Ask HN: What do you think of job hopping?

Become a contractor. After that, "job hopping" as a derisive term becomes non-existent.

Depends on a few factors:

- Type of employment. Is it a contract or "perm" position? Contract positions are expected to hop. It's part of the game.

- Timing. Are you in the middle of something? Can someone else easily pick it? Bailing in the middle of a big migration will leave a nasty taste in managers' mouths.

- Rank. Are you a CTO or a developer? The higher up you are, the longer you're expected to stay.

Changing jobs is something that you should do, in my opinion. Here's why:

- Versatility. You'll be exposed to new challenges/solutions, practices, and possibly languages.

- Network. If you do it properly, you'll establish a lot of new contacts in the industry

- Exposure. The same job at different companies may have different responsibilities and roles. You'll get a chance to build new skills or determine weaknesses.

- Pay. If you're hopping for the right reasons and doing it right, it is hands down the best way to get a pay boost. Once you're "in" a bigger company, they'll put you on a standardized raise ladder. Sure, you can get promoted but those will often have calculations involved that reduce your elevation. With hopping, you can set expectations (I need X% more to jump).

Problems with job hopping:

- Bridges. You'll burn them.

- Fatigue. It's a lot more time and emotionally consuming than you'll realize to look for work. Interviews are exhausting (and intentionally so).

- Loyalty. You won't have any.

- Rank. It's hard to climb a ladder when you're jumping off of them.

  - Rank. It's hard to climb a ladder when you're jumping off of them.

Depends on a few things. what you are looking to achieve in your career and how far along are you ? Let me explain further. In my opinion and experience, if you are entry level or about <5 years of experience, changing jobs a couple of times may not be a bad idea. It gives you exposure to a new environment and you could learn a different set of things which you may or may not at the same company. Not to mention that in the initial few years of your career, job change will get you a decent raise which is almost nothing these days if you stay at the same company (even less than inflation for majority of us).

Once you have reached a certain level of experience or no. of years (say average 7+), then the question becomes: what is your goal now ? If you want to be a manager/executive/director/VP etc at a company, then you need to be able to show some stability in employment history otherwise you are getting into the territory of "job hoppers who are not good fit for the senior level roles". But if you instead want to become a consultant/contractor/SME in your field, then you can keep hopping from client to client of course and sell yourself as the guy who comes, solves problems and leaves while making a good chunk of dollars. I am personally in the second category and even though at times I have considered the stable option, it just does not cut it for me.

One final advice (been in professional industry for 10+ years), most employers are not loyal to employees anymore. Gone are those days when employers actually invested in their employees as assets and not cost/headcounts/resources. So just like you are considered job hopper, I consider many companies "Candidate hoppers". They will get rid of you without any remorse (well may be a sorry from a nice manager if at all) and will just officially say "we are cutting down on budget so need to get rid of you". Always remember that hopping is two way.

What, oh kinda like Stephen Elop? I'd say go for it since, you know, #yolo.

IMO the minute you are hired as an at-will employee that can be terminated at any time, with or without cause, you have been granted carte blanche to do the same to your employer.

That said, staying for ~2 years and jumping when you can get a promotion by doing so seems to be a pretty common strategy. I've heard hiring managers and engineers decry this practice repeatedly, but I know way too many directors and VPs who got there by doing this very thing to feel one should criticize it. Or, sigh, hate the game, don't hate the player.

The severity of hiring manager "job hopping" alarms are inversely proportional to historical job tenures listed on your CV.

If you show that you changed jobs at a rate of 6 months then hiring managers will extrapolate this and conclude that you are less likely to stay longer than the preferred minimum 12 months. A severe "job hopping" alarm will be triggered in this case.

If you change jobs every 12 months, then you're in more-likely-to-land-an-interview territory, but there will be questions and reservations, depending on the job position.

Anything longer than that and it's probably unlikely you'll trigger job hopping alarms for engineers. PMs may be a bit different depending on the industry. For example, if you're a PM in a slower moving technology industry like telecom then anything less than 24months would probably count against you, especially if you're moving between different completely markets.

Startups help to explain short job durations, but hiring managers would then expect to hear what you learned and convince them you were insanely productive during said period.

My last year of still being considered a "junior/mid" level developer I job hopped about 3 times within 7 months and propelled myself into the very high end of the (national and local) pay scale for a Senior Developer. A lot of people take years to make this transition (or wait to be promoted) but I felt I was considerably undervalued and that I could be a Senior within a couple of years. To my surprise, the reality became that I did it in 7 months by taking a lot of big risks (including moving across country) and doing a lot of bluffing (but never lying) with regards to my contracting terms. I tend to be offered a lot of contract-to-perm but in practice I never actually get around to the "perm" part, as I like to control my hours and my overtime and usually by that time I am ready to move on to broaden my experience.

These employers were more surprised rather than pissed at me. I don't consider myself a "rockstar" or any of that mumbo-jumbo but I always make sure I am a productive part of any team I'm on. I made it clear I wish to burn no bridges and that I always followed my experience and the opportunities they opened up. I also always make sure the money is right so that I could say no to any counter-offers. Usually when I'm ready to leave money is not going to get me to stay. There are always many other factors at play in a departing worker's decision besides money.

Me, personally?

My thought is that you should do what will have you learn the fastest. If you have a good job, try to stick it out 3+ years. You'll learn more. It's faster-than-linear (for a while) what you learn by sticking with a job. I'm trying to level up on machine learning, into the big leagues, and you don't get heavy-duty production experience if you're a rolling stone. There are things you learn from building and supporting a system over 2+ years that you don't if you move on before you have the time to really finish anything.

If you're not learning, though, I'd say that you should hop.

If you are, try to stick with it for 3 years at least, and 5-6 (with promotions) is ideal. Including consulting + career counseling I've seen a lot of companies (probably 40+ of which I have intimate knowledge) and good jobs are not the norm (maybe 30%). When you have a good thing, stay the course.

I'd be pretty forgiving of a good candidate with a job-hopping history, but I'm also at the 99th percentile of progressivism on this sort of issue. I've seen people get utterly raped by the job hopper stigma, and many were people with normal careers by VC-land standards.

How is it considered by hiring managers?

One hop's not a big deal, but a pattern burns you. Finance and large companies look down on that, and after 30 you're going to be a lot less interested in the VC-funded startups (for one thing, they won't be able to afford you unless you're in management).

I've seen consultants and startup people face this problem when trying to move into more conservative (stable) industries like finance. They weren't disloyal and had done nothing wrong, but having been in a world where 18-month tenures were normal and not unstigmatized (because the only way to move up in the startup world is to create bidding wars; internal promotion is rare amid the social damage wrought by 90-hour weeks) made them unable to get, e.g., proprietary trading firms (which are very paranoid about IP) to take chances on them.

Here's a guideline:

    0-4 months: -6 points (but take it off your CV because even the gap is less damaging)
    5-8 months: -4 points
    9-17 months: -2 points
    18-29 months: 0 points
    30-47 months: +3 points
    48-71 months: +5 points w/ promotions, +1 w/out. 
    72+ months: +7 points w/ continuing promotions, -5 (yes, negative) w/out promotions.

Recruiter here, and the first thing to consider is that to actually be called a job hopper, you must be pretty good at getting hired. Otherwise, you'd be called unemployed.

People define job hopping different ways, and the tenure matters. I once had a client (financial, big) that wouldn't hire anyone that wasn't at their current job for 7+ years. They abandoned that policy around 2006, as they found it impossible to hire, and they also found that the types of candidates that met that qualification often weren't that attractive. In other words, they found that if you were at your company for 10+ years, it could be because you are not in high demand by others.

In tech, moving jobs is expected and probably recommended from a marketability and employability perspective, as long as you make smart moves and don't just leave every time you get bored or passed over for a promotion.

Someone who has a pattern of staying perhaps 3 years with companies and then leaving will often be viewed as very attractive, whereas someone who has several 6-8 month stints over the course of a few years will often get a negative view. EDIT: Forgot that I wrote an article on job hopping for tech pros earlier this year http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2013/07/25/hop/

My general rule is that I will stay with the same job for at least 1 year. Part of that is to not look like I'm job hopping, but mostly it's because it generally takes me around 6 months to fully acclimate to the environment and another 6 months to get deep enough into development to figure out if it's somewhere I want to stay.

Of course that timing changes depending on the product and company. If you're working on a well established product at a medium to large company it may take longer to do much real development (beyond bug fixing and paper shuffling), so it may take longer to figure out if you want to stay longer. However, at a startup, you'll probably be dropped right into the fire on the first day, so you may be able to determine that more quickly.

When I've looked at resumes, anything less than a year at a job usually raises a flag. Unless there are a lot of jobs on your resume like that, it's not a negative thing, but I would absolutely ask about it during an interview.

Job hopper here.

I used to come to these threads hoping to find comfort for the job hopper in me. Now that a couple years have gone by and I'm OK I think I can provide some comfort to job hoppers.

My background: I've been an employed developer for over two years. Over the two years I've gone from cutting my teeth at a start up doing Customer Support and any programming they would let me get my hands on to being considered somewhere in between Mid-level and Senior in my particular environment. During this journey I've been at four different companies for 6 months, 8 months, 4 months, and 6 months. I've always exceeded all goals and contributed in big ways in short periods of time. I'm now a Consultant because I think it is more suited for how I like to work on a lot of different things with different people and I have enough experience and successes to be able to be a consultant (ie. people will pay me for my services).

During the interviews for my last two jobs the hiring managers brought up my job history point blank. One even directly called me a job hopper. I didn't shy away from their perception or try to convince them that this time it would be different. While some may see this as sugar coating, I indirectly told them that I am a challenge hopper. I talked about the projects I've worked on and the impact I've had. I talked about the value I've brought to the teams I've been on and what I do to better myself as a programmer.

All companies are looking for the good old "V" word - value. Some companies will be more interested in how long you're likely to stick around for. If how long I'm likely to stick around is that important to them then I treat this difference the same way I would anything else that we don't see eye to eye on - I walk away.

In the land of software we are lucky to have this affordability because of demand for programmers is high and margins on software can be extremely high. Jump around a little bit and learn a lot. Maybe you'll do that forever. Maybe you'll go do your ownt hing. Maybe you'll settle down. You've got a skill. People want it.

Continuous Growth and Continuous Improvement doesn't always mean leaving your current gig, but if that is what it takes, then hop away. For me personally, in the last 4 years I have been in 4 different companies. I had one job offer that asked whether bringing me on meant that I would be leaving after a year or two, I declined the offer because it was not enough to make me want to leave the employer I was at. I feel that each one of my previous endeavors has lead me to the next opportunity.

In my 20 years of hiring developers, how I feel about job hopping depends on which of two categories you fall into:

No problem: You're a top shelf engineer, you are going to hit the ground running. Your prep for the interview has almost made you a domain expert, you suggest technologies and point out issues I didn't know about. Your resume has short stints at startups, some who are now gone, and a mistaken attempt to work at IBM. I don't care if you leave in 6 months because I'll get 5 1/2 months of amazing stuff.

Problem: You are, supposedly, a solid journeyman programmer. I can tell it's going to take you at least 2 weeks to get a feel for the place and about 2 months before you're solid. If you leave in 6 months, I've invested 2 months of effort training for 4 months of return. The 2x recruitment fees are going to make it not worth hiring you, I should have gotten a contractor.

In my industry (info sec, UK) most people consider 2 years to be the (permie) line. The farther below this you go, the more of a liability you start to look (it costs a lot of money, time, and effort to recruit - I don't want to be in a constant recruitment cycle). Conversely, if you're a "lifer" then you've got work to do to convince me I'm your next butt-groove.

For contractors, the length of time is less directly important, what I'm looking for are people who were extended from their original contract length a few times - this tells me that they're not just purely contract hopping (constant recruitment cycle again), that they're willing to stay in the right place (which I obviously believe we're offering), and that someone felt they were good enough in a previous role to try to keep them.

I'm trying to hire an engineer right now and job hopping is almost an instant reject. But my guess is that it really depends on the stage of the company and size of the team.

If you come from a recruiter that I have to pay $25k (or more), then there's no way it's worth it for me to only have you for 4-8 months.

If you are one of the first few engineers on the team then there is no way I can justify building a team of people who I suspect are going to jump ship in 4-8 months.

But, if you have a more established team, the candidate doesn't come from a recruiter, and I have projects that I know are scoped in the 4-8 month time period then I may consider it.

So I'd say if you are a job hopper it's fine, but don't get upset with me when I refuse to talk to you even if you have the best skills I've ever seen.

I made the mistake of staying at one job for 9 years. I was raised by my Grandmother who in her generation staying for a long time was a good thing. 9 years on one technology and tools is a huge distaster that I realized too late. My current position I have been at for 4 years. Now every day I am making sure I learn something new so I can prepare to find a new position.

What about resigning after < 2 months? Solid record before that (to the point of petrification).

I've worked in startups for most of my 10 years being paid to program computers. I probably average about 1-1.2 companies a year. The reason being that most of the companies I've worked for folded, pivoted or down-sized. It doesn't help that the technology sector in my neck of the woods is anemic at best and supported by very cautious investors.

I've never had a problem. I can only recall being asked about it by one or two people. I was just honest and they didn't seem to mind. I got at least one job despite it. I might have missed out on another offer because of it but I doubt it.

The weird thing is that this is just the sort of thing I was warned about before I even got to college. I was told that the norm would be to have many different jobs in my lifetime and not to expect to be with the same employer throughout my career as my grandparents were. I just see it as the new normal; a symptom of a network economy as Pekka Himanen describes in The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age. A bunch of people get together, build something cool, make some money and move on. We're not in the business of building widgets on an assembly line after all.

But maybe my path has allowed me to be blissfully ignorant of the whole "job-hopper," conundrum. I'm sure it still exists. I just think it's a very backwards ideal in a creativity and knowledge-based line of work such as programming.

Update It's not for a lack of trying to stay on a long-term project. One startup I worked at for 2 years and had no intention of leaving. It was being shuttered and I got laid off. That is a fairly common occurrence for startups in my neck of the woods where funding and investment is anemic and the majority of talent is funneled off to SV.

It really depends on the complexity of the product(s) your working on, and how much you enjoy the position.

There's also something be said for hopping until you find a nice set of golden handcuffs. :)

I've been a developer for a little over five years now, and I've had four jobs. The longest of them lasted over two years, and shortest lasted three months. I'm actually leaving a job today after a little over eighteen months.

In my limited experience, rapid job changes at the outset of one's career aren't particularly damaging -- providing you can offer an honest and reasonable explanation. I left my longest job because I had to move in support of my wife's career. I left my shortest job because the technical lead was toxic and the work would have led to a dead-end career. I'm leaving my job today for a variety of reasons which I've discussed amicably yet honestly over a period of several months with my manager. In no case was a better salary or some other material gain the primary motivation behind my decision to leave.

There's something to be said for getting exposure to a variety of environments early on. Freelancing, consulting, part-time jobs, summer jobs, and co-op terms can help to maximize exposure without much risk of negative career implications. If you have good priorities -- e.g. eventually ending up in a fulfulling, long-term job with appropriate pay -- a few changes will likely do more good than harm. But if you routinely leave when the technical challenge stops being sexy or if you attempt to get a cushy job with nothing but shortcuts, you can find yourself in trouble.

As an employer I am acutely aware of:

1. Are you a contractor who is short of work 2. Are you a full-time individual that can't stick at a job for > 2 years

If you appear to be either of the above then I won't even get you in for an interview,

A recruiter earlier in this thread said that a "job hopper" could also just be someone that is good at getting hired. That may be true, but I am not remotely interested in employing you, regardless of how good you may be.

If my investment of time in you is out the window in a year then you may as well be a junior programmer, because I will have to start all over again.

Employees aren't obliged to be at a company for any amount of time, but it really looks bad if you appear to not care (IMHO).

My advice is to always stay at your first job for about 3 years. Then any question of "job hopping" does not happen. If you really really hate your first job, then switch and stay at the next one for 3 years.

What's peoples experience with job-hopping vs sticking around and hoping for raises and/or promotions while sticking to mostly technical roles? I've heard that the "ladder" for programmers that don't want to eventually go into things like (project) management can be a bit stunted at some companies.

In India project managers(usually non-coders and highly paid than any programmer) never switch jobs until they get fired or the organization goes bankrupt.

Good Programmers always switch approximately about 3-6 years once and usually get about 30-50% hike with promotion.

It is a concern. It says to me the applicant is all about accelerating their personal income growth while the company is just a stepping stone. I know they will be looking for a new job the day they start. My feeling is, if I can milk them I will, so they need to be good. But our system takes time to master, so prolly not even gonna be an interview.