Comment by busterarm

I like this sentiment, yeah.

Honestly every job has huge up and down swings. I've been at my current place for about a decade, which seems like an outlier in this industry. Also roughly 1/3 of the people I started my career with (roughly 40 or so) are no longer even in the industry. Another 1/5 or so have transitioned to adjacent roles like project management, etc.

I make it a point to evaluate whether I want to stay where I'm at every six months and only leave if I want to leave two evaluations in a row.

I get the salary optimization done by the 2-year hoppers, but it bites you down the road as a senior engineer and onward because you've never had to live with the consequences of your engineering choices. Hanging around for longer teaches you that even the seemingly-best decision made at the time can seriously bite you years down the road.