While I see what you're getting at, and don't disagree, I have also noticed that the people that stay put while everyone else jumps ship provide a line of consistency that can get them promoted up. They say the stupid ones stay, and the smart ones leave.... but it isn't always intelligence that gets one promoted in such cases.

Knowing when to stick and when to twist is a vastly underrated skill.

A mentor of mine told me about his dot com bubble experience: he was in a company that was in trouble - leadership changes, the mission became diluted, and top talent started planning exits. Rather than leave, he stayed, they improved, he became CTO.

I took his advice when my last job was going through a "digital transformation": read "downsizing and outsourcing". I knew where the winds were blowing but took his advice because it was a large enterprise and these changes move slowly. Waiting gave me a measurable impact in terms of salary, bonus, and title – and that impact carried over.

If this is a negative it is probably fairly specific to tech. In most industries a long tenure at a single company would been seen as positive.

What do you mean?

It's pretty simple. He's saying OP worked at Google for 6 years but his career progression has been largely static.

I can only guess, but to my mind, if the individual hadn't progressed significantly in that period, they may appear as a "sucker" of sorts. "Naive" and "holding out forever for nothing."

I mean, maybe if you aren't progressing, but an L6 who was hired from college and has been at Google for 12 years it's probably an asset.

Yeah but OP says they were only promoted once, so they're probably not on track to make L6 in six years.