
Ask HN: I've constantly changed companies. Would I be considered unreliable? - panjaro
From the beginning of my career in 2007, I have left jobs once I got comfortable to take challenging ones. 2.5 years is the longest I&#x27;ve worked, in my first job. After that all jobs I took I left within 1.5 years. Once I get into the company and get hold of everything, I find it a little boring and have changed company to get more challenging ones. Does this mean I am unreliable and my career is going in wrong direction?<p>UPDATE(explanation on why I left):<p>I left first company because there were no signs or plans of upgrading to new technologies. After 2.5 yrs all we were doing was changes and bug fixes. I had to upgrade myself So went to gain experience in large company with some process in place and lot of good programmers.<p>I left that company after working for 1.5 yrs to open a company with a friend as we found an investor. However the investor said he was short on budget and never gave us full amount. So I did freelancing for 2 years<p>Then I moved out of country and took a new job. It was all good. I wanted to try if Research career is good for me So left the company in after working 10 months to pursue research career.<p>However I found research isn&#x27;t for me as it presented lot of challenge financially.<p>Then I joined a big name company before 2 months. I had long term plans but found out the IT department is just kind of support and even to make simple changes decisions take weeks. On top of that I got an offer to be first in house employee of a company where I am expected to do everything now and manage as company grows.<p>Suddenly I realized I have changed 4 companies in 6 yrs. That made me a bit worried.
======
tokenadult
I know someone who has followed a career path of frequent job changes (always
in the same metropolitan area, mine, the Twin Cities of Minnesota) in
computer-related work and who has always managed to make each job change a net
raise. He is making substantially more money now than many of his
contemporaries who stayed at the same company for years, and has leaped over
some of those persons for more responsible roles with more challenge (what you
desire) and a better pay-and-lifestyle balance than other people with similar
technical skills in the same company have. In other words, it depends. If you
make sure to trade up every time you trade, you have set up a ratchet that
should make your career better over time.

~~~
beat
The Twin Cities is an interesting environment for that. It's so enterprise-
heavy here (imho we're as much a tech city as Silicon Valley, just in a
different expression), there are lots of people who stick to the same company
for 10, 20 years or more.

As someone who has job-hopped a lot in this environment, the worst thing about
it is tech environments where the leadership doesn't keep up with trends even
on an awareness level. They just stick with the legacy stack they've been
supporting for years, which can be incredibly wasteful and limiting. Their
software is bad, but it's all they've known for so long that they have no clue
how much better things can be. And then the contractors and other floaters
they bring through are appalled, frustrated, and often flip quickly to the
next job in hopes of less "maturity". Sigh.

~~~
PopeOfNope
Mind if I ask which expression? I liked the twin cities the one time I
visited, but I've never heard of it described as a tech city.

~~~
beat
Enterprise. There are more Fortune 500 headquarters in the Twin Cities per
capita than anywhere else in the world - more than New York, more than the Bay
area, more than London or Tokyo. Working in IT in the Twin Cities generally
means working for the likes of Target, United Healthcare, Best Buy, 3M,
Carlson Wagonlit, Monsanto, and other tremendously huge companies.

Last fall, I was in Silicon Valley at an enterprise meetup, and was talking to
people there about a sense of scale. I observed that if you saw a startup
generating $50M in revenue, you'd think they were very successful. I've worked
on three different projects larger than that (some private, some government),
and they were just side businesses to bigger enterprises.

------
SEJeff
As a hiring manager, I look for employees who have stayed at previous jobs at
least two years. If you switched a few, that is fine, but if your average is
around 1.5 years, then that seems like a problem.

For most companies with complex environments, it might take 6 to 8 months to
fully get you up to speed. Why should I put that into you only to have to do
it again? Perhaps you're looking for jobs in the wrong part of tech, or
corporate tech isn't for you? Have you considered trying to found a startup,
one that you yourself are directly vested in? Perhaps that is your best bet
for the future.

~~~
justizin
I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all
opportunities are created equal. In a number of cases I've stayed less than a
year at a place where I really could see what was wrong a couple weeks in,
because you get several offers, and once you choose one, everyone else
evaporates.

I've certainly had to put my shoulder into getting past this, but it's
shocking how common it is for basically any hiring manager to assume that the
behavior of past hiring managers was correct.

In this way, hiring managers can be replaced by LinkedIn.

Also, keep in mind that your recruiters are contacting us when we're happily
employed, and that at a recent meetup in San Francisco, I'm told someone
raised their hand to say, "We're hiring", to a room of booming laughter. ;)

UPDATE:

I was thinking about this, something I think about a lot, and certainly one
could say, "But how do you end up with several bad managers in a row?"

I think that once you have a resume that is off the beaten path at all - and
mine was almost 10y off the beaten path before my recent spate of job hopping
- it's tough to get hired by anyone except the desperate, who can't fill their
position. You can learn and grow in these positions for a few months, but you
look around and see stagnation in people who stay longer. I also worked for a
number of managers who had never been a manager before, for a CTO who hired
someone 3 months a year to do a job that he otherwise insisted on doing
(badly), and for someone with an MIS degree that often talked about having
been taught to intentionally foster dishonest and manipulative relationships
with his staff.

I'm hoping the new gig sticks for a while, but you have to give respect to
someone who keeps trying. Otherwise, I will say, in the past six years I've
interviewed at over 200 places and worked at aybe six, and over 100 of those
companies were the same bush league situation, and usually they had terrible
diversity, and even though I'm a straight cis white male, the "bro" factor was
way, WAY too high for me.

~~~
mdekkers
> I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all
> opportunities are created equal.

Good for you, but I'm with SEJeff on this one. Like him, we invest 6 to 8
months of training to get an employee productive, and job hoppers cost a lot
of money, and contribute little. The ROI is typically not very good.

We make no assumptions on the part of other hiring managers, and are
interested to hear why you job-hopped, but it would be an issue to consider
carefully for us.

------
netcan
Don't worry. This stuff is ultimately judged by the biases of whoever is
reading your CV, and people vary a lot.

If an employer is particularly worried about employee staying for extended
periods, your record will work against you and you won't get that job, all
else equal. But, that's not as bad as it sounds. Some employers value people
with Math Degrees. Some prefer PHDs. Some don't. Some employers don't like
autodidacts. etc. A 1.5 year average employment period is in that category of
preferences. Different employers will treat it differently. Same applies to
your time as a freelancer.

Long term, 1-2 year stints early in your career is not usually seen as
indicative of anything later on. It's common. So unless it is not causing you
problems now, it probably won't later on.

I don't know how it looks when you get to 10X1.5 year jobs though. It would
certainly make you an unusual candidate. I've never hired someone with that
much experience so never seen these CVs.

The real "problem" cases are people with multiple < 1 year jobs. If your last
3 jobs were under one year, most employers will see that as _" The last 3
people that hired him regretted it."_ That doesn't sound like your record
though so like I said, don't worry.

Also, just building your CV your whole life sounds like a drag. Staying at a
job you dislike for years just to change your CV image is like taking a job
you don't want or doing a degree you hate for your CV, it's unattractive as a
lifestyle. If you like changing jobs, do it.

------
amattn
As someone who as doubled our eng team in the past four months and plans on
doubling it again in the next 6, here's my view:

I use the term jumpy. It is a negative signal, but not a killer signal. You'll
have to make up for that with numerous other positive signals, such a extreme
technical competence, culture fit, evidence of shipping, etc.

I probably wouldn't point it out on a resume or whatnot, but when asked about
it, be honest. Also consider being more picky about the jobs you take. Try to
stick and your next place 2-3 years or switch to contracting.

~~~
toyg
_> consider being more picky about the jobs you take._

This. It looks like he didn't understand what he was getting himself into, in
a number of occasions (including academia and "financial difficulties" \--
ever seen anyone getting rich while working as university researcher? Me
neither). Maybe he should just take some time to find a job he's really into,
rather than jumping on the first successful offer and regret it 6 months
later.

------
flinmaster
As someone that has run a company (several hundred employees) and hired a lot
of people, I would say "yes". If you were someone I was interested in, I would
certainly ask you about your job switching. If you told me you got bored and
moved on, I'd be very reluctant to invest time in you, only to have you leave.
If you're constantly bored, maybe you're looking for the wrong jobs.

------
ArtDev
If you are not changing jobs at least every three years, you are not being
paid enough.

Changing jobs every 1-2 years just means you are ambitious. Keep it up! You
might find your previous employers will hire you back at a contractor rate
remotely in the future.

~~~
ryandrake
It's great if you're ambitious for raises, not so much if you're a ladder-
climber and want career growth.

While you might be able to get a PAY increase by switching jobs, it's very
unusual to get a job/responsibility promotion by switching jobs. If you're a
Senior Software Engineer at Company X, you're going to be a Senior Software
Engineer at Company Y. Nobody is going to hire you as Director of Software
Engineering since you've never managed people before. However if you stay at
Company X, maybe in five or ten years you'll gain their trust and get to start
managing and working your way up the ladder...

Also, you can't just job hop infinitely and count on the same % raises each
time you do it. Your salary will hit a ceiling. My first job hop was probably
a 33% increase. Fifteen years later, my most recent one was about ~0.5%.

If I had a chance to do it all over again, I would have picked a solid company
as my first employer and stayed with them as long as possible. I have a friend
who's worked at Intel their ENTIRE career (will probably die there LOL) and is
doing really well.

~~~
cozuya
Well management is different. Its very easy for a developer to hop from a
junior position to a mid level to senior to lead if they have the chops both
technically and personality-wise.

~~~
thirdtruck
Seconding this. I went from "HTML Programmer" to "Lead Software Engineer"
(however briefly) in less than three years by changing jobs three times. It
wasn't always a voluntary change, but the title improved with each new job.

~~~
arrmn
Hi, can you elaborate more about your carreer path. I'm currently in a
simmiliar position.

------
fridek
It's absolutely normal to feel bored with a project around a second year of
it. Consider finding an environment where you can switch projects while
staying within the company. Most large corporations would allow you to do
that, at a cost of being probably less flexible with toolchain and decision
making process.

------
fredkbloggs
You've spent the first several years of your career figuring out what you
want. That's ok. But I would be worried about your time at BigCo, because it
seems like you didn't ask the right questions and understand the environment
before you signed on. That would make me wonder whether you understand how my
team works well enough to know that it's what you want. Based on your history,
you've now been in just about every situation out there, and are old enough
that you should know what you want and how to ask the right questions during
interviews. So at this point I'm expecting that you're going to commit to
something long enough to see it through to completion, and I'm going to be
asking you tough questions along those lines, mainly to be sure that you know
what we're doing, that you're excited about it, and that you intend to finish.
If I did decide to hire you, I would probably be looking to structure your
compensation around retention through the completion of whatever project I'm
hiring for. That said, there are positions where the ramp time is very low and
I would basically assume you're like a short-term contractor, and for those
positions I wouldn't care. If you find one like that, it's a low-risk
opportunity for both sides. The drawback for you is that those positions don't
always pay well and are often the first to be eliminated when business slows.

I guess that highlights for me the biggest problem: you've talked a little
about what you've done, but nothing about what you want to do. That kinda
matters. If you want to be an engineer, you need to prove that you can stick
with something from concept to at least the first upgrade cycle (you'll learn
more from an upgrade cycle than you will from shipping ten products and then
walking away from them each time). That might be a year or it might be ten. If
you want to do operations, you need to complete projects and then stick around
long enough to learn from what you did. An in any case, hiring managers will
want to see that you've shipped something, because that's the only way to be
sure that your work was good enough to use. Repeated departure well before
shipping (or completing an internal project, etc.) is a big red flag, much
moreso than the length of your tenure. And not staying in one place long
enough to learn from past mistakes greatly reduces your value. Again, it's not
the calendar time, it's what you did and learned.

~~~
panjaro
Thank you so much for taking time to write detailed reply.

I feel I have learned a lot changing companies - both technical as well as
social skills. I would definitely want to be developing solutions. I have no
problem doing day to day jobs as long as I'm am important part of the
business. However, if I feel neglected then I ask questions on what would be
the future like and what works are coming. In many occasions owners have no
answers.

On top of that I have tried a lot of things now and am pretty sure I want to
be a programmer/developer/engineer/whatever whose contribution is valued.

------
g8gggu89
I lasted about 1.5 years each at my first 3 jobs, then I moved to a company
I've been at for 4 years. No one questioned anything at any job about past
employment lengths. I'm starting to think I should have moved on long ago.

> I had long term plans but found out the IT department is just kind of
> support and even to make simple changes decisions take weeks. On top of that
> I got an offer to be first in house employee of a company where I am
> expected to do everything now and manage as company grows.

No one would want that kind of job, changes taking weeks. They should have
made that clear, that they basically do all maintenance. The new job offer
sounds more challenging and full of opportunities. Staying at your current job
sounds like a really bad idea.

Just be aware and look for more opportunities to do interesting projects at
your new place.

~~~
panjaro
New place seems interesting as well as challenging. Provided that I'm close to
30 but not above I'm taking this chance. After all, it'll be another
opportunity to learn even if I fail.

------
hartator
> Suddenly I realized I have changed 4 companies in 6 yrs. That made me a bit
> worried.

4 companies in 6 years is nothing. I would be more wary of someone switching
job every 2/3 months. So, more than 6 times the number of companies you have
been working for. You are fine.

------
tedajax
I've worked at 4 companies in three years. Any company worth working for
doesn't give a shit and they'll recognize your abilities.

------
JSeymourATL
> Does this mean I am unreliable and my career is going in wrong direction?

Self-awareness is good step forward in managing your career. Be upfront with
potential employers on what you've learned so far. And be prepared to address
concerns they may have over your decision-quality, stick-to-itiveness, and
maturity.

Relative to your next move(s) suggest that you create a scorecard-- get clear
about the types of environments & work you find appealing and intellectually
challenging. You must probe for those things as you explore new opportunities.
Put some serious thought into evaluating if the next job is a strong match.

------
antirez
The problem with switching often is that there are good reasons to do it, and
bad reasons forcing you to do it... That is, many people that read N books and
look like experts at a first glance, but _can 't actually code_ tend to switch
work very often since after some time they are "uncovered" and move away.
There are other good reasons to switch often: being exposed to new
technologies, getting a raise, and so forth, the risk is to be confused for a
frequent changer for the reason she/he can't actually code.

------
Demoneeri
I'm like you, I changed many times. I get bored easily. I think I found what
is right for me, maybe it can help you. I now work for a big IT consulting
firm on projects averaging 3-5 months.

~~~
jakejake
This is a great path if you like starting new projects from scratch every few
months. Also advertising agencies do this, although it may not be as
interesting as far as technical programming challenges.

------
cmurf
10 years ago I was a bit bored in my contract business. As I'm starting yet
another new project, I'm talking with the main contact person who happens to
be an attorney, and he said something rather interesting. He's been doing what
he's been doing for a long time and he's very good at his job, but it's also a
bit bland. I think he called it bread and butter work. He doesn't hate it at
all, it's just not that interesting, but it pays the bills and, again, he's
very good at it. Yet he thinks about retiring. But every once in a while,
every 2-3 years, an interesting project (case) comes along that gets him
excited and keeps him in the game.

My take away was: it sounds very romantic to be in love with your job, always,
but isn't very realistic. Being good at your job is realistic, but many people
aren't good at their job. If you are, you stand out and can command a good
salary, working hours, benefits, whatever is important to you. And every once
in a while you should try to get an interesting project to keep things fresh.

So who's responsibility is it to get that occasional interesting project? I'd
loosely say that's 50/50 split between employee and employer. You can't just
expect to get spoon fed interesting projects. You have to look for them, and
the company has to be in a relevant position to support that.

If you like research, if you good at ramping up and learning new skills, that
can be a good way of acquiring the occasional interesting project, while
getting better paid for it.

------
davemel37
Its only a problem if it causes you problems. You shouldnt make decisions
about which jobs to stay at or leave because you have some perceived
correlation between length at a job and reliability.

This is one of those classic cases where the culutural pressures and beliefs
are wrong and ripe for ignoring. Especially for an engineer/hacker its
important to second guess your societal perceptions and make decisions on more
substantial foundations.

------
kfcm
It's like the old real estate mantra goes: "It's all about location, location,
location."

There will be some metros where no one cares; they're so short-handed and the
tech market so hot, they won't care and will hire you. Other metros which are
more sedate, with few companies and therefore over-saturated with techs and
H1Bs will look at you and laugh.

------
pkaye
I would look at how long someone needs to work in that industry to
meaningfully complete a project or two. In mine, it is about 2 years. If they
consistently have below this, I would have to question the depth of
contributions to the projects they worked on. New grads I do give a little
leeway as they are just figuring out what they want to do.

------
meerita
I definitively would hire someone who has experienced different kind of
codebases, business styles and products. Think about it.

------
flarg
Sounds like you might enjoy freelancing more? Not sure how it works in the RoW
- but in the UK you look for contracts, when you find one setup your Ltd Co
and engage an accountant - and you're set --- with the added bonus that your
will stick with you employer (yourself) for many years.

~~~
panjaro
Freelancing was challenging and fun but I'd lean more towards permanent roles
where I have more knowledge of business while developing solutions.

------
louithethrid
Try to show proof that the companys want to keep you- and have a very good
reason - like i get bored easily.

For companys the questions is do you reach the break even- the point where the
investment that they did by hire and assigning somebody too you, to introduce
you to your tools and internal operations. Everything else is rather
benefical.

Cooperations outsource codejobs to strangers today. And they do well with it.
Never heard a hiring manager complain about the company beeing "a problem
case" when it came to investments in hirde guns.

You might not hit it off with your collagues though. Many want the safety. If
somebody appears who represents the opposite lifestyle, and shows everyone
that life can be lived different- which theire manager might use for pressure
once you are gone - things can get a little frosty.

~~~
trose
Do not say you get bored easily. That is a huge red flag to potential
employers.

------
gizi
As a contractor/freelancer, you may very well switch every 6 months. Nobody
says anything about that. It is an absolutely normal thing to do. Just say
that you had achieved the goal of the short-term contract for which you had
been hired. In a sense, it is probably true anyway.

~~~
amattn
Please don't misrepresent a 6 month span of a full time gig as a short term
contract. No one ever expects a FT employee to stay only 6 mos.

------
anders30
I recommend looking into a large company that lets you move around
(specifically let me recommend Boeing). I have changed groups several times
and there is very little stigma assuming you can get yourself up to speed in a
reasonable time frame and you're not, "leaving behind dead bodies".

Consider reading a book called, "The First 90 Days: Critical Success
Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels". It's contents helped me gear my
interviews towards how and when I would add value to a new group. I believe
that is the key to changing jobs - average time to positive ROI from the new
group's perspective, not average time spent in a group.

You have some great recommendations in this thread, so thank you for asking!

------
Jare
It's not that you have changed jobs, it's how and why you have done it. From
your description you seem to be directionless, impatient, and prone to
experimenting over informing yourself properly. Yeah I would definitely
consider you 'unreliable'.

------
bshimmin
It sounds to me like becoming a contractor might perhaps suit you better - is
that a possibility where you are based? On the other hand, contract roles
often involve the kind of problems you wouldn't necessarily find
"challenging".

~~~
panjaro
Contracting would be nice but wouldn't it be stressful looking for work every
time project is finished?

------
bdcravens
No, it's common. Many developers focus on purely contract or project work, so
4 companies in one year isn't uncommon.

You have an increased validation in your hirability, as four different
companies have thought you were good enough to give an offer to.

------
matt_morgan
Like others have said, the important thing is do you just bore easily?

You have mostly pretty good reasons for the switches. The possible exception
is the research career move ... didn't you know going in how little money
you'd be making? Sounds a little flaky to give up on it for that reason. If I
were interviewing you, I'd drill down on that one.

The trick is, would I even interview you or would I see the resume and think,
hmm, I don't know? I try to be very thoughtful about that but I usually get a
lot of applicants ... I think you should try to keep this new position for a
while.

~~~
nicolapede
If he keeps the current position for 2 years or for 4 years, does it change
dramatically the view you would have of his CV? I guess staying there for 10
years would have a sensible impact on how the resume would look like, I'm just
trying to calibrate your perception as an interviewer.

~~~
matt_morgan
Sometimes I've gotten 200 applications for a job posting. Not for a long time,
but in 2000-2001, after the Internet crash, it was ugly. You had no choice but
to filter a lot. You did your best, knowing that you were missing some good
candidates. But any little flag was enough to push you into the "no" or the
"maybe" pile.

Even when I've gotten relatively few applicants, it's still time-consuming to
bring people in. I wouldn't say that a bunch of short-term jobs would rule out
anybody on its own, but I would still like to see something that shows you had
an impact during your short time. And like others have said, there's a lot of
value in seeing big projects through from start to finish, so there might be
positions where I'd be like, sorry, I need to see that you've done that before
I hire you for this job.

It's not the years, really, but what you've done in the amount of time you
had. Like I said, the ones stated are mostly all good reasons for leaving a
job. In an interview I woudld probably find them convincing. I also think it
would be _great_ to be able to say, for at least one job, "I stuck this one
out and did everything I could, despite the odds stacked against it, because I
really wanted to see something through."

To you question specifically, I think having at least one job with a longer
tenure would be a big improvement to the first-impression reaction most hiring
managers would have to the resume.

~~~
nicolapede
Thanks a lot for your answer, I found it really useful.

------
Quanticles
Finding and hiring the right person is very time consuming, training up that
person is very timing consuming, and when someone leaves, training someone to
take over their responsibilities is very time consuming. Combining all of
those these together, each time a person leaves a company it incurs a cost of
about 6 months of their salary. I'd rather pay more for someone that's going
to stick around then hire people who are likely going to get bored and leave.
Many companies try to figure out way to reduce turnover - it's very expensive.

~~~
panjaro
But Once hired they are put into a corner and company doesn't even answer
their questions on future, career etc. I have seen a colleague at current
office. She has been there for more than 5 years and believe it or not she
doesn't even know what an ORM is. She is good at sql queries and she is busy
all day with support work. If the company decides to let her go, It'll be very
hard for her to get a job. That is what companies/founders/bosses don't care
about and that's why people who worry about their time of life they're
spending in the company to take some actions.

It's not all about company's money. It's about people's life.

------
TaylorGood
Startups aside I'm about 1.5 years on average and the massive finance company
I'm at right now only asked about my entrepreneur itch and whether I'll be
tempted to jump back in..

------
mdekkers
As an employer, I would have concerns about your job hopping, and it would
certainly be discussed in an interview. I would want to know why you job-hop.
sometimes, life gets in the way of your plans, so it wouldn't be a determining
factor in deciding to interview you. In your case, after your explanation,
we'd discuss internally to see if we could offer you enough of a challenge and
keep things interesting for you.

------
sheepmullet
It depends on the type of work you do and the size of the projects you work
on.

If you work on small projects with a 1 month ramp up time then it's not a big
deal to leave after a year.

On the other hand I'm currently working on a million+ loc application and the
typical ramp up time for a good dev is 6 months. I'm not going to hire
somebody who will probably be gone in a year.

------
cj
It's definitely a negative signal for me if someone has moved around a lot
within the last few years.

It's not so much a problem for a senior engineer who can onboard relatively
quickly.

But for junior engineers, I would be a lot more hesitant because the
onboarding that the company invests in you is lost if there's a high chance
you'll move on a few months later.

------
kkapelon
Just to be on the safe side, I would stay at least 3 years on a job. 2-3 years
is what recruiters/hr people look in CV. If it is less for too many jobs, then
they assume that you are a job hopper.

So in your case, yes I would say that 1,5 years is controversial. For 6 years
you should have changed 2 jobs (maybe 3 with a good explanation)

------
b0sk
Unfortunately, yes. Your recruiter and/or hiring manager are definitely going
to ask you this and make sure you have a ready-made answer for this question
which doesn't involve "boring".

~~~
aet
Why can't it involve "boring"?

~~~
Jare
1 - The fact that you were bored does not mean the place was boring. Your
ability to make this distinction reflects A LOT on your ability to perform
critical thinking and objective evaluations, both of which are part of most
technical jobs.

2 - If you chose multiple jobs and were bored in all of them, the problem
start to look like it's in you, not in the jobs. Therefore, it's a problem you
will bring into your next job, and few companies want that.

When explain that I left my job at a bank after 3.5yrs to go back into
videogames dev, nobody bats an eyelid if I say I was bored. Even so, I do not
say it, because the important bit is where I wanted to go to, not where I
wanted to get out of.

