Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

Re:Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) by citizenkeen on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:05PM (#16935173)

So my first job is for a decent sized company building our in-house tools in .Net and React. And I work about 38 hours a week, I'm well compensated, and the department is friendly and relaxed. The company's been around forever and is well-poised for the future (I've seen all the financials due to my role).

The work is interesting, though never novel.

Everybody I know tells me programmers should change jobs every 2 years, but I feel like maybe I struck gold the first time?

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Re:Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) by ryanianian on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:37PM (#16935503)

Don't "need" to change jobs, but ensure you're not complacent, under-paid, or unemployable elsewhere. Best way to do this is to regularly interview.

I advocate every 6-12 months, even (or especially if) you're happy where you are. There's virtually no downside to doing this except for an unpleasant vacation day. Worst case is you still have your job you like. Best case is you get an offer that gets you a raise (either where you are or with a better company).

(Doing this I've gotten about a 10% raise every year for the past ~8 years - sometimes changing jobs but usually just presenting an offer to current employer - and I'm not a rockstar interviewer or anything.)

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Re:Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) by dancek on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:17PM (#16935274)

Why change if you don't see benefit in it. You won't know everything about your current work in two years, and you probably get the chance to do different things anyway.

Enjoy your good fortune and be grateful. A lot of people hate their jobs. Even programmers.

Just make sure you're always able to get a new job if necessary. Basic stuff like keep learning something useful, don't tie yourself too much financially, etc.

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Re:Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) by softawre on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:22PM (#16935314)

You don't need to change jobs, but you should change projects/technologies as time goes on. I've been at the same company for 10 years now and I keep growing, but only because I've been on different projects throughout (Winforms -> ASP.NET -> WPF -> Angular -> Knockout/Java -> React/Kotlin).

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