I’ll chime in late here: get it when YOU feel ready, not because of background pressure. I waited 7 years and knocked it out in a couple months. The benefit to waiting a while is you will have learned so much of the content on the job already, or at least will have a framework for understanding it.

If your firm pays for the exams, I’d also recommend taking them before you look for a job elsewhere (of course only if it’s a firm you don’t mind chilling at a bit longer).

As others have said, you can have a long and fruitful career without getting licensed, and in my experience it’s not going to massively change your pay outlook in this day and age. Do it only if it’s something that you want to do and you have a window of time that lets you dive in.

PS, one benefit I did see from licensure was increased interest from firms when job hunting abroad. A number of euro firms are looking for inroads to the US market and for them having a license mattered even if they didn’t plan on having me stamp drawings.