Depends on the country, I guess. In Europe, it would definitely not be the norm and I would definitely call previous employers if it was several 2 year stints.

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jstummbillig 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

2-3 years is pretty average tenure inside the EU tech sector for the past few years [1], but regardless I don't know what that tells us, given that nothing else about this is average. The sample size of Andrej-sized talent in an ongoing tech revolution of epic proportions is just very small.

[1] https://ravio.com/blog/employee-tenure-trends

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FabCH 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

While I absolutely confirm that everything you said is true, it’s interesting that that call would be illegal in many European countries. And in many more you would at best get a „I can confirm this person worked on this position in this timeframe“

	▲	prerok 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hmm, interesting point, I did not know that. But, aside from that, while they cannot tell you that the candidate would not be ok, I did get hints on what to look out for. I mean, you always have to take the previous employers' statements with a grain of salt, but if they say they really employed for just that project, it's also good info.

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dukeyukey 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Europe is not a monolith. Lots of short stints is not unusual in London.

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prerok 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

At startups? Sure. Several stints at non-startups? Well, how much of that time was spent learning the domain? Is that knowledge transferrable (probably not because of non-competition clause)? Why were you not happy at the previous employer?

I am not saying any of these don't have valid answers. What I am saying is that we would prefer juniors that are commited and do the hard work when the work gets hard. And, at least where I work now, this gets recognized, and they become seniors in time.

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worik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

London has not been part of Europe for a decade now. They locked themselves out in a bout of insanity

	▲	maleldil 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Europe and the European Union are not the same thing. The UK is definitely European.

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jen20 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Indeed it used to be the norm since basically everyone worth hiring was a contractor prior to the IR35 debacle.

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barrenko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And we have the stock market to show for it.

	▲	prerok 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I would not say that this is because of this point. It's because investors in Europe are more conservative. Employees are as well, it's true, so it's strange to have someone out of the norm. It's not a red flag per se, but it's a thing to be evaluated.

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toephu2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Andrej Karpathy is from Europe (Slovakia).

	▲	prerok 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		His point of origin is immaterial to my point. I was not commenting specifically for Mr. Karpathy. My point was generic.

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sneak 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Europe’s labor market is sadly still mostly out of touch with how startups work. It’s stuck in the last century. I’m not sure if this is due to tradition, or due to the fact that startups are much harder to start in Europe in general, so people on both sides of the hiring process have less experience with it.

Two years is more than long enough to join a startup, build 3 things, and see that your equity is never going to be worth anything, and find a new job. This isn’t anomalous or weird.

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dukeyukey 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Europe is not a monolith and I don't know why people think it is. 2 years stints are not unusual at all in London.

	▲	sneak 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		London is economically, politically, geographically, and culturally fairly distinct from continental Europe.
	▲	holoduke 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's about equity worth nothing jn Europe as an employee. Europe is a bad place for employees to join a startup. Lots of time people are attracted with shares/stars whatever. Only to find out they get nothing or are taxed to hell. There is a reason why Europe is failing.

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gambiting 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you're really in Europe then I'm sure you know that calling previous employers is completely pointless, the best you'll get is "yes this person has worked here before".

And I work in games and 2-3 years at each company is pretty normal, with some exceptions people just finish a project and then move(or are let go, unfortunately). YMMV of course.

	▲	prerok 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Depends, but definitely not pointless. Though, I do have the benefit of working in a small country, so chances are that I will know of the company and perchance know folks that work there. Even if not, employers will still see fit to help each other, at least if they are not direct competitors.
	▲	johnnyanmac 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I work in games and 2-3 years at each company is pretty normal, with some exceptions people just finish a project and then move(or are let go, unfortunately). YMMV of course. Yeah, being laid off every 2-3 years is a lot different from job hopping and shows exactly why the games industry is in its own little pocket of screwed in this market. Especially with games taking 3-5+ years to be made. How do you keep institutional knowledge when you kick it all out and basically start from scratch every cycle. -sincerely, another game dev