Yeah. Only when the only reason I left was money and I negotiated for the appropriate money on the way in the door when returning.
Any place I've left for any other reason I haven't, and wouldn't, go back to.
I worked at the same company for almost exactly 12 years, I was so burned out that I didn't just leave to a similar role, I changed fields. After a year and a half I was nearly broke and went back to my abusive ex, despite a healthy pay bump I left again after a year and haven't done anything tech related since.
Please fucking don't. Think long and hard about why you left in the first place - you probably had a good reason.
Not all departures are due to bad things. Sometimes you want to pursue a different area of focus and your current company doesn't have an opening like that. But maybe a few years later they do.
My keycard didn't work.
e.g. a few years later
Wow, they took their time fixing that.
I left a company after 5 years because (in retrospect) I was starting to feel burned out about product engineering. I left for another product engineering job, thinking that my problem was with the product culture at my old place. Nope! Hated product work at the new place too.
Eventually a role opened up at the old place, working on a more dev-ops-y side, and I gave it a shot. It worked out well for 2 years, but after a re-organization cut back the scope of my work, I left for somewhere else.
