Job Hopping As A Software Engineer — Should You Do It?
Why Job Hopping Now Is Intentional, Not Impatient (And What You Need To Know)
Why Job Hopping Now Is Intentional, Not Impatient (And What You Need To Know)
“We are in the most heated tech hiring market of all time.” commented the Pragmatic Engineer based on incontestable fresh data points. We, Software Engineers, are in an exceptional situation that may be comparable to the dot com bubble. As things are moving fast, so are our career and job tenure. I had a couple of employers these past years and wanted to reflect on my personal experience and discuss the elephant in the room: is job-hopping a good or bad thing?
We don’t marry our employer anymore 💒
Let’s step back for a minute and consider the work culture in general. Most of us will have more than one employer during our career, but it’s somewhat unclear if people change jobs more often. It isn’t straightforward to get some decent numbers for the following reasons :
We don’t have enough data (yet): job-hopping is still a relatively new trends
Covid: an unsuspected event that’s changing the market heavily and how we work (remotely)
However, according to a 2016 Linkedin survey, job-hopping is the new norm for millennials (at least). Full disclosure: I’m one of them. Past concepts of job permanence are no longer. We do start to acknowledge the merits of job-hopping.
Based on all interviews I have been doing these past years, I can confirm that I never had anyone pointing at the number of jobs I had on my resume.
I also had some big tech companies asking me: “What do we need to do for you to be happy here for two years.” It was a revelation to me as they did their homework. Some companies know the tech debt that an employee living too fast creates and when the return on investment is worth it.
Covid accelerates the ease of change 🏃
Interviews can be done within the day without literally moving from your computer!
I remember going on-site and signing the contract with a pen and paper 😱. There were a lot of physical actions and processes that would require you more effort and commitment than it’s today.
Because remote work is starting to be more popular, there are even more opportunities than it used to be. Though more competitions.
Job hunting tools started to be more standard and easier to use: Linkedin, Glassdoor, Indeed. They also give you good insights about the company you would apply to.
Career advancement ⏭
Changing jobs allows you to potentially pursue a higher-level career at another company. It can also grant you opportunities to learn new skills, gain practical experience, or be given more responsibilities. Changing jobs can help you advance your career without spending years/months waiting for a promotion.
Apply for jobs that you aren’t 100% qualified for. That’s how you grow!! [Zach Wilson]
The best way to evaluate yourself is to get out there and try to reach a specific position through the interview process. You get a better feeling of what to improve.
Your employer probably has quarterly/bi-annual reviews, and that’s valuable feedback. However, the best is to compare that to the actual market as it gives you even more valuable data points. You know what you are capable of and the state of the current market.
We also value more experience than years of experience. While we still see <fill any silly number here>+years of experience on some job ads(which still make me laugh), I believe things are changing slowly. Especially in our field where things are changing so fast in terms of hard skills. For the same position in a given year you could :
Use the same programming language and framework, and reach a level that is just good enough for what you need to do (so tricky to actually get better)
Learn to code from scratch with free resources and get a job
Deliver impactful projects that could reach millions of users
So yes, I believe years of experience in technical skills are not really relevant.
It’s what you do with them that matters.
Higher salary 💸
When you apply for a job, you are not respecting a precise promotion cycle, and if you pass the interview for a higher position, congrats, you just got promoted.
I would however point out that this is not the main advantage in the short term. I believe taking an opportunity that would give you a significant career opportunity (but maybe a lower salary) will anyway ends-up with a higher salary in the long run if you make good decisions.
I, myself in the past, jumped on the big data wave as the hype was starting. I was pretty junior in that field and I didn’t mind losing 20% of my salary as long as I could get a big data project. My salary grew even more rapidly a few years later.
Adaptability 🦎
You build new relationships with a new team every time you change and learn a whole new way of doing things. You improve your communication and adaptability skills, both are considered valuable soft skills for any software engineering job.
You are also resilient to failure. It’s never fun to receive rejection after spending a lot of time already in an interview process. However, that’s part of the process, and if you get the right mindset, you will rise again, stronger, like a phoenix from the ashes.
It increases your security in terms of work in general because if something happens (get laid off, the world is crumbling apart,…) well you will be keener to jump back on your feet to find something else.
The cons ❎
Too many different roles
Job hopping on wide different roles may not be really good as you do need to have consistent experience during a certain amount of time to grasp the fundamental of the job role.
Jumping too fast
In my opinion, a good rule of thumb (in the tech Software industry) is that leaving before 1 year may not be good. Unless you’re ending up in a toxic environment, you should leave for the sake of your mental health. Or you have a golden opportunity that only shows up once in a lifetime.
Loss of benefits
In tech companies, equities are basically a good way to do retention, so depending on the company's current value and vesting schedule, you may lose a lot of money on the table.
Loss of opportunity: sometimes there’s a good opportunity in terms of career or projects but you have to be patient, and leaving too soon may actually be something not worth it in the mid/long run.
Conclusion
For me, it’s more about how you do job hopping rather than not doing it.
Here are some of the mental models I used when considering a new job :
Is it giving me a mid/long term edge on learning and/or salary and/or position?
Did I learn enough from my current employment and not give up after the 1st problem?
What’s my career projection at my current position in the following 6/12 months? Is it worth the jump?
Answering these questions often helps me to decide whether to jump or not. But aside from that, I highly recommend doing job interviews, no matter if you are looking for something else or not. Yes, it can be exhausting, but it will create golden opportunities over time.
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