Do Not Change Your Job

I don't see a whole lot wrong with either changing jobs frequently or staying at one place. I know people on both ends of that spectrum, one guy I know started at a Japanese bank before the 87 crash and is still there, another guy has had 6 jobs in 12 years.

I would say go have a look now, though. Just to stay informed on what's out there and what people think your value is.

My first internship at Toyota barely paid anything (relative to a bay area internship), but I stuck around for 4 years because the work was interesting and fun. It helped hone my technical skills, and the value from networking from that job continues to pay off 12 years later.

Since I graduated, I've been at three different companies. I've stuck around to see projects through their hardest points, and only left for exciting new technical opportunities. The first one with the lowest salary has in time been worth the most in equity. The one with the highest salary has in time been worth the least, but the liquidity at that point in my life was nice. I took a huge salary cut when joining my current company, but I had a feeling that it was a good group of people. It's been almost 6 years now, and I can only describe my experience as an embarrassment of riches.

You could write my experience off as luck or individual talent, but I think a part of my success has come from my work ethic. I work to feel useful, solve interesting problems and create tangible value. It seems like if you focus on that, everything else tends to fall into place. A college age friend once joined a project I was on, as a remote contract technician. He asked me for advice on how to become a full time engineer. I told him to figure out how to be as productive as possible by automating his job away, and document it. He ended up being 4x more productive than the other techs getting paid 3x as much, and six months later was a full time employee with a bay area salary and equity.

There always is a barrier of changing things. Especially changing the job involves a lot of decisions and brings risk. The pay increase in the new job (and maybe a signing bonus) is trying to convince you to switch.

I guess what this means in the end is that you are seen as replaceable and are not valued enough. I heard similar statements from middle management once, when a bunch of junior colleagues left the team. They didn't realize that, although junior, they were doing a great job. It's funny because a good raise for them would still have been quite "cheap".

But I think this is a real big difference to the valley (or at least it was pre-covid) - first of all if you didn't want to move, then the job market was only good in a few places in the whole country (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne region, Ruhrgebiet) - everywhere else it wasn't really possible to job hop willy nilly. Also we seem to value stability a lot more than Americans, which is not surprising per se, it's kinda hard to get rid of employees (which is a good thing imho) so if you bought a house or have a family, the status quo might be good enough. If YOU switch you have this 6 month period where you can be easily laid off.

Also the ranges weren't so big. As a medium-level developer the VAST majority was making between 40 and 100k. And probably more likely 50 than 90. I basically never heard of anyone doing +100% jumps. No big surprise in this range. I think it's changing, esp. with remote work - but I am still amazed every time I hear about these 300k salaries. Disclaimer: Have not talked to many people about salaries in a while, but a few years ago I'd say my experience wasn't too uncommon.

> If you’re leaving your company because the market is hot right now and your company can’t give you a raise that might not even change your life, then maybe you should question again.

If your company cannot afford to give you a raise, and that raise isn't excessive, then it sounds like the problem is still your current company.

My advice is the opposite: Make your decision on quantitative not qualitative measures. I've seen a lot of people leave a good position that pays well to go work in a technology or domain that they think will make them more satisfied in their career and then realize they left a team they enjoyed for one they didn't. If you are moving for $25k increase in salary, it makes the risk more tolerable.