How do you know it's time to do the next thing?

Hive mind:

We've all had good career runs (for varying values of "all" and "good") working with one particular technology or another. But at much as we may have loved it, there comes a time when it becomes apparent that that particular string has played out and it's time to figure out what's next.

How do you know when that time has come -- and how do you figure out what your Next Thing is?

I don't know how representative it is as a whole, but my experience (working for various companies of 15-200 employees) has been that there are two classes of engineers:

- Those that have been there for years (3/5/since the beginning), are usually underpaid for the long hours they put in, and may or may not have stock options.

- The rest of us.

And it seems that the first group rarely moves on. I suspect it's because they're too heavily invested in the company with some sort of golden handcuffs, or they've become too comfortable and don't want to look for a new job. They also seem to prefer ignoring the fact that they're underpaid comparatively to more recent hires or to the market.

The second group usually moves on after 10-12 months on the job, sometimes up to 18 months. Sometimes it's a lateral move, sometimes it's a step up, but it's almost always for more money and slightly different technologies or a better work situation.

Short of the usual advice that if you're dreading going to work, aren't feeling challenged anymore, or your managers don't support you then it's probably time to change jobs; it would seem that the typical time to move on is every 12-18 months.

Keep in mind that these are my anecdotal observations, it may or may not be representative.

When you have realized your present goals or have new goals that cannot be achieved by what you're doing.

I greatly enjoy my day job as a developer. But my organization is floundering (aspects of my team need improvement, but also the multitude of others across the org). I want to improve it, I can't do it as a developer (alone). So I'm moving up closer to management (but doing my best to stay out of management proper) to a position where I can have more sway on decision makers, and advocate for the resources, training, and improvements the product producers need.

I have other goals with respect to learning and improving my craft as a developer, but they're slightly (just) lower priority than getting this organization to function better. And if I fail, I can at least say I tried. To pursue my developer craft goals, I'd need to leave this company. And I'm not ready to yet (I'd have to move, which is not something I'm ready for).

In the worst case, I tried. I learn something new about how management functions. How to be a leader. And that'll prepare me (success or failure) for my next role.

In terms of moving on from one technology to another I have found that the best indicator is when the large consulting firms start hiring lots of staff with a specific technical skill, most of them poorly qualified for that technology. If you prefer to contract directly to the larger client firms, then the big firms start being your competitors.

In my experience high demand and high rates environment lasts 3-5 years. Bit of a challenge to pick the next best technology. Not too soon on the adoption curve and not too late.

You know it's time to move when either you've lost motivation for what you do, and/or your KPIs aren't encouraging enough even after you've already adapted the model a few times. As to figuring out your next thing, ask yourself what you'd spend so many hours doing without counting the hours. It's always worked for me. Hope this helps.