Experienced Devs

4008 readers

13 users here now

A community for discussion amongst professional software developers.

Posts should be relevant to those well into their careers.

For those looking to break into the industry, are hustling for their first job, or have just started their career and are looking for advice, check out:

Logo base by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

snowe

jmk1ng

drewsiferr

Is the old advice to change companies every two-ish years still the best practice for career advancement? (beehaw.org)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/experienced_devs

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I recall a regular piece of advice for software engineers: “change your job every two years.”

There’s innumerable Google results for this, even from as recently as 2022 — but none of them really seem that high-quality?

I’m really, really enjoying my current (somewhat unusual, hard-to-replicate) position; am about a year and a half into it; but I also don’t want to relax into that and have it cost me in the long-run, career advancement wise.

So, what’ve y’all been doing? Especially in the post-pandemic/fully-remote world, does that advice still apply?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

The real answer is "it depends", but that said, I think when you're early in your career you will advance faster, and increase your compensation more quickly by switching jobs.

I do also think there are advantages to see how different organizations and industries tackle similar problems.

But if you have a job you're happy with, are getting paid fairly, have a good manager/team, then I wouldn't just change jobs for no reason.

As you get later in your career though I do think it's easier to get promoted to more senior/staff/architect roles from within. Taking on a high level leadership position at a new company comes with its own set of challenges that are not the same for a tenured engineer that gets promoted.