Well entering my last week at this job. This will be the first time in my life I left a job that I actually, genuinely liked and feel bad about it. I examined this from every angle I could think of but it ultimately came down to this:
- Stay and become like a steward of a slowly maturing SAAS platform. I would have great stability as part of the OG crowd. In order to advance I would have to create a role above myself for the 5th time. I would succeed at this eventually but I would remain at below the market rate for my role. I am very familiar with this domain now so I am not really learning anything new anymore outside of making my own projects or doing things like FEDRAMP like I did recently.
- Move into a new role with an immediate 50k salary increase without even a title change. They have a large data platform organization so I would have definite room to advance and I find the industry and its associated data problems interesting. Company has the same kind of vibes as my current which is why I entertained it at all.
In the past 5 years data engineering, data platform, analytics engineering, etc have all blown up in comp. When I was at GM the "data engineers" who did ETL work were paid less than app developers. I just have always had a general interest in working with data in software. Being some dumbass working on Cognos, Informatica, and ancient SSIS stuff did not really appeal to me. Today the data platform has a lot of surface area across most organizations and also requires development in multiple layers to be effective, in addition to working with every business domain at a company depending on size. That's the main reason I think the comp is so much higher for these roles now. But I am retarded so please correct me if I am wrong.
I am not super ambitious just looking for promos or anything. But I am not even 40 yet so I am not willing to just sit and coast.