Hot take: Software engineers should job hop as much as they can during the first five years of their career.
Now I don’t mean that you should chan...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Thanks for sharing! I felt exactly that. Stagnation. And I knew I needed to do something to change that. So I started to go to interviews. I grew a lot with the interviews since I needed to learn new things that I wasn't using in my daily work. Everything that we go out of our comfort zone, we grow. It's scary but so rewarding
Most of what you said is true. It's best to build up your network and connections first before trying to move to a different company and always best to leave on good terms so you dont burn bridges.
Because references are important.
Absolutely, build connections and don't burn bridges. All of that can be done in a relatively short period of time though, in far less than a year even. I have good friends at all of my previous companies that I still keep in touch with, I've used several as referrals, and I've helped even more land jobs of their own.
Do you think the "5 year job hopping" thing also applies if working for a consulting company? I feel like it's a good place for kickstarting a career, since the collaborators switch between projects very often
Working for a consulting company is a great way to gain a breadth of experience to kickstart your career, absolutely. My time at Qualtrics in our professional services department was basically that, and I owe a lot of my success to that experience. You get to work with a lot of different people, industries, tech stacks, and projects in a very short amount of time.
Love the comments about digging deeper and give the customer what they need, not what they ask for.
My analogy is you go into the hardware store and ask for a 6mm drill bit. You don't want the drill bit, you want a 6mm hole, the bit is a means to an end. If I dig deeper, perhaps what you really need is a picture hanging system that is cheaper, faster and makes less mess than drilling into the wall. Now I have solved your problem which was a million miles away from what you originally asked for
Great analogy! It's the classic "XY problem" (xyproblem.info/).
That's amazing and really interesting I could see the transformation and I hope I follow the same path with my career
For me was a problem because I found as first job a company with old technologies and old methodologies. So, I didn't learn the updated skillset that the market requires. I had to figure out and develop them in my spare time when I was not busy at work.
That's a great journey! I am also just breaking into tech and a transitioning professional.
Thank you!
I agree but this is not so easy, sometimes it's difficult to leave a company because you don't find another that hires you. So you are stuck in the same position for a long period of time.
I'd have to agree with Nate here, that having difficulty finding a new software engineering job in the current market may often be a competency issue. And that's not meant as an insult to a struggling developer, but rather in the most literal sense of the word ("competence" is defined as "having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully.")
So there may be a skills gap in technical skills, soft skills, or interviewing skills. Sometimes it's even just a bad fit company culture-wise. But if a developer finds themselves often being rejected from positions they've applied to, they may want to ask themselves what skills or competencies they need to focus on in order to land their dream job and then get to work improving those.
Yes, I agree but often companies require experience that one cannot have by simple study