I had 4 desk changes and 2 managers in a 3 years FAANG career, and my sense was that I was probably in the bottom 25%, primarily because two of the moves were into entirely new buildings (desk movement usually happened to help teams work near each other, so a new building meant you had space to expand). Relative to the three other companies I've worked at for more than a few months, I think FAANG had the second lowest desk moves/year (although, again, my sense is that I was on the low end within FAANG).

I've had 9 in 4.5 years. 3 were from me choosing to switch teams. All others were moves within 500ft to adjust for growing teams.

Why do you think it's a big deal to switch desks every 6 months or so? My company does the move for me, so all I have to do is put my few things in a box and label it (and my computer stuff). Takes 30 minutes tops.

be a developer anywhere where development is considered a cost center and a smaller part of the company head count. They will move you around like a tumbleweed. When i worked in healthcare I moved close to quarterly, square footage was at a premium and all the income generators fought tooth and nail for it. The worst was moving between campuses.

I work remote but I technically have a desk at the office. It gets moved from time to time, and it always cracks me up.

In general, in "high-growth" companies you tend to move desk a lot. I was part of a very small team (2 people for most of it), so I got moved a lot.

To go against the trend of the other anecdotes here, I just had desk change #8 of my 17.5-year career (across 5 companies). I am awaiting the result of manager change #4.