On the flip side, if you're jumping between companies regularly to stay fresh on tech, you might not actually be progressing in the way you think you are. A decade later you might still be a $latest_technology developer with 2-3 years of marketable experience.
The changes that have been most meaningful to my career are thing like becoming a tech lead and moving into engineering management. And these have happened when I've become embedded into a company.
Indeed becoming a tech lead or manager comes through being part of the company most of the times. Which sometimes is a terrible practice because being employee #3, 5, 10, etc. and staying there for 5-10 years does not mean you are a good leader or manager. Not to mention that in most companies it is also impossible to move higher in the ladder with all the internal politics, "friendships" and significant lack of proper management.
Regarding management, it's a bootstrapping issue: The main requirement for an engineering management position is management experience. The easiest way to get it is to stay at one place for 3-4 years. The move based on that experience.
* Line management: are you willing to be the man and promulgate the party line? You can be mostly apolitical in this role.
* Middle management: are you willing to be the pawn of a specific member or two of senior management and do their bidding (which probably isn’t fully aligned with the party line)?
* Senior management: do you know how to intelligently break the rules in order to stand out from the crowd of middle managers? This could be by developing a broad following within the lower levels of the company through self-promotion, through cultivating specific relationships with the CEO and/or board, or by (in rare cases) delivering on highly visible and truly remarkable results for the company.
> or by (in rare cases) delivering on highly visible and truly remarkable results for the company.
One example I know from the 80's: you're a director of a factory in some South-American country that produces something. It's making a loss of a few million dollars per year, and everyone at the parent company for which this factory is simply a small business unit thinks it will amount to nothing.
In two years, you've turned the situation around and are profitable with 1 million dollars per year.
The company promotes you to your next role and your successor shows how difficult your challenge was, as it's losing a few million dollars per year again.
The trick in this case: be competent, and become friends with the local South-American director, as upon arrival you realize that the company you're running is actually owned 50% by the company you work for. The other 50% is owned by some South-American company and the whole reason it loses money is because they cannot connect with the South-American director.
True story, can't disclose sources, but anyone who has seen the 80's might know similar stories.
The changes that have been most meaningful to my career are thing like becoming a tech lead and moving into engineering management. And these have happened when I've become embedded into a company.