https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-emplo...
Basically, a manager and employee agree to work on a particular project for a set period of time. At the end of that period of time, the employee is offered the option of switching to a new kind of project or leaving. If an employee leaves between tour of duties, it is considered a respectable departure and they receive the full support of the company in terms of referrals and positive reference checks.
I wish that more startups treated jobs as tours of duty. Your case highlights how having such an agreement with your employer could have been more mutually beneficial.
Is that even feasible for startups? I guess it depends on size and stage, but I imagine most startups don't have their mission and product to a solidified-enough stage where they can think in year-long phases...or to even have more than one major project in which a year-long engineering tour is possible.
You do know that military's that use thease systems have some rather nice tax and benefit perks that civilians wont be able to match.
"mr/ms x worked here from date to date"
For fear of some manger having rush of blood to the head and leave a company open to a law suit.
What's in it for the employee?
Almost exactly one year, one month later I left the company with no promotions or stock options in sight, although the workload and my duties were significantly larger than we agreed on.
In addition, that year made me realize that I had absolutely no passion for the work I was doing (automotive industry) and while the startup culture looks glamorous, it's far too stressful in the end and negatively affected my emotional and physical health.
I'm back in "big corporate" fintech and happy to say I was able to bring a lot of what I learned in the startup world back with me. I've been advancing my career far faster than I would have done in the land of startups and now own a significant amount of stock in my current company.