Stay at current company or take a chance with smaller less established firm?
I recently had an interview with a small health care and wellness firm: ~500 employees founded in 2008. The potential pay increase would be significant for me (25-30%; 42% factoring in their annual profit sharing bonus - not guaranteed) and its definitely a promotion for me as its a Sr. Engineer role however I’m torn on whether that justifies leaving my current job.
My current company isn’t that competitive with pay and many times I’m restricted as to what I can or can’t do outside of work to make additional money because of potential conflicts of interests for them. I also am a bit tired of having to disclose every financial transaction and personal financial data to them. It’s very frustrating. I do have stability with my company and I enjoy the variety of experience from projects and tech stacks I get to work with.
This new firm however, per Glassdoor reviews, seems to indicate that management are strictly top-down decision makers (“my way or the highway”), have a tendency to micromanage with lots of turnover in management as well. Employees, especially a few engineers, have noted how there is a poor work life balance. I’m not confident in their business yet either from what I’ve researched since their product is banned in Australia although they are supposedly in Inc. 500’s list of Fastest-Growing Companies.
Maybe I'm only focusing on the extreme negatives. Would love if anyone could weigh in with their $0.02.
Discussion
(3 comments)- 1
a year agoAndroid Engineer @ RobinhoodFor the new company you're joining, have you looked into talking to ex-employees (assuming the company doesn't NDA)? This might help you get the perspective you're missing.
If you're happy at your current company and they do counteroffers, have you considered letting your manager know about the offer and giving them a chance to counter? This way you get to keep the comforts of your current job but have higher pay.
- 1a year agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Dang, I didn't realize that Deloitte is so strict - Sorry to hear that!
As Jonathan mentioned, using this other company's offer to negotiate your current compensation + level seems like a solid option. Based on the question though, it seems like you're currently waiting on an offer decision - I recommend not worrying about this too much until the offer is extended. No need to stress out optimistically over a hard problem that doesn't exist yet!
At the end of the day, no job is perfect and this seems very much the case with your 2 cases:
- On one hand, you have stability and a well-defined learning environment.
- On the other, you have probably worse WLB (especially with the senior up-level) and a potentially lackluster growth environment. But of course, there's more $$$.
At the end of the day, it depends on what you value. To figure this out, I highly recommend this video: [Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer
Here's a good discussion around properly leveling yourself as well: "When should I down level myself on purpose at a new company?"
- 0a year agoEntry-Level Software Engineer [OP]Deloitte
Thank you both for the advice. Much appreciated! @Jonathan C, those were my thoughts as well. Unfortunately they passed anyway as I didn't have enough JS experience for them. Re: letting my current manager know, it's a little strange in consulting because my managers will differ from project to project so they don't have too much they can add to my reviews outside of the projects I've worked on with them but I was always told that it's never a good idea to advertise that you're looking to leave from a current employer anyway. Maybe that's changed since I've heard that initially? I'm still very aware of how much of an at-will employee we are at the end of the day.
@Alex unfortunately that's one of the downsides I've learned about for them. On the one hand I absolutely understand their concerns from a conflict of interest perspective but at the same time it ends up being really a nuisance having to jump through their hoops of disclosure. Thanks for the video link! Had no idea that this was covered in a previous video. Will definitely check it out!
