A Pay Cut for Personal Growth?

As as follow-up to an Ask Slashdot from earlier this week hatch815 asks: "I have recently been extended an offer to come work as an engineer for one of the internet search companies. In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role, but as a career direction, it will provide me with unlimited exposure, learning, and advancement. The place where I work now is a small non-IT centric shop. Although I am management, I am at the top of the ladder. The tough decision is the pay decrease I would take if I did take this new position. Is the prestige and exposure worth giving up responsibility? I am too stuck in the big fish small pond mentality? Is going back to the forefront better than the psuedo-management I do now?"

Comments

Go with what will make you happy

[Morgalyn]

If you are happy with your current position, I'd say stay. If you are yearning to be more hands-on and less managementy, and your lifestyle won't take a major hit by the move, then totally go for it. If you have family to consider, make sure you talk to them about it first, especially if you will have to move / make major spending changes (depending on the difference in pay).

Re:Go with what will make you happy

[Atlantic Wall]

I agree. I left a high paying management Job, for an IT job that i love. In the end i am happier because i am learning more and growing as well. Being at the same job, postion, and state everyday gets boring and eventually the money will not matter, Take the chance now. Eventually your new job will pay you more in money and peace of mind. Make a mistake now is better than making one later

Re:Go with what will make you happy

[Morgalyn]

Whoa dude slow down. All the money in the world isn't worth it if you don't enjoy your job. As long as you make enough to support yourself, you should always try and do what is going to make you happiest at the end of the day. If you are utterly shallow and can only focus on the 'prestige' that money can bring, then fine, whore yourself away at whatever job pays the most. That way you can become a bitter old person who never focused on what was important in the real world, and instead just focused on the bottom line. It's attitudes like this that make all these large corporations we all seem to love to hate.

I did this twice, never again

[gruntvald]

I thought I was getting some excellent experience, and I was, but I could have achieved the same result if I'd spent my extra income on some targetted certification. The pay cut just wears at you. I'd recommend confirming this by making an accurate cash flow for yourself. Once you've got your bottom line "I must make this much to operate my household" dollar figure, see if the offer covers that. Then think about how much excess cash is left over for "fun". If there isn't any, it's unlikely to work out.

Dear Slashdot

[bcrowell]

Dear Slashdot,

I've been going out with this one woman, Sara, and I really like her, but recently I met this other women, Gina, and she's really cool too. Which one should I pick?

Re:Dear Slashdot

[SwimsWithTheFishes]

I you are posting on Slashdot, then both those women are blow-up dolls. Keep them both.

Re:Dear Slashdot

[killmenow]

This reminds me of an old joke about men:

A man had been dating three different women, all of whom he enjoyed very much. He actually felt he was in love with each of them, but he realized he could not keep up seeing all of them and he needed to pick just one to marry. The problem was: he couldn't decide. After a great deal of thought, he finally came up with an idea. He would give each of them $1000 and see what they did with it.

So, he gave each the money and waited. The first woman spent the money on herself, bought new clothes, had her nails and hair done, etc., and said she wanted to look good for him. The second woman spent the money on him, bought him gifts, etc., and said she just wanted to show him how much he meant to her. The third woman took the money and invested it, tripling it to $3000 in a week.

After he saw what each woman did with the money, he thought for a while, then disregarded the whole thing and married the one with the biggest tits.

Managerial vs Engineering responsibility

[Morgaine]

In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role

That is a stunning statement from my perspective, stunning in the worst possible way. It presupposes that a technical role carries less responsibility than a managerial one, which is a terrible indictment of how you perceive relationships in the workplace. It certainly doesn't reflect my approach to responsibility in software and systems engineering in any place where I have worked professionally.

Perhaps it reflects the outlook of some hypothetical 9-5 techie who couldn't care less what he does in the office, but it's not an outlook that is at all common. Quite the opposite: it is usually the middle management that is 9-5, and the technical people slug their guts out around the clock. While hours beyond the call of duty do not mean everything, nevertheless they do imply dedication and responsibility.

Of course, management always thinks that it is at the top of the pyramid of responsibility and authority, even in a company whose business is entirely technical and where the actual wealth creators are the technical people. Well, it's up to every professional technical person to disabuse them of that. It can be tough and confrontational, but it is also rewarding in the long run to be recognized for carrying out a key and indispensible engineering role.

My answer to your question is simple: do the job that you find most rewarding and fulfilling. If you were a bum-on-seat tech laborer with zero authority and no responsibility in a company run by managers who treat their techies as menial labor, then not only should you flee the technical positions, but abandon the company in its entirety.

A bad Haiku

[Vodak]

Asks help from strangers,
For answers allready there,
Look into one's soul