> HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they dont care, they are paid to bring talent in, they don't get penalized if an employee quits after a year.

Hiring managers care because it's a big hit to your deliverables every time someone leaves and you have hire someone else, bring them up to speed, and try to get them back up to the same level of knowledge as the person who left.

If you have a team of 6 and everyone leaves every 12 months, that means you're hiring and re-training a new person every other month. And every other month, 17% of your team's accumulated knowledge/experience walks out the door. And every year, you're basically starting over with a new team.

It sucks, and that's why hiring managers give preference to people who aren't serial job hoppers.

It's actually becoming fairly common for companies to give back-weighted compensation or hiring bonuses that must be paid back if the employee leaves before two years, especially for job hoppers.

People leaving companies every 1-2 years, doesn't mean, that on any given team, everybody will leave every year, so your example is a bit over the top.

> It's actually becoming fairly common for companies to give back-weighted compensation or hiring bonuses that must be paid back if the employee leaves before two years, especially for job hoppers.

Which companies are doing this?

The way companies keep employees around is with good RSU vesting schedules, and end of the year bonuses, etc... I understand that a team with people leaving all the time, is bad for business , that's why companies (that care) have incentives in place to avoid that. But judging a person for wanting a better pay/treatment/wlb is ridiculous, I can see your point from the business owner perspective.

> It's actually becoming fairly common for companies to give back-weighted compensation or hiring bonuses that must be paid back if the employee leaves before two years, especially for job hoppers.

You mean like Amazon with it's weird vesting schedule? Those companies also struggle to attract talent, especially combined with obscure PIPs which can push employees out before a single RSU has vested. Those companies are not going to do well in this hiring market.

It should be easy to fire bad employees, and on the flip side, it should be easy to fire bad employers too.

If you have a team of 6 and everyone leaves every 12 months, it doesn't matter what candidate you bring on, job hopper or not, your organization is the one at fault.

I’m currently involved in hiring at a rather large tech company and I assure you that the hiring manager would be highly displeased if someone left after just a year. In fact, that is true of every hiring manager I’ve ever worked with, because hiring managers hire direct to thier teams and turnover is a PITA. Recruiters may not care, but managers and teammates do. That’s not to say we’d resent someone taking a better offer, but managers and ICs alike prefer lower turnover.

In also know that there is a point (basically staff/principal) where we are very reluctant to make outside hires who haven’t been at that level at another big tech company for a while. We’ll almost never up level someone at hire time. You have to have demonstrated impact over time and that is hard to do without 2.5+ years at the company (although I’m getting the sense that once you break that threshold, moving around more frequently can help again.)

It happened three times this year that I interviewed for companies having only worked a place for one year, and they didn't even mention this factor. Why? In each case because I'd be filling some urgent hole on a team somewhere. I suppose it's kind of like how "cheating on your partner is bad, but your secret lover won't mind"... as long as there's an immediate gain to your coming employer, they'll focus on other things like how good of a personal fit you'd be, and if you know those things that are in the 6-month plan. Some hiring managers are thinking short-term is my experience. And that is, honestly, just as much of a red flag as an interviewee.

> most smart people hiring understand that you switch jobs seeking a higher TC, in the same way businesses change course/pivot seeking higher profits

> The "stay forever and maybe one day you will get promoted", is a thing of the past. You make more money switching jobs than waiting for a promotion

These statements are FAR from universally true. My TC has more than doubled in the last 5 years without a job hop. In the same time period, many of my peers have hopped to facebook et al and increased their TC comparably. There is no one true way.

My TC went up 5x in the last 5 years. I accomplished this by job hoping twice, more than doubling with every move. That could not happen if I stuck around the old job, even after multiple promotions. My only regret is I should have job-hopped earlier, I missed out on 5-digits of income.

There is no one true way, yes, but one gives the employee more control over their destiny.

> HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they dont care, they are paid to bring talent in, they don't get penalized if an employee quits after a year.

Recruiters might be paid to bring people in, but HMs are the ones whose teams these hires typically work for, so being able to do productive things with them is more important than just bringing people in. The cost of retraining, losing institutional knowledge etc, and just the time it takes to bring in a new person are all costs that take away from the actual work of building the product.

> HMs in small companies, maybe, in big companies , they don't care, they are paid to bring talent in,

You're confusing recruiters for line managers. HM == Hiring Manager == the person who's trying to build a team to accomplish a project, and at large companies most likely a multi-year roadmap.

They absolutely care about people staying a long time - it is expensive to train people on the internals of each company. At a FAANG++ company, you get your first code checked in in your first week, but it takes a YEAR to be truly productive where you are fully autonomous, and have paid off the initial ramp-up period.

> I have seen your other comments along the same line, is mostly wrong, at least here in the US, is always business

According to you. Not everyone's focus is 100% financial-based. Do I want to maximize my earning potential? Of course. But work is also 1/3 of my life. Another 1/3 is sleep. They money is for the last 3rd. So is my entire focus on 1/3 of my life to make the other waking 3rd to be as lucrative as possible? I think that's one way to approach it, but I think that's extremely short-sighted and unfulfilling.

I want my work to be meaningful, challenging, interesting, and impactful. At this point in my career I can control all this by finding workplaces, coworkers, and projects that match my skillset and my impact, and I can realize this. This means committing to multi-year plans to achieve something significant. (In the olden days we would have called this a "legacy", and I suppose that's still appropriate to some degree, though I don't expect to get a plaque on a bridge for it).

I think a lot of people are in the same boat as me. It's also part of the hacker and startup ethos - to make an actual dent in the universe.

Your attitude is very cynical, and while I agree with you that you don't owe anything to the capitalist system that is cynical about using you, that doesn't mean seeking money is the only way.

> lots of companies don't have enough "senior positions" or all the next level positions are covered

Absolutely not true. All the FAANG++ companies do promotions based on accomplishments and achievements, not a quota of budget or availability of folks at the next level.

> Also, managers see people who are afraid to leave, or "loyal" to the company as people then can squeeze more work out of.

Not the case. These managers exist, but they're not the majority. Most people who go into management genuinely care about people, and are interested in developing them. They'd like to reward loyalty. Unfortunately the aforementioned capitalist system does not permit this, but on an individual level managers are human beings with usually more empathy than IC's (out of necessity).

> "Anything big" like what?

A major software project that takes a team of people several years to accomplish.

> At a FAANG++ company, you get your first code checked in in your first week, but it takes a YEAR to be truly productive where you are fully autonomous, and have paid off the initial ramp-up period.

I work at one of the FAANGs, and have found this to be 100% untrue. I was fully productive within a week, because I was already an SME in what the team was doing. Likewise, everyone hired on the same team have also been immediately productive. Perhaps it's years of consulting experience (where immediate productivity is expected in hours, regardless of environment), but that is not an uncommon path.

You absolutely do not owe companies loyalty. The same will not be displayed to you when "tough times" hit those companies. Trying to divert from this truism with "startup ethos" or similar such woo is not useful to the majority of people.

I did not say anything about owing the company loyalty.

I disputed OP's point that Hiring Managers don't care about loyalty, and care if you leave after a year.