Unsure on what the best decision is for new offer

It's probably worth a shot to explain to your manager that you really like the team and the work, but you also need to be close to your family. You can explain the impact you have in the company and how you wish to continue to work there, just to make sure your manager really knows how valuable you are. Hopefully, they'll be able to make an exception for you. It does sound like you have a lot of leverage right now.

How would you weigh career progression compared to staying at your current company? It's possible that you'd still be able to progress quickly at another remote company. Maybe, you can even come into a new company at a more senior role and that would check two boxes. (I'm not sure what level you'll be coming in for your new offer)

How good is the remote offer? If it's competitive or even better than your current job, I'm leaning towards taking that. Make sure to follow the advice from the negotiation course to bump it up: The Insider's Guide To Negotiating Your Tech Salary And Compensation

When negotiating the external offer, make sure to mention that you really like your current company. This gives you leverage as this means they need to offer you a very strong package to "pry you away" from your current role.

I also wonder if I can leverage this offer and ask my company for an exception.

You can definitely try, but keep in mind that you should be ready to leave if they say no. It's awkward if you bring up this competing offer, they do nothing, and then you stay as they now know you're discontent with your situation and are a flight risk.

Thank you so much Alex and Charlie!

That's the thing I'm struggling to evaluate, I'm not really sure how good the remote offer is. In terms of pay, benefits, remote, people culture it all seems nice and okay.

From a company perspective and what the company actually builds / engineering culture, it's a bit uncertain. I'm not sure if what they're building sounds fun, and I also think they have somewhat of a weak engineering culture. I interviewed with a lot of "senior" people from the company and I didn't get the best impression.

So I'm stuck on whether it makes sense to sacrifice eng culture / what I work on for remote. My company isn't perfect either, but I've built a brand here, I'm trusted and we have really good teams. My manager is wonderful.

To give more context, I'm worried about if I move to this company if it's going to make it tougher for me to break into FAANG (I want to eventually give a company like Meta / Netflix / Stripe a go).