Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less
There is a plateau as one reaches senior positions.<p>As I went from &quot;no&quot; experience to my current position my job switches (every ~2 years) always were for 10%-25% (in one case, 100%, but that was Midwest to Bay Area so other factors are at play). I never got more than 5% merit increases otherwise.<p>Most of my friends who have been at the same place for &gt;10 years in engineering (not software) are just now reaching parity with my base salary (CoL-adjusted) and they didn&#x27;t spend 6 years in academia before transitioning to industry.<p>Two year tenures isn&#x27;t job hopping. It&#x27;s a reflection of how this industry works. Very few companies offer sufficient breadth and depth of product complexity, career advancement, or other similar things to make it worthwhile. I&#x27;d say the sweet spot is 2-4 years, except at very large companies (e.g. Google) (EDIT:) or companies which are developing complicated products with physical engineering or regulatory factors complicating development. Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. &quot;tech lead on product X&quot; for more than a year or two), is an indication to me of someone who either isn&#x27;t capable of stretching himself or doesn&#x27;t want to. Anything less, especially if more than one project per job exists, indicates an inability to see a project through to maintenance or someone who is easily bored.