I've been at AWS for a year and a half, and although I came in dangerously under qualified, I grinded, got pretty good at my job, and am even in line for a promotion in 6 months, however I just don't find the work very fun / challenging, and ultimately the technology I can learn on my current team is just limited, we have a lot of old legacy systems and I feel like im just always doing DevOps stuff. In addition, I had to move all the way across the country where I know nobody and am not enjoying myself. As someone who has applied to 50+ roles and maybe heard back from 1, I can tell you the market is very tough. Since I'm here at AWS I'd like to learn as much as possible, lead development in big projects, network, and kinda stat pad my resume a bit so finding mid-level jobs will be a bit easier when I do plan on moving home, or hopefully remote even. I'm in the process of interviewing with another Amazon team in NYC (always been a dream of mine to live there, I have a lot of friends and some family there) that offers more opportunity to improve my skills, a chance to lead projects and build more. However, this will most definitely stunt my promotion process. Ultimately I have two options. 1. Stay in D.C. with no friends/social life and just keep maintaining legacy code until I get SDE 2 and hopefully have enough clout to find a position closer to home. 2. Internal transfer and send it to NYC for a few years. I appreciate any advice and thanks for reading my post ! :) #amazon #aws #internaltransfer
NY is fine for a visit but moving there will be a massive regret
Why are you certain that moving to NYC will stunt promo progress? Do you have feedback providers on the current team? They should be able to still provide feedback if your new manager is willing to keep working on promo when you move. Have you discussed it with them? True that it might delay it by a quarter or two but would that really make a difference? Especially if you are sure you’ll have better work there it should give you a better opportunity to demonstrate performance at L5 level. L4 to L5 promos are a lot more straightforward so moving teams should not have that big an impact, of course your new manager needs to be willing to drive the process for you and you can ask them if they would.
DON'T DO THIS. Promo will require atleast 6 months in new role & of there are any reorgs, you are royally screwed. Get promo, prep outside & move internally as backup plan.