Latest / Job Hopping with Fexingo: Tenure, Loyalty, and the Modern Career Resume / How a Ten-Year Stay Transforms Your Career Capital
Transcript
- Lucas: We talk a lot on this show about the benefits of moving around — fresh challenges, salary bumps, broader networks. But there's a case for the other side that I think deserves equal time, especially in an era where staying put is often seen as a sign of complacency. Luna: You mean the person who's been at the same company for ten or fifteen years and isn't viewed as 'stuck' but actually as accumulating something valuable? Lucas: Exactly. And I want to anchor this with a specific example. A friend of mine — let's call him Mark — joined a mid-size industrial firm out of grad school in 2015. He stayed eleven years. Not because he couldn't find another job, but because he kept finding new problems to solve internally. By year seven, he was the only person who understood how three different legacy systems interacted, and that alone made him indispensable. Lucas: By year nine, he'd built relationships across R&D, supply chain, and finance. When the company went through a digital transformation, they tapped him to lead it. He became VP of operations this year. His external network isn't huge — he's not on every recruiter's radar — but his internal network is deep enough that he can get anything done. Luna: It's interesting because the standard advice is that you need to switch jobs every three to four years to maximize earnings, but Mark's trajectory sounds like he might have done better staying. Do you know what his comp progression looked like? Lucas: He told me his base salary grew at about six percent annually, which is solid but not spectacular. The real money came from stock appreciation and retention bonuses. By year ten, his equity was worth over a million dollars. He also got a significant bump when he moved into the VP role. So total compensation over that period likely exceeded what he would have made hopping every three years, especially if you factor in the risk of bad moves. Luna: That's a real counterpoint to the 'jump for twenty percent' narrative. But I imagine there are downsides too. What about the risk of being too tied to one company's culture or becoming obsolete if the industry shifts? Lucas: Absolutely. The biggest risk is atrophy of your external market value. Mark told me that when he finally interviewed for outside roles in year ten, he was surprised how much the interview process had changed — technical assessments, case studies, behavioral questions he wasn't used to. He also realized his professional network was almost entirely internal. If the company had decided to restructure his division, he would have been in a tough spot. Luna: So how do you know if you're Mark — building durable career capital — or if you're just coasting and hoping for the best? Lucas: That's the million-dollar question. I think there are three indicators. First, are you learning? Not just doing the same work with more efficiency, but acquiring genuinely new skills or perspectives. Second, is your influence expanding? Are you being asked to lead projects, mentor others, or contribute to strategy? Third, is your role evolving with the market? If the industry is moving toward AI and you're still running the same legacy reports, you're not building capital — you're building a trap. Luna: The learning piece is crucial. I had a friend who stayed at a bank for eight years, but by year five she was essentially a subject matter expert on a system that was being phased out. She was comfortable, but her skills were depreciating. She finally left and took a big pay cut to transition into a new field. Lucas: Right. And that's where the 'stay or go' calculation gets nuanced. Mark stayed because his role kept expanding. He moved from engineer to project lead to architect to VP. That's a different trajectory than someone who does the same job title for a decade. Lucas: There's also the network angle. One of the hidden benefits of long tenure is the trust you build across the organization. You know who to call to get something done, and people know you. That trust is a form of career capital that's hard to replicate when you switch jobs every two years. Luna: And that trust can translate into faster promotion cycles. If you're the person everyone already knows and trusts, you're more likely to get tapped for the big assignment than the new hire from a competitor, all else equal. Lucas: Exactly. But there's a critical caveat — you need to be intentional about building that visibility. It's not enough to just show up. You have to actively seek cross-functional projects, present at all-hands meetings, and make sure your contributions are seen. Otherwise you become the quiet expert that everyone relies on but no one promotes. Luna: Yeah, and that's the trap a lot of long-tenured employees fall into. They're excellent at execution but invisible to leadership. Then when restructuring comes, they're seen as cost, not asset. Lucas: So the framework I'd offer is this: if you're five-plus years into a role, do an honest audit every year. Ask yourself: Am I learning? Is my influence growing? Is my role evolving with the market? If the answer to any of those is no for two consecutive years, it's time to consider a move — either internally or externally. If all three are yes, you might be in a compound interest situation where staying actually maximizes your career outcomes. Luna: I like that. It gives people a concrete way to evaluate rather than just following the conventional wisdom of 'leave every three years' or 'stay forever.' Lucas: And look, this isn't just anecdotal. There's some research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showing that wage growth for job switchers tends to be higher for the first five years of a career, but after that, the gap narrows. And for workers in managerial or technical roles at large firms, tenure actually becomes a positive predictor of total compensation after about seven years, because stock grants and bonuses start to vest and compound. Luna: That's a data point I hadn't heard. Do you have the specific year for that study? I'd love to look it up. Lucas: It was a 2019 paper, so pre-pandemic. But the structural logic still holds — especially for companies that offer equity as a retention tool. At a company like Microsoft or Procter & Gamble, staying ten years can mean a portfolio of vested stock that rivals what you'd get from a decade of job-hopping. Luna: It also changes the negotiation dynamic. When you're a ten-year veteran considering a move, you're not just negotiating salary — you're negotiating to replace the value of unvested equity, relationships, and institutional knowledge. That's a much harder gap for a new employer to close. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why the best counteroffers come from current employers — they know exactly what you're worth internally. But as we talked about in Episode 2, counteroffers usually fail because the underlying reasons for leaving don't get addressed. Unless the issue was purely money, staying often just delays the inevitable. Luna: Which brings us back to Mark. Do you think his eleven-year stay was the right call, or would he have been better off leaving at year seven? Lucas: In his case, I think it was the right call because his role kept evolving. At year seven, he was still learning, still expanding his influence, and the company was investing in digital transformation — a growth area. If he had left, he would have missed the big promotion and the equity windfall. But if his role had plateaued, staying would have been a mistake. Luna: So the key takeaway is not that staying is better or worse, but that you should actively manage your career capital regardless of tenure. Don't just default to staying or leaving — decide based on whether you're still compounding. Lucas: That's exactly it. And to that point — and I know this is a bit meta — but thinking about your career capital is exactly the kind of thing that listeners of this show tell us they appreciate. And it's honestly what keeps us going. Luna: Yeah, and since we're being transparent, a small number of listeners already chip in to support the show, and that's literally what makes episodes like this possible. It keeps us ad-free and focused on the substance. Lucas: Right. So if this kind of conversation has helped you think through a career move or decision, and you want to be part of that, you can find the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a simple way to keep it going. And we really do read every message. Luna: Absolutely. And that support means we can spend time digging into topics like this rather than chasing clickbait. So thank you to anyone who's already contributed. Lucas: Alright, back to the substance. So we've talked about the benefits of long tenure, but I want to zoom in on one specific form of career capital that's underrated: proprietary knowledge. When you stay at a company for a decade, you learn things that aren't written down anywhere. You know the unwritten rules, the informal power structures, the history of why certain decisions were made. That knowledge is incredibly valuable to your employer, and it's something you can't take with you easily. Luna: Yeah, and that can be a double-edged sword. It makes you valuable internally, but it also ties you to that firm. If the firm stumbles, your knowledge becomes worthless overnight. Lucas: That's a real risk. And it's why you should always maintain some external visibility — speak at conferences, write about your work, network outside your company. That way, you're not starting from scratch if you need to leave. But if you can manage that balance, long tenure can be a powerful career strategy. Luna: So to wrap up, the advice isn't 'stay forever' or 'leave every two years.' It's 'know what you're building and whether it's still growing.' Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of thinking that, frankly, most career advice doesn't capture. So I hope this framework helps someone listening decide whether to stay or go. We'll be back next episode with another angle. Luna: Until then, keep building — whatever that looks like for you.