What if staying loyal to your company is actually hurting your career?

That’s not a rhetorical question. In IT, where skills become obsolete faster than most certifications expire, the “I’ll just stick it out” mindset can quietly derail what should be an upward trajectory. It’s a real risk that doesn’t get talked about enough.

Here’s the uncomfortable reality: 65% of employees report feeling stuck in their careers, and tech workers aren’t immune. The average tenure across all industries has dropped to 3.9 years — the lowest in two decades. Meanwhile, going past seven years without promotions, new responsibilities, or learning new skills starts looking less like loyalty and more like stagnation.

But there’s a difference between healthy job stability and getting comfortable to the point where you’re becoming irrelevant. This guide will help you figure out which category you’re in, and what to do about it.

Why This Decision Is Harder in IT

Before we get into the warning signs, let’s acknowledge why IT professionals specifically struggle with this question.

Unlike roles where your value comes primarily from tenure and institutional knowledge, your worth in IT is tied directly to your current skills. The sysadmin who mastered Windows Server 2012 and stopped there isn’t just behind. They’re competing for jobs against people half their age who grew up on containers and cloud infrastructure.

At the same time, IT roles often create a false sense of indispensability. You’re the one who knows where the bodies are buried — all those undocumented scripts, tribal knowledge about the legacy system that somehow still runs payroll, the relationships with vendors that took years to build. Walking away feels like abandoning your team.

That emotional weight is real. But it shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether you stay or go.

The 9 Warning Signs You’ve Stayed Too Long

Not every bad week means you should update your resume. But persistent patterns over months or years? That’s different.

1. You Haven’t Learned Anything New in Over a Year

In IT, standing still means falling behind.

If you can’t point to a single new tool, technology, framework, or process you’ve learned in the past 12 months, you have a problem. This isn’t about being a certification collector — it’s about whether your job is actually developing you or just using the skills you already have.

According to TripleTen’s research, 77% of workers have improved their market value by learning new skills in the past year. If you’re in the other 23%, your resume is getting weaker every month you stay.

The test: Can you describe something you know now that you didn’t know a year ago? Something that would be worth mentioning in an interview?

2. You’re Working with Outdated Technology

Here’s a stat that should worry you: employees at “technology laggards” are 450% more likely to want to leave than those working with modern tools.

There’s a reason for that gut feeling. Working with legacy systems that nobody else uses anymore isn’t just frustrating. It’s career poison. Every day you spend maintaining a COBOL system or a proprietary tool from 2008 is a day you’re not building skills that transfer to your next role.

Some companies rationalize this by saying “if it works, don’t fix it.” That’s fine for them. But your career doesn’t care about their budget constraints or change aversion.

The test: Google the main technologies you work with daily. Are companies hiring for these skills at salaries you’d want? Or are the job postings mostly maintenance roles at declining pay rates?

3. People Hired After You Keep Getting Promoted

This one hurts because it’s so visible.

You trained them. You answered their questions when they were new. And now they’re your peer. Or worse, your manager.

Getting passed over once can happen for legitimate reasons — maybe they had a specific skill gap you didn’t, or there was only one opening and they fit it slightly better. But if this has happened multiple times? The company is sending you a message whether they realize it or not.

According to LinkedIn research, 63% of professionals expect a promotion within 1-2 years. If you’ve received none in five years or been passed over several times, it’s time to re-evaluate whether this organization sees you as leadership material.

4. Your Salary Has Flatlined

Let’s talk numbers.

If your compensation hasn’t increased meaningfully in years, you’re not just stagnating. You’re actively losing money. Inflation has averaged around 3-4% annually since 2020, which means a “stable” salary is actually a pay cut every single year.

Here’s what makes this tricky in IT: companies often justify low raises by saying “the market is tough” or “we’re a family here.” Meanwhile, they’re hiring new people at 20-30% higher salaries because that’s what the market actually demands.

The only way to know your real market value is to interview elsewhere. Not necessarily to leave — but to understand whether you’re being paid fairly or subsidizing your employer’s payroll budget.

Related reading: How to Negotiate Your IT Salary

5. Sunday Nights Fill You with Dread

There’s normal “I’d rather relax than work” energy. And then there’s the kind of anxiety that starts building Sunday afternoon and doesn’t let up until you’re actually at your desk Monday morning.

Here’s the distinction: if you’re dreading specific situations (a difficult project, a challenging coworker), that’s usually solvable. But if you’re dreading the job itself — the routine, the environment, the fundamental nature of the work — that’s your body telling you something important.

42% of IT professionals have a high risk of burnout. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s a warning that the job is taking more than it’s giving. If this resonates, check out our guide on managing burnout in tech careers.

6. You’ve Stopped Caring About Quality

Remember when you cared about doing good work? When you’d stay a few extra minutes to clean up code, document a process properly, or think through edge cases?

If that feels like a long time ago — if you’re now just trying to hit minimum viable quality to keep people off your back — something has broken.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s usually a symptom of feeling undervalued, unsupported, or stuck in work that no longer interests you. But whatever the cause, it’s a sign that the relationship between you and this job has run its course.

7. Mass Departures Are Happening Around You

Pay attention to who’s leaving.

If it’s the new hires who never quite fit, that’s just normal turnover. But if it’s the long-tenured people? The high performers, the ones who really understood how things work? That’s a leading indicator.

People don’t leave good situations. When you see an exodus of talent, they know something. Maybe it’s a reorg coming. Maybe it’s budget cuts. Maybe it’s just that leadership has shifted and the culture is deteriorating.

You don’t have to be the first one out. But you probably shouldn’t be the last.

8. The Company Can’t (or Won’t) Invest in Your Growth

Here’s a question: when’s the last time your employer paid for training, a certification, or a conference?

Some companies view professional development as a core responsibility. They budget for it, encourage it, and recognize that helping you grow is how they retain talent. Other companies treat every training request as an expense to be minimized or denied.

If your company falls into the second category, you’re effectively paying for your own career development by staying. Every year you don’t get proper training is a year you’re falling behind people at companies that actually invest in their teams.

This is especially brutal for IT professionals trying to break into cybersecurity or transition into cloud engineering. These paths require significant skill building that your employer may or may not support. Check our cybersecurity careers hub and IT certifications hub for guidance on building these skills independently.

9. You’ve Become the “Legacy System” Person

Every IT department has one: the person who maintains the thing nobody else wants to touch. The ancient application that somehow still runs. The integration held together by scripts written by someone who left five years ago.

Being indispensable sounds good. Until you realize what it actually means: you’re so tied to dying technology that promoting you would create a crisis.

This is a trap. Your “job security” is actually career imprisonment. The company needs you exactly where you are, which means they have zero incentive to help you grow.

The Counter-Argument: When Staying Makes Sense

I should be fair here. Not every long tenure is a mistake.

Stay if:

  • You’re genuinely learning and growing, even if promotions are slow
  • Your compensation is competitive with market rates
  • You have clear visibility into your next role and a timeline to get there
  • The company invests in your development
  • You have autonomy, respect, and work you find meaningful

Some people thrive by going deep at one organization, building relationships and institutional knowledge that compounds over time. If that’s your path and it’s working, don’t let anyone pressure you into job-hopping for its own sake.

But be honest with yourself. “I’m comfortable” and “I’m growing” are not the same thing.

How Long Should You Actually Stay?

There’s no universal right answer, but here are some benchmarks:

Help desk / Tier 1 support: 1-2 years is typical before moving to desktop support, sysadmin, or a specialized track. Staying beyond 3 years without advancement is a red flag. Check out our guide on leaving help desk for more on this.

Junior sysadmin / desktop support: 2-3 years to build depth. If you’re not seeing progress toward senior roles by year 4, the company may not have room for you to grow. Consider the help desk to sysadmin progression path or a sysadmin to DevOps transition.

Mid-level roles: 3-5 years is reasonable. You should be taking on more responsibility, leading projects, or developing specializations during this time.

Senior / lead roles: Longer tenures make more sense here, but you should still be evolving — mentoring others, influencing architecture decisions, staying current with industry changes.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average tenure is about 4 years across all industries. For tech specifically, the median is often shorter. But averages don’t matter nearly as much as whether you’re progressing toward your personal career goals.

The Job-Hopping Myth

Here’s something that might surprise you: the salary premium for job-hopping has basically disappeared.

Recent data from the Atlanta Fed shows workers who stayed put saw a 4.6% wage increase, compared to job-switchers who gained only 0.2% more. This is a major shift from the past decade when switching jobs was the guaranteed path to raises.

What this means: don’t leave just to leave. Don’t chase a 10% raise if you’re going from a good situation to an unknown one. But don’t stay in a bad situation just because staying has become the new financial optimization either.

The right move is still the right move, regardless of what aggregate data says.

How to Leave Without Burning Bridges

Let’s say you’ve decided it’s time. Here’s how to do it properly.

Build Your Exit Plan First

Don’t rage-quit. Don’t submit your two weeks because you had a bad day. Have your next opportunity lined up, or at least a solid financial runway and active job search.

Start with updating your resume and optimizing your LinkedIn profile. The best time to find a job is while you have one. You interview better when you’re not desperate, and you can afford to be selective.

Document Everything You Do

Before you leave, create the documentation you wish existed when you started. Write down how the critical systems work, where the credentials are stored, who the key contacts are for different vendors. If you’ve never been good at this, our IT documentation best practices guide can help you create something useful fast.

This isn’t just being nice — it’s protecting your reputation. You want your departure to be remembered as professional, not as the moment everything fell apart.

Have the Honest Conversation (Maybe)

Some companies genuinely don’t know there’s a problem until someone leaves. If you have a decent relationship with your manager, consider having an honest conversation about what would make you stay.

But be realistic. If the issues are systemic — culture, leadership, lack of investment — no conversation is going to fix them. And some managers will react poorly to any hint that you’re thinking about leaving. Know your audience.

Give Proper Notice

Two weeks is standard. More if you’re in a senior role or have complex handoffs. Never less than two weeks unless the situation is truly untenable.

Don’t skip the notice period even if you’re frustrated. Your professional reputation follows you, and the IT world is smaller than you think. The hiring manager at your next job might be LinkedIn friends with your current boss.

Leave Quietly

Don’t send the angry all-hands email. Don’t trash the company on Glassdoor with identifying details. Don’t post a cryptic “exciting news coming soon” on LinkedIn that everyone knows is passive-aggressive.

Just leave. Thank people who helped you. Hand off your work. Move on.

What If You’re Not Ready to Leave?

Maybe reading this made you realize you’re not quite at the exit point — but you’re heading there.

Here are some things that can buy time:

Ask for new responsibilities. Sometimes stagnation happens because you’re doing the same thing and nobody realized you wanted more. Make the ask explicitly.

Propose a training budget. Come with specific courses, certs, or conferences you want to attend and how they’ll benefit the company. It’s harder to say no to a concrete plan.

Explore internal moves. Different team, different manager, different technology stack. Some companies are much better than others about internal mobility, but it’s worth asking.

Build skills on your own time. Not ideal, but sometimes the path forward requires investing in yourself. Platforms like Shell Samurai for Linux and security skills, A Cloud Guru for cloud certifications, or TryHackMe for security practice can keep your skills current even if your day job isn’t helping.

Network outside the company. Go to meetups. Connect with people on LinkedIn. Keep your external reputation strong even if your internal one feels stuck.

These won’t fix a fundamentally bad situation. But they can turn “I need to leave right now” into “I’ll leave on my terms, when I’m ready.”

The Final Question

Here’s what it comes down to: Are you better today than you were a year ago? Are you on track to be better a year from now?

If yes, stay. If no, start planning.

Your employer will survive without you — they always do. The question is whether you’re building a career or just collecting paychecks while your skills slowly atrophy.

Loyalty is a virtue. But not to organizations that aren’t loyal back.

FAQ

How do I know if I should leave my IT job or just ask for changes first?

Try internal solutions first if: you like the company culture, have good relationships with leadership, and the problems are specific and fixable (like needing a raise, wanting different projects, or requesting training). Leave without negotiating if: the culture is toxic, you’ve raised concerns repeatedly with no change, or the fundamental nature of the work no longer interests you.

Is job-hopping bad for IT careers?

Not inherently. Early in your career, frequent moves (every 1-2 years) to gain experience and salary bumps are normal and expected. As you advance, longer tenures become more important for leadership credibility. The key is that each move should have a clear rationale — you left for growth, better opportunity, or to escape a genuinely bad situation, not just restlessness. For more on advancing, see our guide on getting promoted in IT.

What’s the biggest mistake people make when leaving an IT job?

Leaving without a plan. The emotional relief of quitting can cloud judgment about finances, job market realities, and what you actually want next. Have at least 3-6 months of expenses saved and ideally a new position lined up. The second biggest mistake: burning bridges on the way out through unprofessional behavior or venting publicly.

How do I explain leaving a job after only a few months?

Be honest but strategic. Frame it around fit rather than blame: “The role turned out to be different than what was discussed in the interview process” or “The company went through significant changes shortly after I joined.” Never trash the employer, even if they deserve it. Interviewers are looking for professionalism, not validation of your frustrations. For more interview prep, see our IT interview questions guide.

Should I tell my current employer I’m job searching?

Generally, no. Most employers interpret this as disloyalty and may start planning your replacement immediately. The exception is if you have an unusually trusting relationship with your manager and believe they might help you find internal opportunities or provide a strong reference. But this is rare — default to keeping your search private until you have an offer.