[lopsa-discuss] Career planning

[Josh Smith]

AW == Allan West <allan at cookie.org>

AW> How (un)usual is my position compared to other sysadmins who have been 
AW> working in the field for 10-15 years?

I've stayed at my jobs, in chronological order, for 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5
years. (And ten weeks (and counting :^) for the current one.) The first
and third were stable academic jobs, where I probably could've stayed as
long as I wanted, although a recent reorg at the third led to some layoffs
(yes, in academia). I left the third partly because I was dissatisfied
with the job and the environment, but also because I wanted to relocate
for personal reasons; had that not been the case, I could easily imagine
having stayed there for decades. I left the first because it was too
low-paying, which I didn't actually mind so much, but my favorite and
most-talented co-workers kept leaving. The second was a startup that got
bought by a big company, and my departure was somewhat less voluntary, in
that I quit shortly before the small company (now a business unit)
imploded; so I could've stayed longer, but the end was nigh, and permance
was not really an option.

For all four jobs, I've figured that if I like the people, and I like the
work, then I'll stay indefinitely, unless something changes. Something
often changes, alas. :^/ In each case, my desire to leave was triggered by
something changing, whether gradually or abruptly.

                                      -Josh (irilyth at infersys.com)