Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: When Is a Better Career Opportunity Worth a Pay Cut?
An anonymous reader writes "I am currently working for a software company that rakes in a lot of money and has an EBIT that puts other companies to shame. The company is great: good benefits, lots of vacation time, very good salary. However the problem is that their architecture is already established, change is often slow moving, and most of the decisions are made by architects as oppose to developers. I find my job somewhat mundane and I am losing interest. I recently was offered another job, with a small company that doesn't have the capital/revenue stream to provide all the perks that my current employer has. Needless to say, this small company wants someone to take their system into the modern age, which means re-design/new architecture, implementation, maintenance, team lead, etc.... thus, more experience to add to my resume. These are things that I won't be able to do easily in my current job. My concern is that it appears this company has really high expectations, and since I had to take a small pay cut to get this position it leaves a but of uneasiness in my stomach for future promotions/advancements. However I believe in their product, their vision/goals, the people and the future of the company. I feel excited but also scared as its a bit of a gamble. Has anyone else experienced the same thing?"
You'll find about a dozen people in this thread that are gonna say "follow your heart".
Those people are wrong. That's the last thing you should do.
I went through this, and it's got upsides and downsides. You need to weigh those against your work-life balance and make a well thought out decision about your priorities.
The company I left 2 years ago had a rich culture, a workout room, showers (nice to go with the workout room), weekly social things, great work-life balance with a 45 hour or so work week and alternating Friday early out, a great career ladder, and great coffee. The job was mildly interesting, not very challenging, but I had a lot of fun and free time, so I could do contract side work to fill out those needs. Work life balance was awesome, I worked about 40-45 hours a week, and got a lot of time at work to do career development (teach myself new stuff) and learned on the job. Manager was a bit of a git, but hey, nothing's perfect.
The company I'm at now has no amenities to speak of (ok, coffee, that's it though). No gym, no weekly social things, nothing really. I took a pay cut to come here, but since them I'm making about 35% more, because I'm a good performer and fixed a lot of key infrastructure problems and took a management position. I'm working with more up-to-date technology and doing some cutting-edge things because there wasn't a massive technical legacy to support that prevented it. However, I also work a huge number of insane hours, I'm basically always on call, and I'm getting a lot of great physical job stress effects, which is just great.
So there's the question. Can you do the stress and the extra work to re-earn the extra (and probably more) money? How important is work-life balance to you? Do you have a family? Do you want to learn a lot of really neat things and do work you can look back on and think "that was really awesome, I can't believe I pulled that off"? Is there a likelihood that the new place will grow to the point where you'll come out ahead in 5 years?
Those are the questions you need to ask yourself, and you need to be brutally honest about.
I kind of did that. I used to work a nice boring job at a University with excellent benefits (but without high pay or potential for promotion).
I took a pay cut to work for a statewide bank, and it turned out turned out that job #2 was almost as bad as job #1 as far as upwards mobility.
I left job #2 for a 50% pay raise at FedEx. High stress, long hours, great potential promotions, great pay. Laid off as part of the cut-back in 2009.
Here I am working for another University (different large one, but still in the same state). I've got the good benefits and low stress, but my experience outside of the University systems actually got me pretty decent pay when I came back. I still don't really have any promotion opportunities, but I'm in an end-of-career job (as a 35 year old).
I find it interesting your concern is that the architects, not developers, make the decisions. I can't recall working for a company, that was successful, that listened to the developers over the architects. I haven't met a developer yet that was both a visionary and a forward thinker. On the other side, if you are young, can pay your bills, and don't mind that the new company could very well be consumed, or shut out, because of your previous employer, I say have fun with it. If you answered no to any of these, think carefully, but remember that those who think long, often think wrong. Good luck.
Most decent programmers will find themselves in your position at some point in their careers. I did too. I know nothing of your financial situation and commitments (mortgage/family/etc.) but don't take a pay cut if you can at all help it. The fact that you feel any uneasiness would seal the deal.
I would readily agree to a pay cut in only the following situations :
1) Need a job desperately and gotta make rent. Hopefully this situation never arises
2) Major promotion or opportunity in a company I strongly strong believe in. The idea being that I will work my ass off for peanuts, but believe in my heart that I will come away with a huge sum of money at the end, or the ability to make a huge sum of money.
3) I am going to work for or with someone who is absolutely exceptional and is going to be teaching me something I couldn't already learn on my own.
It does not sound like you are getting any of those three. If you are bored, keep looking for a better or different job. In the meantime, If you want to scratch your intellectual itch, do it on the weekends.
You have my 2 cents worth.
- Tempestdata
If you have a family to support, stay put. You have a good, stable job. Your "boredom" is immaterial to providing for your family. In short, get over yourself. You are working for more than just yourself now.
If you don't have a family to support: Take it. Now's the time to make your mistakes. The worst thing that happens is that the company goes bust, you have some peanut butter and ramen days as you find another job. If it's just you, then it's no big deal, right?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Be sure you can trust that you're not being screwed. Some(many?) employers are sociopaths and will take you for a ride on future promises.
You should assume this by default. Before you take a huge risk, you should ensure that you will be adequately compensated for the risk.
If they can't compensate you today: get a guarantee of future compensation if they are successful.
In other words: the pay difference should translate into tangible future benefit.
Businesses have a way of recording investments.... it's in the form of either issuing you equity shares, or signing a promissory note, for the difference in pay. If you're an owner, you are less likely to be screwed.
Require something legally enshrined on the books, for your troubles.
I disagree strongly.
There are four good reasons to take a pay cut to switch jobs within a development/IT career when you're older:
1) Small companies trade pay for responsibility. You make less, but you're in charge of more. Short term, that's lose-lose, but in long term it can be vital to moving up the career ladder. For example, the path: "lead" at big company -> manager at small company -> manager at big company is often the fastest path. Same thing to move from a "some coding" job to a full-time coding job, or becoming an architect, or whatever.
2) Specific technical skills lose value over time. If you get too far behind what the market wants, accept that you will take a hit to modernize your skills.
3) You shouldn't expect to make more money just because you get older! For the first 10 years or so, your skills improve noticeably every year, so your pay should go up more than inflation. For the next 10 years: maybe. Improving your ability to contribute isn't just technical any more, and it can be hard to change the things about yourself that you need to, to have more technical influence and reach. But after that? 99% of us top out. Once you grow to your limits, you'll give up any raises (over inflation) whenever you change jobs, because your ability to contribute has plateaued and that's normal.
4) If you've been working as an engineer for 30 years and you still need the money, you're doing it wrong. At some point you'll be seeking interesting, challenging problems, and 20% pay more or less will be less important than that. Eventually you can afford to "follow your heart". Especially once the kids are gone.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
A company with architects implies that it's infrastructure is somewhat complicated.
Developers hardly ever use the programs they write, much less understand the environment in which their program runs. What are the business requirements? Regulatory requirements? Technology limitations? Why are those present? Who set them and why?
These are things architects worry about.
You, as a developer, usually have no visibility into them in a large company unless you ask. And even if you ask you may not understand them, because it's far, far away from your personal experience.
if you don't understand why architects are needed, you should be hyper-aware that you're clueless when you go to your next job that requires you to design an architecture. And you will probably fail.
That's fine for you, because you'll learn. It'll be bad for the company you work for, because they'll have spend money and time on a solution that doesn't work, or at least doesn't work well.
4) If you've been working as an engineer for 30 years and you still need the money, you're doing it wrong.
Moreover, I've felt for quite some time that I need to have at least a year's salary saved up so that I can do my job effectively. And by doing my job effectively, I need to feel comfortable saying, among other things:
* That's illegal/immoral, I'm not going to do it.
* That's a dumb idea, we shouldn't do it.
* That's an impossible deadline, I'm not going to agree to meet it.
If I'm not entirely comfortable with them calling my bluff and losing my job over the issue, I won't feel comfortable saying those things. And, as an engineering leader, I need to be able to say those things if they need to be said.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"