this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Experienced Devs

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Is the old advice to change companies every two-ish years still the best practice for career advancement? (self.experienced_devs)
submitted 1 year ago by ELLIOTTCABLE to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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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?

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[–] mrkite@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

2 years seems insane to me. I wouldn't hire anyone who has a resume full of job hopping every other year.

[–] ericjmorey@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if it was a promotion every 2 years?

[–] mrkite@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You still worked for the same company... programmers job trees aren't that deep. Either you got promoted out of programming or the promotion isn't worth mentioning.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

This is pretty bad advice and I'm really surprised to see it in a community for "experienced devs".