It's a shame that to get the job you want you have to jump every few years

Yeah... no matter what system we end up using, some people will gamify it to win. And if we don't play the same game we'll get left behind.

It's just the steroids of career progression.

To me it feels hardest to stay in your current position and get a significant salary bump.

At my current org it's quite easy to switch to a different position - lots of designers and devs have become product owners.

But for a dev who wants to stay a dev it's hard to get a major salary bump, unless you become a lead dev.