies, not just better titles.

If you’re being paid 180K out of college and your company regularly promotes with 33% raises then you’re already at a top company that gives proper raises. You don’t need to job hop unless you want to try a different company.

Salaries are remarkably sticky, and many companies have protocols around raises (that is, percentage caps) that aren't always connected to the wider market.

I think if one is looking to maximize lifetime revenue (as an employee), then switching regularly probably makes sense. In any case, you should be interviewing regularly and soliciting offers, even if you only use them at your existing job to ensure your raises are in sync with the wider market.

Out of school is not the time for job-hopping anyway, if you've already got a good job. It is the time for learning everything you can, for, I'd ballpark at about three years.

Switching is worth-while if your employer doesn’t have a clear path to promotions and you go a year or more without any pay raise or promotion and hear things like “we’ll reevaluate next cycle” often, without concrete steps to get there. As long as you like your company, work, and colleagues, stick around til you plateau.

I just evaluated a candidate and flagged it as “no” because they had too many position changes in the last 5 years. Switching jobs is fine, but if you overdo it, you risk looking like a bad investment.

Did you ask them why they've switched jobs?

I've been asked that a couple of times and I guess the answers have been satisfactory enough because I've gotten an offer afterwards.

As an interviewer, I've only encountered a couple of incidents where change frequency was enough to concern us. I directly asked both about that. One, I was satisfied with the answers, and he turned out to be a great dev and stuck with us to the bitter end. The other, his answers were "meh" enough that warranted more digging. Sure enough, we discovered there were other positions that were not included in his resume. We passed on him.

> flagged it as “no” because they had too many position changes

This is wrong and misleading in many ways, you should ask people why they left, you should give a chance to those who have good skillset, not based on number of jobs they had. I know a lot of people who worked on contracts, so they had to change employers frequently, and I know a lot of people who were looking for a place, as juniors, to learn from good mentors. It is really hard to find mentors in Startups, and not everybody can make it to big companies. If companies don't invest on their employees, they leave.

I should clarify that this is not the only reason. It’s one of several. And yes, we did discuss the reasons and it was always something more interesting.

But as best I could tell, if we did hire them, we had 12 months tops. Remember, I only have the past record to go on and hiring is the most important and hardest decision to make.

Maybe, but the other side is that good software dev shops are hard to come by. Industry is filled with bad practices, overworking, bad management etc. I have had multiple companies to tell me to prioritize them over everything else. It can degrade the relationship into pure value conversations.

So don’t blame you, but there are reasons - and more than discussed - of why people job hop and understanding that is important.

>you risk looking like a bad investment.

Only if the potential employer isn't willing to invest in the candidate enough to retain them

How do you feel about the opposite end; a candidate who's been with a single company for a decade?

yep and anyone who disagrees has likely never been in mgmt.

180k USD as a grad? Seriously what am I doing with my life.

I need to get to the US and start earning real money.

You won’t get those kind of jobs without a green card though. H1Bs are paid near slave labor wages in general.

This is only true for sweatshop-type companies. For places you'd actually want to work there is no difference in comp based on the type of visa someone is on. It's more about, we want to hire this engineer, what legal checkboxes do we need to tick to get them here. Sweatshops do take up the bulk of the H1B quota though, which is what gives this impression.

I mean, that's nice in theory.. but I don't think the data backs this up

https://insights.dice.com/2021/05/07/how-much-do-software-de...

Are there a few high paid H1Bs? Sure.

Here's an alternate piece by the same author with some fairly different numbers? https://insights.dice.com/2021/02/12/20-highest-paying-h-1b-...

This is exactly what I am talking about though. Most H1Bs work at sweatshops like Tata and this skews the statistics. For any place one would actually want to work at H1Bs are paid the same as any other engineer.

This is utterly untrue, tons & tons of H1Bs are making over $100k, and I personally know one making $180k (to the OP's example). Also contrary to popular belief it's not that difficult to switch jobs as an H1B, so if one was underpaid they can find a market salary elsewhere. I do agree that the bodyshops don't pay much

When you change jobs, assuming you are not going to work for a company in the same industry as the previous, you are throwing away domain knowledge. That's a big opportunity cost! The reasons to switch may be valid but you should keep domain knowledge in mind as well. Otherwise, after a few jumps, you will flatline no matter what where you go.

Promotions are not worth anything these days, because the power is with the employer and not the employee. Therefore, the employer can deny a promotion and you can't do much due to that.

So, it's always better to switch, because if you get multiple offers, you retain the leverage to negotiate between each company and switch.

If this is not a troll, I dunno what a troll is. Makes $200k "out of college" and suavely asks "shall I hop"? It's like saying out loud in a crowded bus "I GOT A 12 INCH PENIS, should I take enlargement pills".

Makes me vomit.

180k could mean total compensation which is pretty typical for a new grad in the SV market. Usually the breakdown is base, stock, and bonus.

So for example: 120k base 45k stock/yr and 15k bonus ~ 180k a year.

People who make $180k still have questions.

Why wouldn’t someone doing better than average still need advice?

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