Skip Navigation

Is the old advice to change companies every two-ish years still the best practice for career advancement?

I recall a regular piece of advice for software engineers: “change your job every two years.”

There’s innumerable Google results for this, even from as recently as 2022 — but none of them really seem that high-quality?

I’m really, really enjoying my current (somewhat unusual, hard-to-replicate) position; am about a year and a half into it; but I also don’t want to relax into that and have it cost me in the long-run, career advancement wise.

So, what’ve y’all been doing? Especially in the post-pandemic/fully-remote world, does that advice still apply?

You're viewing a single thread.

24 comments
  • 2 years seems insane to me. I wouldn't hire anyone who has a resume full of job hopping every other year.

    • What if it was a promotion every 2 years?

      • You still worked for the same company... programmers job trees aren't that deep. Either you got promoted out of programming or the promotion isn't worth mentioning.

        • This is pretty bad advice and I'm really surprised to see it in a community for "experienced devs".

24 comments