Does moving through smaller companies in 1-2 year steps do better? They don't seem to have that many high paying positions (maybe anymore, or in my region).
In my experience, switching among smaller companies at ~2-year intervals does better up until you hit that area-specific level of diminishing returns. When I was a team lead, I wasn't involved in salary negotiations, but I had access to my team's salary data and they were all over the map based on what their previous salaries had been, not what their value to the company was. It was eye-opening.
