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Comment by travisgriggs | Hacker News Reader

What I’ve noticed in this cycle is that as the turn over continues, the employee skill level will trend downwards. Essentially in a sort of ironic-Darwinian-gone-wrong, the system selects for those that will stay and/or don’t care or are desperate enough for work (because of geographical allegiance of low hireability, or just low initiative to make a change).

I fear my current workplace that was so cool years ago is showing these signs.

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I see this happening in places too. I have seen it described as the Dead Sea effect.

http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...

This is definitely happening. A engineer can't really work on anything truly complicated if they hop around every 2-3 years. These types of engineers gain cursory knowledge of topics but never become experts.

That’s not exactly what parent was saying. They were saying, afaict, if an org is struggling with retention then each successive generation will be worse at affecting change. They aren’t saying anything about individuals themselves who switch jobs often.

But about your point I think it can depend greatly. Personally I switched jobs many times but have so far kept in the same field and my knowledge has compounded and I have never dealt behind. In fact sometimes I feel the opposite, some coworkers who have less diverse experience have less to offer.

2-3 years is enough to master a certain niche of technology fairly well if you want to.

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