| I currently work for a very large company in the midwest. I'm the development lead on a mobile development team. I started as a senior iOS developer and after a year or so was promoted to be a team lead. My team develops one app for both iOS and Android. I've been the team lead for about 1.5 years. Another company in my same city (still a large company, but has about 1/5 the revenue of my current company) has expressed a lot of interest in me becoming their "Mobile Architect". My current salary is $127k. The offer for the new position is for ~$139k. Pros for the new position:
* Promoted to have more responsibility / higher title
* More money
* I personally know their IT director, someone whom I have previously worked with at my current company and I respect them. Cons for the new position:
* I love working with my current team members.
* Going from 3 weeks of vacation, to 2 weeks at the new company
* Commute goes from 15 min to ~30min
* Lose my liberal WFH policy. I can now only WFH for things like weather or workers coming over.
* Most of the mobile developers on my team are in another city. I am, however, bored at my current position. I feel like I have had myself promoted into a position that I enjoy much less than I did senior developer. Most of my time now is wrapped up in resolving blockers for others, grooming backlogs, running sprint planning, etc. It could be a couple years before the possibility of promotion for me. Should I:
a) Continue with my current position and enjoy the incredible work life balance I have, and hope for an architect position in a couple years? b) Accept the new offer and lose some freedom, but perhaps find some more work satisfaction and attain a higher position? Also, as a follow up question, should I push back on the new company and attempt to at least get them to match my current 3 weeks of vacation? Is an 8% raise enough to jump ship? |
Here's my thoughts:
1) People/teammates make all the difference in the world. You love working with your current team; you've enjoyed working with the Other Company's (OC) IT Director before. But will you like the OC's team you'll be working with? Will you be seen by them as capable, or as a buddy being brought in to shove "architecture" down their throats?
2) Vacation. This is a negotiation. Tell them you have three weeks now (and have proof) and tell them you want the match. That shouldn't be too difficult, but I've actually seen companies balk and walk away over this (Even as far as telling senior people with X weeks vacation they'll be treated like entry-level and start with none for the first six months, etc). Sure sign of bureaucracy, and being tied to processes.
3) WFH. Kind of unclear. I'm assuming you can WFH pretty regularly now, and with OC you'll lose a lot of that. Again, negotiate. If most of OC team is in another city, what difference does it make if you're in the office, or at home on the corporate VPN--like they are.
4) Commute. WFH could make a lot of difference here too. But adding 15 minutes each way is 30 minutes a day, 2.5 hours a week, 10 hours a month, 120 a year. What could you do with that spare time if you didn't have the commute? Not to mention costs in gas, mileage on tires and car, etc.
5) Boredom. You're bored in your current job, which is never a good thing. But are you relevant? Meaning, are you doing useful things, listened to, etc? If you jump over to OC, will you still be relevant? Or will remote team ignore you and do their own things? Irrelevance and boredom are never good apart, and torture together.