Unsure on what the best decision is for new offer
My company recently changed my remote role to in-person and I have to move cross-country.
I started interviewing for the few remote companies that are left and got an offer.
My problem is that I really like my company and my team. It's a midsize company with about 500 engineers or so. I'm wondering if people have any suggestions / tips on how to make a decision in a case like this. For me, being remote is important since it enables me to live near my family right now, but my career progression is also important at this moment and I can always go back to remote later in my life. Thoughts on this?
I also wonder if I can leverage this offer and ask my company for an exception. My team really needs me since I'm the team lead with deep knowledge about a lot of our new services and it can kill some of our projects completely, at least for 6-12 months.
Discussion
(6 comments)- 34 months agoEng @ Taro
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)
- 1
4 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroHow 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.
- 04 months agoSoftware Engineer [OP]Taro Community
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).
- 04 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
It's tricky without knowing the company, but it's generally pretty rare for a company in your work history to be held against you, even at FAANG. In general, you become more hire-able over time as you get more experience.
This is admittedly a bit reductive, but there is usually a correlation between pay and engineering culture. That's how capitalism works: If you pay better wages, you get better people.
This means that to evaluate the remote offer, look at the pay. If it's competitive with your current pay or even getting within spitting distance of FAANG bands, that's a good sign. If the number is much smaller, that's pretty bad.
- 04 months agoSoftware Engineer [OP]Taro Community
Thank you so much Alex!
I have a little less than 2 YOE, and my TC is:
SDE1/L3: $180k - $190k (variable bonus)
New level and TC:
SDE2/L4: $215K + (refresh RSUs 20%-30% of base)
My biggest concern is just about switching away from my team and my current work, and also being able to break into a FAANG tier company after this because I really want to have some experience working at a large scape company as well, and I think as long as I can do that, I'm happy.
- 04 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Whoa, you're paid quite competitively! That L4 offer is very solid. It's important to remember that FAANG is top-of-market, so using that as a baseline isn't the best (and is frankly a bit entitled, so it's weird to me when people on Blind/Reddit do it).
If you need to stay close to family, I think you should do it. Your parents only ever get older, just like the rest of us. I know a lot of folks who didn't realize how important family was until they were too old (a lot of engineers in their 20s make this mistake).
Personally, I would take that remote offer, see what your current company can do, and if they can't do anything, I would switch. You can try to negotiate up the remote offer as well.
Of course, I'm working with limited information. If you got any red flags from reverse interviewing the remote company, then staying away might be best. It's all about quality of team.
