Comment by scarface_74

The original poster doesn’t seem to be just looking for increased compensation though. They want more “autonomy”. The preparation you do for interviewing is different than what you do for more autonomy and I assume he means leading projects.

It’s hard to both change companies and get a promotion if you haven’t demonstrated working at the next level. By promotion, I don’t mean more money. I mean increased responsibility.

I agree with you though about not staying at a job too long. I did the same thing for many of the same reasons between 1999-2008 and it took me 6-8 years to recover both to be competitive in the market and locally compensation wise.