TECH CAREERS
On Job Hopping
You are joining a company. At best it is a “team,” never a “family.” On a team the best players play and get paid well, the worst players are cut. Teams pay players what they need to retain talent, not any more. Interview quarterly to stay sharp and test the market; try to work in areas of growth for the company (e.g., read the news / earnings reports to find out AWS Cloud and AI is growing and drone delivery is a cost center).
Getting into big tech (in any role) can be the hardest part. It will create new opportunities for you for movement and give you the tech “brand” when someone sees Apple/Microsoft/etc on your resume
There are often more internal job postings (visible only to MSFT employees at MSFT) than external job postings (available to anyone on the internet to see).
Being inside a company and doing well will help you cultivate mentors and advocates who can support you in job changes, promotion packets, etc.
You can generally change one thing at a time between level, organization, and job family. So an L4 TPM working in Public Sector may be able to become an L4 TPM on a commercial product. Sometimes you’ll take a downlevel, so an L5 TPM on a commercial product may be able to become an L4/L5 PM. In general, it’s easier to move from more technical roles (e.g. SWE) to less technical roles (e.g. TPM, PM).
Some people are wary of leaving a role within two years. You probably get one freebie as you transition out of the military (I only stayed at my first role for 10 months), but I wouldn’t make a habit of <1 year stints.
However, job hopping company to company is a great way to get promoted and increase compensation. E.g., 2-3 years at Company A → 2-3 years at Company B → 2-3 years at company C. The downside is you have to learn a new company, new processes, and build relationships. The upside is that new hires generally get paid more than people who get promoted from within, and big tech promotions can be hard to come by unless you’re changing jobs
Contrarian: think about making an internal commitment to yourself for how long you want to stay, and what would make that duration increase/decrease. Sticking around and performing when times get tough can give you lots of credibility