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Comment by bdavis__ | Hacker News Reader

Is software really so shallow? Does it wash away so quickly as fads change?

How do you get really, really deep knowledge?

A person that works at the same company for 25 years should show a progression of titles and work assignments, ending up with a very valuable perspective into the companies products, customers, and business issues.

Job hopping every 2 years? Do you even know how to make coffee before you leave?

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> Is software really so shallow? Does it wash away so quickly as fads change?

In SV and in the NH bubble, yes.

Ex Amazon here. In Amazon there's plenty of technology that HN would likely characterize as "extremely ancient" that keeps the production infrastructure running. (I'm not talking about AWS)

Yeah I'm also kinda confused... What do those "hopping" people do at work? Must be consulting roles for new projects? Or just working on small "easy" projects? Otherwise it usually takes 1-2 years just to get comfortable for the current project.

If it’s at the same company, often less. I switched from one line of business to another, completely new team, and it took a few months to get comfortable with the current project.

Anecdote: in 6 months I can and have surpassed team members that have been with the team for 6 years. These are bespoke complex systems, but some people don’t advance much (“work to live”?) and I’m a quick learner, partly due to job hopping.

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