Personally, I’ve been at the same job, but changed positions a few times internally for over six years now. I can’t say the same for not one, but two of my friends in tech, one of which who also worked at my company if I did prior to leaving. The other was one I kept in touch with after college.
The first one was and still is a programmer. He was happy at our company for the most part, but when the pandemic hit his workload dropped significantly as much of what he supported was only used when people were onsite. While his boss was flexible (this was relatively early into the pandemic) and provided him with full remote opportunities, he wasn’t a fan on the new projects his team was taking on, so the job hunt began. Long story short, he left Intel and gave up the so-called ‘golden handcuffs’ of an excellent dental and health insurance plan, stock that was still yet to vest, and other opportunities to grow internally to name a few. I’d like to think he got caught up in the cash incentives and bonus structure. The new offer included a onetime bonus to cover what he’d be leaving behind, plus the opportunity to work remote full time was inciting as the company is based out of Vancouver BC. He ended up moving to Eugene, and while the job is nice the short-term cash to ‘buy out’ what he was leaving behind was only so good. The benefits the new company provides are just fine, but nothing like what he was used to prior. I suppose the grass is always greener.
The other fell into the permanent road-warrior life, flying where the job requires him to be for deployments. The pay has been great for the 3 companies he’s essentially done the same job for, and the benefits have been mixed. The most taxing parts have been eating all the time on the road, not really have a permanent home base to come back to, and the never-ending needs. he’s started to feel a bit trapped as the work never seems to end but there’s little to nowhere to grow from the role, he’s in as he peaked early. From what I gather, he’s starting to now revaluate his time off and how much of he can spend doing what he’d like, as opposed to spending it in hotel room.
Jones, K. (2021, August 31). The Most Desirable Employee Benefits. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 2, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2017/02/the-most-desirable-employee-benefits
