I've grown anxious the past few years watching salaries skyrocket while I've played it safe, remaining at my company with years of seniority, but average pay that has been eaten away by COL and inflation increases, though in a very stable industry related to defense.
Every time I got the urge to hit Leetcode and start interviewing for a new gig with a 50% pay increase, I remember 2007-2009 and getting laid off from 3 different companies as the economy imploded. And it's hard to remember now, but things never really felt truly safe, even with in-demand tech skills, until 2016 or so, when suddenly recruiter email started really exploding with competitive offers.
Watching the market cool down leads me to believe we're going into another downturn, and I'm becoming more confident I made a good bet by not jumping ship in the last year or two.
> Watching the market cool down leads me to believe we're going into another downturn, and I'm becoming more confident I made a good bet by not jumping ship in the last year or two.
It just seems like you're afraid of making a change, and now you've found a new justification to keep avoiding discomfort.
The reality is, there are tons of good companies out there and they will pay $350-400k for senior engineers even in this current market. But go ahead and tell yourself that you made the right decision to do nothing.
There are companies that are arguably what I’d consider recession proof, offering 400-600k for fully remote senior / staff roles with very reasonable WLB. Including GOOG / MSFT / AMZN. They’re not laying people off / nor are they going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Every time I got the urge to hit Leetcode and start interviewing for a new gig with a 50% pay increase, I remember 2007-2009 and getting laid off from 3 different companies as the economy imploded. And it's hard to remember now, but things never really felt truly safe, even with in-demand tech skills, until 2016 or so, when suddenly recruiter email started really exploding with competitive offers.
Watching the market cool down leads me to believe we're going into another downturn, and I'm becoming more confident I made a good bet by not jumping ship in the last year or two.