Why staying at one job longer than two years builds judgment you can't get elsewhere

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A software engineer argues that the common advice to change jobs every couple of years causes developers to miss a critical feedback loop that only emerges over 18 months or more. Watching your own architectural and design decisions age in production is described as the only reliable way to distinguish good instincts from bad ones. Beyond technical lessons, longer tenure also earns engineers informal influence — being consulted before decisions rather than after — and a working knowledge of how their specific organisation actually functions. However, the author cautions that staying can stop being productive, recommending a twice-yearly self-check: if you cannot name what you learned or what you would do differently, familiarity may be quietly costing you years of growth.

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