Possibly for introverts. I see a few 15-30 min Zoom calls a month as industry comp due diligence and ground truth. Don’t know what’s out there, if you’re underpaid, and by how much if you’re not looking. With everyone WFH, you can do it over lunch or whenever you can squeeze it in, no on site or PTO required.

If it’s not for you, and you’re comfortable leaving money and opportunities on the table, you do you. Everyone has to do what’s best for themselves.

A few 15-30 min Zoom calls a month seem like a ton of time investment. It's one thing if it truly is 15-30 min, but typically one would prepare a bit for interviews. Tech work, reading up on the company, etc. As you mentioned below you're in infosec so maybe it's less; for SWE there is the tech/code prep and then there's also purely the handling of the stress of answering tech interview questions. Not to mention many even want a take-home code exercise done which can take 2-3 hours. (You could argue that you wouldn't even interview at those companies casually unless you're really committed) Honestly, the amount of work to do for even one interview is so much that if I'm happy at my job, I don't even want to do one a year. Of course it's a different story if you're unhappy though, I'd be interviewing regularly too in that case.

> It's one thing if it truly is 15-30 min, but typically one would prepare a bit for interviews

If you’re happy in your current role and just looking for the perfect situation to move to, there’s nearly no prep needed for the first interview (assuming the technical/coding interview comes later int he process). Just grill the person who’s interviewing you and get the info you want.

Be glad you've never set foot in finance.

> and you’re comfortable leaving money and opportunities on the table

There are all sorts of things you can do to get the money and opportunities that don't involve perpetual interviewing.

You don't have to be introvert to not like sort of police interrogation.

I recommend negotiating from a position of power whenever possible (in this case, a BATNA) [1]. If you're interviewing when you want, while you're employed, it's on your terms. Don't like how the interview is going? "This isn't a good fit, have a great day" and move on to the next opportunity. It's only an interrogation if you let it be. Don't let it be.

I do agree with you that money and opportunities can be had without perpetual interviewing. The goal is to increase the number of dice rolls to maximize your chances of success. If you can do so without interviewing constantly, absolutely! Do it! But if you're comfortable constantly exploring work opportunities, and you have the time, I recommend doing so.

[1] https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/e... ("Your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA, is often your best source of bargaining power. By cultivating a strong outside alternative, you gain the power you need to walk away from an unappealing deal.")

(While we're here, here are two great resources on salary negotiations as well [2] [3])

[2] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ (patio11 on salary negotiation)

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=JoshDoody (Josh Doody, whom I have no affiliation with, has tons of quality material on negotiating roles and comp in general)

Of course that you should always look for new work when you are still employed, unless in rare cases when you have hell.

But as interview is interrogation, its unpleasant and its doubtful how much do you learn about opportunities or how high is your chances of success with taking into account lost time and energy. Making it perpetual sounds like a horror to me, and that is true for me even from the position of power. I'll rather go different route any time if possible.

Interviewing has to be one of the higher ROI activities you can do when it comes to the upside vs time invested.

It really depends on what you’re optimizing for. If it’s money and FIRE, sure I guess.

What do you find works best for short bursts of interview prep, a quick leetcode before lunch?

I am in infosec (primarily, there's a lot of similar work I do that doesn't neatly bucket into that including finance). No leetcode required (except for security engineering roles, possibly). This obviously does not apply to SWEs, so plan accordingly. The interviews are the practice/prep for each subsequent interview. Think of it like Toastmasters [1] but for your career. Leetcode polishing does sound like it might work for SWEs, but I cannot speak to it, and don't want to provide bad advice (which can be worse than no advice).

[1] https://www.toastmasters.org/