On average, how long do software developers stay on a job? Are there any numbers of how long software developers in the US stay on a job? Perhaps based on company size, industry, etc.

It really depends - but from my experience it’s more often the companies who make developers leave than the developers wanting to look for a new job. Reasons therefore are diverse to name just a few I’ve come across:

• companies closing
• companies moving to different cities
• companies stopping projects
• companies reducing benefits due to cost cutting
• companies assigning developers to “simple” never-ending maintenance jobs once the project is completed (I know that they need to be done but you probably should assign your rockstar developer to such tasks because he will get bored)

Most software developers I know are rather lazy when it comes to proactively looking for a new job - but if they are unsatisfied and approached by a headhunter with the right job, they might accept it. But I’ve only seen very few developers leaving companies when they had a challenging job and the company was either growing or stable. Software developers also do rarely leave unfinished projects - but once a project is done you will see a slight peak in people changing jobs.

When I’ve seen developers which a lot of short stays (1–3 years) I’ve usually questioned that about the projects they have, whether or not they went live, how the go live was, whether there was a lot of maintenance and support once the project was live. If they could answer all those questions it’s very likely that these guys are still committed to their project and do only very rarely leave unfinished work. I would hire such a person without any hesitation, but if you do have the impression that people have never completed a project you should dig a bit deeper in the interview and think twice if you would like to hire this person.

As a former recruiter. The I.T Sector is probably the most flexible and dynamic than any other, with a large percentage of developers working as contractors (applies particularly to the UK & USA).

This is partly due to many software houses working on a project by project basis therefore only recruit staff on the basis of their business/project needs.

In your case I would assume you are working predominantly a permanent roles. Rather than thinking about the number of years think about what skills you are learning. For example if within a 1 year you feel that you’ve learnt all skills experiences that you need to take you to the next level! Start applying for jobs.

In the same vain if you find you are getting all the skills, excitement, challenge that motivates and you look forward to going to work the next morning. Then stick to it even if it’s 5 years +.

At the end of the day base your move on 3 key factors.

1. Is this job improving my skills and exposing me to the latest technologies that will make me a valuable in the job market.
2. Am I enjoying my job and feel motivated?
3. Am I being being paid the market rate?

There are certainly numbers for specific companies within Silicon Valley. Hacker Life did a great survey of software developers at tech companies in the Bay Area and there were few interesting findings. The first one is that people stay in large companies for the longest time. As it turns out, the median is 2.3 years in a large company compared to 1.5 to small company.

Source

It also depends on the actual company in question. The results at the majors vary between 2 and 3 years. At the bottom of the scale was Uber while at the top of the scale you could find Netflix.

Source

So in other words, a software developer’s tenure at a silicon valley tech company can vary depending on a number of factors.

I think the industry is a little bit different than other. In the past 10 years, tech stack changes quickly and increasing number of start-ups come to the market. Start-up, according to some stats, has 98% of fail, meaning employee will have to leave even the job is interesting, using cutting edge tech and the person is motivated, high skilled, blah blah blah. Another factor to think about is the tech stack, some frameworks/languages which were stars can be replaced by N new comers in 3 years. Company which is not a tech company will most often not change so often, think about the difficult to support and maintain. It means employee who thinks one tech is already dead should move otherwise he/she just risk his/her career and most probably cannot find a as decent job when the company has any restructure, economic downturn, outsourcing, politics, business losses. Mind you then there are still a lot of companies think programmer is a cost center instead of profit generator.

• In a large company 90+% stay over a year.
• In a large company 75+% stay over three years.
• In a small company 75+% stay over a year.
• In a small company 50%+ stay over two years, if the company is still small.