I've been a programmer for 3 years professionally, jumping straight from dropping out of college with an irrelevant major into web development, which led to a series of job hops when I was still in my very early twenties (since age 19).
On average, I've held down a job for about ~9 months, with a total of 4 jobs.
- I left the first one because it was cooking the books and practiced envelope salaries with no written contracts,
- the second one because I jumped above board with my junior skill-set and wasn't able to meet goals (this seems to cause a lot of confusion - I stayed for 8 months total, with 6 months of good performance, then a personal crisis hit and I wasn't able to meet goals despite management support - they reached out and were ready to help, but I just let them down),
- the third one because of mismanagement by middle management and my lack of social awareness (a really nice startup idea died because of bad architecture I didn't speak out against due to lack of experience-backed authority),
- the fourth one due to ethical concerns about unfair competition,
- and the current one, which I'll soon be clocking a year in, and staying a while longer regardless, because I plan to move countries due to serious political instability - originally, I was going to stay here for several years, but with the current political climate in my country I cannot risk it.
Now, to me, 5 jobs in 3 years seems like a red flag to HR personnel - but I believe that all (except the second) job hops were more than appropriate given the circumstances. Will such a history rightfully risk putting me in a bad light before international employers? This sort of commitment on both sides feels a lot more serious than any domestic job.
I'm considering countries like the UK, USA, Australia. The latter especially has a good program for skilled immigration that I seem to qualify for.
