Ask HN: How do you know if leaving your 1st software job will make you happier?

For the first few moves I doubled my salary. That helps a lot.

You grow a network too, you see things from different perspectives, get variety, learn new tools. A change is as good as a rest. And when all is said and done, if it doesn't make you happy, just take the extra experience and increased salary and go back.

But look around you, how many people who left the company ever came back?

IME the advice was good because companies tend to value you as little more than who they hired, the jobs market values you for who you are now, which changes quickly early in your career.

Good luck either way.

But it wasn't because the work was unfulfilling. I've never really given that any thought because I was working to earn money and agreed to do what they needed done.

I have worked at a couple places where someone with a much higher pay grade quit and I was asked to take over their position but not offered a raise in pay. I quit on the spot when that happened. I have never felt anything close to regret over that.

But I have known friends over the years who have. They had a sweet gig at a great company and they didn't really realize how good they had it until afterwards.

I tried to talk a few of them out of that who, after they quit, came back and told me they regretted not listening to me.

Personally, I have had a pretty hectic, but also "rewarding", life. I'm 63 now and just getting by. Others I know who got and stuck it out working for a company that paid them well are doing much better.

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets. I'll just say that if you have it pretty good, ride that for as long as you can cause shit happens.

I asked for my old job back (remotely) and have been there since. I now realize that if I rule out any job with any web or db’s in it then I likely rule out 99% of all dev jobs. And that’s fine.