I had heard a while back that the typical turnaround time for a Bay Area based Software Engineer in a startup averages 6-9 months. I feel like, according to anecdotal evidence, this has been somewhat accurate for myself and other people I have worked with -- why stick around when you can hop over to the next company and get a 5-15 percent pay raise? I realized, though, that I didn't have any hard data to back this up. Googling around seems to only come up with results in percentage of attrition rates, but with no timeframes associated with that data. Are there any studies out there that address this topic?
This isn't hard data, but amongst my friends in the South Bay it seems to be about 1 year unless there's real promise of upside in the startup. It's just hard to keep talented people if the company seems to be foundering in the shoals, given that there is so much demand for good engineers.
I don't know specifically about the Bay Area, but everywhere else in the world having a bunch of short stints on your CV would be a bad thing. It also doesn't take many 5 - 15% pay bumps before you have maxed out what anyone is willing to pay you given your bleak CV.
