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I'm considering something and I don't really know how to go about it, or if it's realistic, so I thought I'd ask this group. I'm in the US with a large financial services company, and I'm somewhat senior. I focus on delivery of technology, focused on data, analytics and efficiency. Before this, my Director-level role was in data engineering management, mostly on financial systems. It's been a while since I've been an individual contributor, but I'm still a pretty solid data hacker, thanks mostly to side projects. I'd say data engineer, but you folks have a bit of refinement that I probably lack :D Anyhow, I'm looking to do something stupid. I want to move to Italy or Italian Switzerland, since I (and therefore my children) are dual citizens and I want them to pick up the language while they're young. I speak Italian, but they're not going to get fluent from 3 hours a night with me. I know that doing what I do now remotely is most likely the best option, but I haven't had that conversation yet, and if the answer is "no" I want to open myself to other options. So I suppose what I need to figure out is how far of a step down is still "credible" when applying? I highly doubt anyone is going to bring me over as a lateral and I'm totally fine with that, but if that assumption holds, what types of roles should I be looking for? I certainly want to bring the benefit of my leadership experience, but I'd also be more than a little excited to be "doing" again. Has anyone done this? I'm okay to step down in level given that I want to do this for non-career reasons, but is that something anyone is going to consider, or are they going to wonder why some goofball is applying from 4000 miles away for something "lower" than their current level? Should I just focus on something remote? |
First, I don't think wanting to move to Italy or Switzerland, especially because it's for your children's benefit, is a stupid thing. I wish my parents had broadened my horizons like that when I was younger.
When I made the move to working remote, I was in a position managing a team of about 6-8 developers. But I was also still spending about 25% of my time coding. To go remote, my manager thought it would be best if I cut the managerial responsibilities but still have "unofficial" leadership responsibilities as a Tech Lead.
Fast forward about 9 months or so and I would say my responsibilities are largely the same as when I was managing a team. I essentially still am managing a team (although not in title). And my manager is definitely comfortable with my moving into pure management remotely if I want to.
This is all to say that you might be surprised with how much of the leadership role you're still able to do remotely.
I would absolutely first have the conversation with your current company about seeing if you can keep your current role and just do it remotely. Not sure how long you want to be in Europe but you might consider timeboxing the remote thing so that your company - if they have any reservations - don't feel like you're making a permanent change.
Also, if you do have to go back to a more individual contributor role, you can probably still maintain some leadership responsibilities, especially if it's with your current company.
If you have to look at jobs elsewhere, focusing on finding something remote will certainly give you more freedom and I'm not sure how easy it is to apply for (on-site) jobs overseas as I've never done that before. Remote companies are usually smaller and therefore their employees wear more hats, so someone with more senior leadership level experience applying for more hands-on roles will probably (my best guess at least) not raise as many eyebrows.