In your early 20s, the key to growing in your career, especially if you have a job, is switching companies every 2-3 years.

Average case, if you stay in the same company, unless you’re like the cream of the cream, your promotion & hike won’t match what you get when shifting.

Once you reach a glass ceiling level - like a managerial or a senior engineer position from which it takes a long time and lot of effort and luck to move up the ladder (early to mid thirties) - that’s when you find some company you love to settle down and rise through the ranks.

Example: A very talented coder who joined with me at PayPal, left PayPal at 1y mark to work for Gojek in Bangalore. She left Gojek after 2 years there to go to Grab, Singapore.

Once in Singapore, she left Grab in 6 months to join Twitter.

Her salary went up by over 10x between her first year at PayPal and her fifth with Twitter.

She had a 7.8 CGPA when she graduated. But she was diligent, persistent, and a very practical, damn good female coder I ever knew.

This may not be the average case. But if you’re diligent enough and put in a lot of hard work and always remain interview ready - you can at least 3-5x your salary in 5 years.

The hikes they give in MNCs or even Startups are peanuts compared to what you get when you switch.