Go back to old company?
So my old company is trying to recruit me to come back, it’s a smaller company but they pay pretty well for the area I’m in. I left on good terms with an open invitation to return any time if I wanted to. I had no immediate plans of switching jobs though I had been taking with few recruiters about what’s going on the market in the area. Honestly while I’m not unhappy I feel like I’m not being challenged with the work I’m doing now, surprised at how much shitty code I’ve encountered/had to fix, and I don’t know if I’m cut out for the politics here. My old company is trying to woo me, inviting me to come check out their new space, sent me a nice gift that referencing an inside joke from when I used to work there. And the CEO has reached out to me personally as well. They want me to be in a tech lead type of role, I’m basically a senior engineer at Cap1 (they call it principal level) So if the old company is offering a title upgrade and a good sized pay bump should I consider going back? If it were you what kind of salary increase would you go back for? TC: 170k YOE: 15 years Yes I know I make peanuts according to blind lol but not working at FAANG or in Silicon Valley
Dang I wish I worked for a company like that
Sounds like you are very valued at your old company. I would go back if I were you.
Cap1 is known for shtty code (compared to actually tech companies) and all politics. If I were you, I'd negotiate and go back to lead. They're setting you up for success already. Plus great talking point in any interview from then on.
I mean I took the whole we’re a tech company with a grain of salt but i just had to get some code prod ready that was written by another PA engineer and it was long complex functions, no tests at all, hard coded application secrets in the source code, it’s just so inconsistent who’s at what level. My old team was pretty technically competent and the work was challenging because we had a pretty high TPS system we had to support but they had a get it done, live with tech debt kinda attitude and getting woken up in the middle of the night or called on the weekend was almost expected for an on call rotation
Yeah, seems like you already know the answer you're looking for
As someone who was immediately slapped with the knowledge of not being cut out for the politics of a new job I say go for it. It is rare that you have a job you like, and that also values you.
Why did you leave before? Also don’t worry about TC dick measuring contests here. 170k is massive in some parts of the country.
So the company is a consulting company and they had put on a project where I had to be in a clients office for the entirety of the project and the client was some stuffy gov agency I had to dress up for work every day and use locked down gov provided equipment to code, and had to use a gov version of CloudFoundry with very limited AWS services we were allowed to use and we having to do ridiculous work arounds for the computers and system design to get stuff done given the constraints. And I’d been used to working remote when I wanted and wearing T-shirt/jeans to work. Apparently they didn’t do their due diligence in ironing out the details of the contract with their prime contractor/agency and I was going to be stuck on the project till they could get out of their obligations and I figured maybe it was time for me to try something different. But I actually really liked working there besides that. Was prob my fav place I’ve worked in my career.
That’s pretty cool. Maybe be clear with what you do and don’t want and go for it. It’s rare to have a job that you really like. If you think you can recapture some of that magic, sounds like a good situation.