It's not _great_, but it's not the end of your career, either. Try to start establishing longer tenures going forward. You're going to be doing this for decades, so build your resume now while you can. I job-hopped four times in four years toward the beginning of my career (late 90's), and although I've been at every job since for much longer, I've had recruiters ask for good explanations for it even as recently as my last job search in 2017.
Hopping too many startups in a row?
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Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#22I would not recommend that you go down with the ship but you will want to have a good story for why you switched so often. It's hard to see "1-2 years for the last 2-3 jobs" and not get nervous as someone hiring. Even more so if I hear "The culture wasn't good so I left" or something vague for all reasons of why you left. It's going to take a month or so before they are contributing to the team and then a few months to a year before they fully understand the platform they are working on fully, it sucks to invest that time and energy into someone just to have them leave after a 1-2 years.
The old adage of "If everywhere you go smells like shit then check your shoe" applies here. That's not to say you couldn't have worked at 3 actually bad companies that you should have left but it's at least a warning flag. I've had people with short job tenures back-to-back explain the reasoning and I've been perfectly satisfied with it but I've also had people give me reasons that sound very fake. Interestingly, the people that come across as "fake" are also the ones that give off a slight whiff of "I'm better than this job" or "This is only a stepping stone for me". Those things can both be true but if can't at least pretend to care then I'm not interested.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#23[flagged]
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#24It sounds like they're looking for not you tbh, but it also sounds like you value something startups can't give you and should probably try to find a more stable boring company to stick with longer; instead you're just repeatedly risking sinking ships and reacting to it by leaving early.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#25I would not recommend that you go down with the ship but you will want to have a good story for why you switched so often. It's hard to see "1-2 years for the last 2-3 jobs" and not get nervous as someone hiring. Even more so if I hear "The culture wasn't good so I left" or something vague for all reasons of why you left. It's going to take a month or so before they are contributing to the team and then a few months…
> I would not recommend that you go down with the ship but you will want to have a good story for why you switched so often.
I mean have the story ready but you'll likely never get a chance to tell it. In this job market this is a "screen out without a phone call" criterion. I think it's shitty but it will likely be very hard to get interviews with this sort of recent employment streak.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#26I would not recommend that you go down with the ship but you will want to have a good story for why you switched so often. It's hard to see "1-2 years for the last 2-3 jobs" and not get nervous as someone hiring. Even more so if I hear "The culture wasn't good so I left" or something vague for all reasons of why you left. It's going to take a month or so before they are contributing to the team and then a few months…
> I would not recommend that you go down with the ship but you will want to have a good story for why you switched so often. I mean have the story ready but you'll likely never get a chance to tell it. In this job market this is a "screen out without a phone call" criterion. I think it's shitty but it will likely be very hard to get interviews with this sort of recent employment streak.
> I mean have the story ready but you'll likely never get a chance to tell it.
Potentially, depending on where you are interviewing. I didn't write off anyone with multiple short tenures when I did hiring earlier this year but it was a red flag that I addressed in the first interview.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#272 years is actually fairly long in the startup world imo, most startups (by %) don't even last that long. The average across the SWE industry (not just startups) was hopping every ~2.5 years a few years ago, and I believe it's worse now. I only start to scrutinize if I see a pattern of several in a row of If anything, I tend to judge people a little bit who stay in the same place more than 3-4 years in this industry. Staying somewhere that long you end up with very insular views and limited exposure to new tech and ideas outside of your bubble, and beyond that, I am a bit wary of someone who isn't motivated by the financial incentive of a diagonal upgrade every 2-3 years, or somehow doesn't see that potential. Being able to effectively advocate for yourself and by extension your ideas I see as an essential skill for SWE.
Also, I think failed startup experience is super valuable, perhaps more valuable in some cases than coincidentally riding a unicorn and now falsely believing that every little thing you did along the way (or your cherry-picked list of "favorite" things you did) is actually repeatable, useful advice and/or a blueprint for future success.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#28The recruiter perspective has some relevance too. A question in their minds is whether candidates have the tenacity to stick through ups and downs of a company. This happens very frequently and I guess the employers are trying to gauge whether people will up and leave the moment things get difficult. it may merit some nuanced explanation when such a question comes up.
I disagree. How many interviews do you think it takes for someone to realize lying yields better results?
When "things get difficult" is a catch-all of subjective nonsense and to paint it in a more charitable light is intellectually dishonest.
Whenever "things get difficult"—whatever that means—you can count on the recruiter not being around and is why their opinion does not count for much. Often companies will let referrals skip introductory recruiter call entirely. Recruiters are invaluable to form cohesive teams in a startup, but they're glorified secretaries for hiring managers at a large corporation.
Anyone that believes they can deduce a person's commitment to some abstract mission statement based on a few historical facts and a couple hours of interviews is not a serious thinker. It denies the genius 1000x engineer whom quit to move across the country and take care of a sick family member or two. And it denies people with the self-respect to say no to unethical demands by executives. This might be a minority of applicants, but claiming to hire the best necessarily means reducing the type II error rate to zero.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#29When you hop, at least get promoted. That way it paints a better picture. If you can honestly say that job C has more responsibility than B and B than A (even if same title) that is good too. One option is to work for a large company with more opportunities negating the need to hop due to it going bad financially and more room to go up levels etc.
>> When you hop, at least get promoted. That way it paints a better picture.
I mean, it does, but it's still got a good picture. It comes across as "I'll jump ship the moment a better offer comes along."
The problem with job-hoppers is that there are ones done for sensible reasons (I joined high-risk startups, but ultimately they failed, or got acquired or whatever) and ones who just treat the position as a placeholder until something better comes along, or until they get itchy feet etc.
It's hard during the hiring phase to tell the difference, so employers tend to err on the side of "why take the risk?" Especially in the current market where there are plenty of other applicants.
Re: Hopping too many startups in a row?
#30Here's the thing: you don't really get to see the consequences of your decisions until 3yr after you've made them. While it's perfectly understandable why you've responded to the changing environment of startups, the lack of holding a position for long enough is a career-limiting move. It sucks, but the world isn't fair.
> Here's the thing: you don't really get to see the consequences of your decisions until 3yr after you've made them. That's a weird thing about resumes... they're pretty much for life, so any move has to be explained/justified over and over again one or more decades later. Any short-term quick win to get away from a bad boss of a few thousand $$$ could stop you from getting a great job much further down the track. An…
"Where" you are in your career also make a difference. In your 20's, fresh out of uni, you're expected to switch around a bit. No problem there. Still job-hopping every 2 years in your 30's or 40's - that's a signal to the prospective employer that you'll be here for 2 years, then gone.
Often I'll also see someone who was in a job long-term (10 years+) but then has bounced through a few since leaving. That's a different kind of signal and requires a lot more exploration. You clearly -can- settle down, but you seem to be struggling to do that - why is that? I've had folk who are in the "don't tell me how to do my job, I've been doing it for decades" attitude which can be hard for others to work with, especially when "we do it differently here."