I have a job offer at a big bank that will involve more dev-ops and SRE work. I have 3 years of experience. I have been at my current job for 6 months. My coworkers are all extremely nice. My job is remote. My salary is excellent (115K). And the work is stable. My WLB is amazing. I am good at my job. Yet I plan to leave. Why? The thing about my job is that we are moving our codebase from sql to c#. My colleagues know very little about c# and object-oriented programming. They are super nice and helpful, but I am considered the expert in the area of OO programming. In other words, while I may be learning some new things, I am not learning a ton. I am their c# point man. I have a new job offer from a big bank. It's not FAANG, and the salary isn't much better. But because it is so big, there is more internal mobility and learning. Plus I think I'll be working with kubernetes, aws cloud, java, and sprint boot in my new job, which will be a learning experience. It seems insane to leave an almost utopian job-nice colleagues, good salary, great WLB-at 25. But I think at this stage, I need to be at a place where I am learning and challenged. My new emploter is a big and slow bank, but I do think at the new role I'll be doing more hands-on dev work, as well as learning Dev-ops and SRE stuff. #software #swe #engineering If I am nuts let me know
I would not leave. This is a good time to learn how to lead inexperienced people. It’s a valuable skill at your career stage. To add to this, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. If you’re bored, build new things, learn new skills. I would bet the bank has a fair share of drawbacks that you aren’t seeing (yet).
If your employer is a big and slow bank, are you sure if the work would be more exciting than your current one?
I am not sure. However, I do know I will be writing a Java program from scratch, whereas now I am taking existing SQL and translating it into c#
Stay where you are until you can land 200k + remote, which is possible right now even without faang (Square, Atlassian, Affirm, ) etc
Thanks. Hard to even get interviews though.
It’s true hiring has slowed down now given the market dip. But hopefully should pick back up soon . Also fwiw I’m coming from someone that used to be in your situation kind of, which I regret some hops. 55-73-95-170-230. Each company I only stayed a year - 1.5 years.
How much is the new TC? TC is king
new TC is 130k base where 40k sign on bonus, but it becomes a 20k bonus after 1 year
I’m in a similar position as you. But with a recession in the horizon I am staying out for now, enjoying my coworkers and the wlb
Sorry there is no prestige in Joining big slow Bank IT ..
Personally I'd ignore your nice colleagues and great WLB. Why? Because what matters at your age and career stage is growth, not comfort. Don't stay in your comfort zone - only stay at your current employer if it meets your growth objectives. You do have the opportunity to become a team leader with the C# implementation, which is nothing to sneeze at. Question though - who is there for you to learn from where you are? Big banks are slow to move, but they have good scale. I'd probably say that Big Tech applied the lessons that the banks learned in order to create scale themselves - they just do it more efficiently. All of this is to say that a bank can be a good place to learn, depending on the bank. Some banks employ really experienced architects and engineers, and these could be good people for you to learn from. At your age, you need 1) a good mentor who knows more than you, and 2) larger scale systems to work on. Because of that, I'd say it is probably worth moving to the bank, although it's a pity the salary is so low. Maybe stay at the bank for 18-24 months and then see if you can make the jump into big tech. By then, the recession should be tapering off and hiring should resume.
this is my thought process. I will stay at the bank until I am VP (roughly 5 years) before moving on.
Honestly I’d ride it out where you are and keep looking for that perfect gig where you get the stuff you want to be working on plus that good TC. Almost nobody leaves a job they say they like as much as you do for little to no TC increase, not worth the risk.