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For me the first 2 nail it but on the other way around.
1. A challenge
2. Money
Of course I never changed for less money, but I always changed primarily based on the challenge.
I've always been working on products, and when they reach the plateau, it's time for me to leave and find a new baby again.
Cheers!
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Well how convenient a question is that, I am looking for a change and am having a second interview today at lunchtime 
1. For me, money has been completely irrelevant in currently looking to move on, if somewhere I feel is the right place offers me round or about what I'm currently earning I'll be happy
2 and 3. Most definitely biggies. Although my current employer are actually good as an employer in general terms, (flexible, reasonable benefits etc.), they've been 're-organising' the entirety of the group IT and given that's over 1500 people and there is union involvement this has been a work in progress now for over 12 months. During that time; no training budget, (not even for conferences such as SQL BITS), no kit budget, (one of the guys I work with is using a laptop that takes close to half an hour to start up and log on to the network), no pro-active development, so we have not been to address significant underlying architectural and technical issues with the main system(s) we work on. This has left us spending a year making no significant improvements technically (or from a personal knowledge perspective), with no work coming in other than the equivalent of 'can you change the layout of that form?'.
4. As I said, my current employer are actually very good in this respect so although this would be part of my decision to commit to a move, it wouldn't make me want to
5. Meh, that's a double edged sword if ever there was one in this industry!
6. Couldn't care less
I would say the biggest part of my current thinking is the stagnation of my current work when technology moves on so quickly. I'm playing with MVC 4 in a sandbox area at the moment, (which seems as much of a paradigm shift as asp to asp.net, maybe a bigger one IMHO). I want to be able to learn, assess and make use of newer technologies and although there are a lot of samples out there, the best way to learn after you get a basic grounding is, I think, by using them in anger. I wouldn't say I want to be an MVC developer over web forms, (or windows forms, or sql...), but I do want to be able to consider it as an option when making technical or development decisions and there is no opportunity to do that where I am, there is always work to do, but most of it is technical gaffer tape rather than properly addressing issues and there just hasn't been any will from the business to do anything than continue in that vein.
Rhys
"If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the Universe"
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Chris Maunder wrote: What would it take for you to leave your current job?
Reason #1 : Being fed up with actual one otherwise I stay. Whatever challenge, environment, etc., you offer...
Reason #2 : a chance to learn something || have a mentor
Seulement, dans certains cas, n'est-ce pas, on n'entend guère que ce qu'on désire entendre et ce qui vous arrange le mieux... [^]
Joe never complained of anything but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart [^]
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Time off.
As you know with my current gig I have plenty of it. So it would have to at least match it. (and no loss of remuneration either!)
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Yeah, but all the fast cars and friendly women tire you out, right?
You and that dream job of yours... 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I am kind of looking for something else because I am a bit pissed off with some stuff here, but there are lots of good things about here.
My last job I was seriously pissed off with for a couple of years but it was 5 minutes from my house so it took a lot to give that up, especially as I had a new child at home.
At the moment the things that I am looking for (which I not sure all exist( are;
Money - I spend every penny I earn and have almost no disposable income, this is fairly miserable, I could not afford to make myself worse off by changing jobs, I would like to be better off. Worse off is not just salary, but travel costs and so on.
Working environment - I currently work in a largeish open plan office with a tiny desk crammed against others. This is very crap.
Flexibility - I have a young child, my wife has some health problems, I need to be flexible in my hours and with the ability to work from home. I could not give that up right now.
Attitude of company - I currently work for an old, fair sized company that is very comfortable and very slow moving. I want to work for a small company that thinks big.
Range / scale of job - I hate repetition, I get bored easily, I hate having access to part of something rather than the overall whole, I hate being remote from the business. I want to get fully immersed in a company and all the crap that comes with it.
Do I get the job?
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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I'm debt-free so I can move for reasons other than financial. Don't get me wrong, I want a good salary but I'm flexible. That means I can look at other factors about the workplace. Flexitime is nice but not essential. Dress code should be informal but not OTT. I've no problem with what people wear but sometimes what they wear is a reflection of their attitude to others and to an extent, their attitude to their job.
Office furniture should be comfortable to use and the general environment should be conducive. I know: there are people who dress like tramps, stink like a skunk and who are happy coding in the slops in a dumpster but not everyone does.
Management: you could work for the best paying company in the world but what's the point if the management uses fear and intimidation to bully its staff. You say such firms don't exist, can't exist? We have one employer where it's a serious problem; it's called the NHS. If it works right at the top, it works right at the bottom.
Respect: You can't put a price on that. And you can't buy it either. Many, many years ago, a bank in the UK made some staff redundant. One employee was in hospital when the news broke so HR actually sent someone to the ward to give him his redundancy letter.
The workplace is more about money. Money's important but to reverse that famous statement made by some fashion house owner (can't remember her name); I'd rather be happy on a bicycle than be miserable in a Rolls-Royce.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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An interesting challenge to break away from current tedium, or a bigger challenge than their last
A chance to own something, to get in at the start and build it under your direction
Money
Office environment, perks, co-workers, location, flexibility in hours
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence EAT BACON
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I am amazed at all the hypocritical answers here about challenge, ability to drive your own project, and such : Put the right amount of money on the table, and you will get anyone.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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And I'm sad that you feel it's hypocritical for people to say they'd move for a chance to have an interesting, rather than lucrative position.
My degree is in theoretical physics and I was under no illusions at the time that I would never make money, but that didn't matter one bit to me as long as I was working on stuff that was fascinating. Talk to artists, scientists, those in NPOs and those in healthcare. And then look at what they pay basic workers in far off mining communities and you see that money isn't actually everything.
(But yes: you pay 10 million bucks a year and you will get a far higher sign-up rate than 50K a year)
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: but that didn't matter one bit to me as long as I was working on stuff that was fascinating
This is good as long as you are single, with a family to feed, you tend to forget about your dreams and look to get money on your account at the end of the month. Extremely few people are well paid and enjoy their work. Actually, extremely few people enjoy their work. You talked about healthcare or NPOs : Give them more money to do a less interesting job, 99.9% will do the move, at least in France.
Chris Maunder wrote: it's hypocritical for people to say they'd move for a chance to have an interesting, rather than lucrative position
I have never met anyone do that. That are things people love to say, but when the opportunity is there, how many chose "conmfort" instead of "challenge" ? That's precisely being hypocritical.
I do think it is sad that the world is turning so, but it is. I know people making in a month what I make in a year, I have no doubt about whose kids (between theirs and mine) will have a better chance in life.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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Chris Maunder wrote: very large job fraught with peril and the promise of many long days and bleary
eyes
I'm a parent of two small children, I don't need to get it even worse.
1. Enough money is important, more than that is a perk. Find out where that limit is.
2. Knowing that this challenge is within my abilities.
3. Always a perk, but no dealbreaker for me.
4. Very important. Is the relation to the boss included here, that's just as important. I'm an introvert personality, working in a office cube would also be a dealbreaker.
5. Did I say that I'm introvert?
6. Always a perk.
7. Job safety is a biggie for me. But it wasn't when I was younger. And it might not be when my children have moved out.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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Oh yeah.
I also want to work somewhere were the senior managers don't have a door only they are allowed to use to get into the building.
Seriously, what the f*** is the point of that? We all end up climbing the same bloody staircase to the offices once we're in.
Massages their ego a little bit and reminds the rest of us we're not as good as them.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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I'm normally "pushed" into the decision to leave by the circumstances in my existing company rather than pulled in by the ooh shiney of others. Since graduating my reasons for the decision to go have been:
0) Money - was working contract at an hourly rate, not enough hours = not enough pay.
1) Multi-factored: Was promised team lead work, then put in charge of UAT team. The company had a multi-layered workforce and promoted consulting staff (unqualified in IT, but they needed to be promoted into these positions to be kept on) into the position's I'd hoped for. My manager on the UAT left and her replacement had a repeated history of failed projects which then were blamed on underlings (and in one case her boss). Didn't fancy getting the chop very much either. 50ish-hour regular working week also unhelpful.
2) Lack of career progression: I designed a system for them and confidently expected to be put in charge of the team looking after it, or heading up new work. Was told that they didn't see me fitting the team lead role, but they might consider promoting me to architect. Later, when pressed about the architect bit, was told it was unlikely under the current economic climate. Turns out a consultant I had worked with previously had suggested the architect role as he thought I'd be bored rigid by management and praised my technical abilities to the hilt. My final reward was to be parachuted in to the single worst project I've seen by a professional outfit because "I could be trusted to sort it out", but not enough to take my recommendations on how to sort it out. Didn't stay long after that, but I emigrated for two years and it still wasn't working when I got back. This was the only time I left a job without having a new one ready, that's how bad it got.
3) "Sabbatical" job - I moved to Jordan and it was always temporary. Travelled round the middle east a bit & got to know the in-laws.
Current job - Is very switched on, really nice people, standard working hours (important now I have an ickle). Starting to get ambivalent about it though, they seem determined to structure a smallish IT team like a bigger one, and have split Fix and new development into two teams, they've put me on fix which is a killer. They keep suggesting we'll get project work on a periodic basis but I don't see it happening.
The one time I was drawn to a different company was because the work itself was interesting: Green-field development, new tech and integrating with a new type of chemical analyser, I eventually lost out as the other applicant had a pure Chemistry degree, instead of my combined one.
“Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”
Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)
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If I had a job ... in the "normal" sense of that word ... to leave ... rather than multiple "avocations" driven by passion, and if I were thirty to forty years younger, with "fire in the belly," and not con$trained by having family and/or dependent children, having to pay a mortgage off, major student loans outstanding, etc.:
0. the sense that what I was doing had some pro-social value, that somehow it could benefit "humanity," not in any grandiose way, but feeling I was part of something that, at least, enabled other people to develop their human potential, or help "lift" the "rest of us" up.
1. the chance to create, possible satisfaction of creating, something new, magical, revolutionary
2. the chance to work with peers, mentors, and to be a mentor, with people I respected, and create work relationships the memories of which would last a lifetime.
3. adequate money, working environment (adequate space, adequate privacy, no cubicle: windows as in fenestration), being able to work at home some of the time.
4. perceived ownership, as in personal responsibilities within a team; and, yes, stock.
5. the perception that even though the risk of failure of the work was uncertain, or very possible, that what was being created would open unknown doors to future opportunities, for me.
6. being part of an organization that, without being intrusive, or psychologically manipulative, was able to recognize such self-destructive behavior in the workplace as people "working themselves to death," "making the job their life," etc., and would not ignore it. Similarly a company that acted to stop abuse of responsibility by any employee. [1]
7. zero-tolerance for racism, sexism, or an internal culture that allowed disrespect of any religion.
Yep, them are ideals  And, yes, there are "sticky wickets" galore in what I write.
[1] Examples from personal experience:
company A: a key programmer widely known to be using methamphetamine, but very productive.
company B: a low-level employee who furnished his cubicle with furniture he paid for himself, and spent as much as fifteen hours, or more, per day at the company. over-weight, gregarious but obviously very lonely, possibly well on his way to major heart-disease or cva, by age thrity-five.
company C: an administrative assistant for a products group that was responsible for revenues of many millions of dollars: the person was on the telephone having personal conversations most of the day; they did not even bother to sort the mail (one of their direct responsibilities) for programmers making well in excess of US $100k + stock (and that was over twenty years ago). Why wasn't the person fired: fear that because they were a member of a minority group (race), of possible negative publicity, and/or legal backlash ... and, of course, negligence on the part of management, HR, etc.
“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection." Edward Sapir, 1929
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Chris Maunder wrote: 1. Money
Yes, there should be that. Those that work for free are called interns.
Chris Maunder wrote: 2. An interesting challenge to break away from current tedium, or a bigger challenge than their last
Until it becomes tedious and unchallenging in a couple of years.
Chris Maunder wrote: 3. A chance to own something, to get in at the start and build it under your direction
Until the first demonstration of it to users.
Chris Maunder wrote: 5. A chance to do build something where you actually get to directly talk to your users
Typically you shouldn't talk about punishments/disciplinary actions during the interview process.
Chris Maunder wrote: 6. A chance to fill out your resume with some serious name-dropping
So you're enticing them with the ability to leave you easier?
Honestly, this is the bottom line for most people I know. I know people that have happily stayed at sh*t jobs because of these: Chris Maunder wrote: 4. Office environment, perks, co-workers, location, flexibility in hours
What tech are you using, btw?
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wizardzz wrote: perks, co-workers,
Perks and co-workers. Let me read that again, you get perks and co-workers. Next you'll be telling me that another perk is co-pulation.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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I just got Xulrunner to build and run as 64-bit! I am using GeckoFX with it, and it WORKS! YAY! Now to build Chromium and CEF as 64-bit!
Gryphons Are Awesome! Gryphons Are Awesome!
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I'm getting old. Without looking it up I can safely say I have no idea what the hell you are writing about. 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Xulrunner == Standalone Firefox Runtime. Mozilla only supplies 32-bit binaries.
Chromium == Open Source version of Chrome. Only 32-bit binaries.
CEF == Chromium Embedded Framework. Same as above.
Does this help?
Gryphons Are Awesome! Gryphons Are Awesome!
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Um, erm, (pauses to contemplate and consider), well, I, er (several hours later), I'd like to say I do but, errrrr, gulp, no, I'm afraid it doesn't.
I'll take your word for it.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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I've just tried out TeamViewer and am quite impressed. Our RD provider's failure rate is getting out of hand. I wasted about 20 minutes trying to get a customer connected...4 tries and getting nowhere. With the customer on the phone, I downloaded and installed TeamViewer, and had my customer connected in just a few minutes! For the time being (until the contract with our current RD provider expires) the free version makes for a great 'Plan B'.
So, does anybody have any comments on using TeamViewer to support unlimited end users?..or suggest alternatives? My only requirements are session tracking, ability to transfer sessions between operators, and website integration. Thanks
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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We (but not me!) use it for remote support, online 1-to-1 and group training, as far as I know Support find it reliable and easy to use.
I recall we dumped something else in favour of TeamViewer but I can' remember what the old one was.
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