The issue that I have with this type of article and why they never resonate with me is that they seem to assume you’ll be able to find a job with a similar salary if not a higher one, by snapping your fingers.
I’ll tell you my experience: I’ve been working for 21 years, and I’ve only worked for two companies in that time period (there was a short stint at a third one, but I didn’t fully quit one of the other two so I never really “left”).
At my current job, where I’ve been for 14 of those 21 years, I feel simultaneously underappreciated and overpayed. They pay me too well, to the extent of considering myself lucky if I was able to find a job where I could get 50% of the pay. Yet it bothers me that in 21 years, my only promotion was from junior to senior dev. I’ve seen a few people that I don’t consider better than me, neither from a technical point of view nor a soft skills one, being promoted several times and manage a bunch of people, and that bothers me. The reasons behind it are a mix of being the last member of the “old guard” before a new CTO came about and turned the tables from a technology perspective, and also working remotely. However I’ve always worked hard, created few new issues and solved a bunch of old ones, so they kept giving me unsolicited pay rises.
I’m not crazy about getting into management, however with the rise of AI I think there’s a decent chance of my job being replaced by a machine in the next 5 to 10 years, if not sooner. And even before AI, not many companies are crazy about old tech people without managerial experience.
I’m not good enough to land a job at a FAANG, esp. with my background, and being from a southern European country and as a nearly 45yo with a 3yo child it just won’t happen. But mostly because I’m just not good enough.
We have a saying in my country: would you rather be the tail of a lion or the head of a mouse? I feel like the tail of a mouse, but the job pays too well, so I’m stuck and feeling miserable every day.
- Have you talked to your manager about a promotion?
- On one hand you said it bothers you that others are being promoted to managerial positions, on the other you said you’re not crazy about getting into management. It’s ok to not go into management - the developer career path does not begin as a developer and end as a manager, it begins as a developer and ends as a developer. And on the flip side, the software development manager career path typically begins as a developer and ends as a manager. They’re just different paths, one will fit better than the other.
- When you have a young child, consistency and security are good features in a job. You can take risks later if that’s what you want to do. In my opinion, some stagnancy is a reasonable trade off to better enjoy these early years with your kid that you’ll only get once.
I don't really know your situation, so this is not really an answer to you, but I know way too many people in this situation, so I'll chime in with some experience.
My previous company is a horrible workplace, so after I left a lot of ex-colleagues also revealed they've also been wanting to leave. They all mention the job market currently sucks and that "the pay is too good and nobody is giving the same salary". So they all stayed at the company and are complaining about the ridiculous 1.5% salary increase which the HR attributes to "the CTO being spineless and afraid of the CEO".
I have passed their numbers to recruiters, I have recommended them at companies I said "no" to, I have even took time to coach them. But when I talk with recruiters it's the same: "ah yeah your guy just ghosted me", "can you ask them to reply to my email?", "they missed the first interview I set up for them".
Digging deeper, they're all depressed. They're not doing sports/activities, not going out anymore, not traveling, not replying to messages...
My friends from the company that are still thriving at the job? I still see every week.
Three of the happy ones got promotions straight from the CEO, because the problematic CTO does not give promotions. The other happy ones all work in different parts of the company.
So for anyone in this situation I would stop and assess your mental health. A job can really fuck you up, and some bosses will fuck you up regardless of how good you are.
So: It might be the case that the problem is the job, it might be the case that the problem is not there, but it requires one to spend a non-trivial amount of energy that is currently being sucked by the job.
Hey, I'm really sorry that you feel this way. I happen to know a lot of people who were/are in similar situations as the one you described, many of whom I have worked with for at least a few years, some are very young and some are a bit older.
They all knew that they had to leave because they were feeling miserable but they didn't because they were scared of not being able to find a job elsewhere. What didn't help was that management threw just enough money at those who're perceived to be performing well and made it even harder for them to leave.
Eventually layoffs happened. Almost all of them ended up finding better work conditions and substantially higher salaries elsewhere except for the most senior ones who have been around for a long time. The problem with the very senior (staff +) engineers is mostly only a salary problem because (relatively) they have been too loyal and don't have the track record to convince people that they are worth as much as they claim they do. The problem is that the longer you stay, the more this is a problem -- so if you see somewhere that you can take a small pay cut to get the opportunity to grow and be happier and have more room to grow, you probably should start trying now.
I can't comment much about your situations but at least in my country engineers are relatively well-paid -- yet people still hesitate to leave because of family, or mortgage or... whatever reasons they can come up with. Those are usually just excuses in my opinion -- nobody is asking you to ditch everything today without a plan. There is certainly a chance that you can get a job elsewhere and end up not passing probation, but that's up for you to gauge.
At the end of the day there is really nothing stopping you from trying except for yourself and irrational thoughts. Staying at the same job for too long is a risk in itself, it doesn't stop them from giving you a month of notice now and you'll be gone next month -- it doesn't matter if you're hardworking or if you think you know some parts of the system better than anyone. No matter how hard you try, emotions do leak slowly over time even if you're very careful to not show them, so be careful about that too.
It may sound harsh but if it has been going on for a long time and you are not willing to take (calculated) risks and make small, temporary sacrifice for a potentially better future, you are basically just victimizing yourself.
Start by applying for jobs and interview. If you think this management will likely get rid of you because of AI then that's more reason to go somewhere else that may value you more. Nobody knows how well AI will get compared to any of us, but if you're worried now then do something about it: expand your skill set horizontally, actually look for other opportunities regularly, _connect_ with people so that you're not just a number on a payroll, etc.
I wish you all the best and find meaning and hope in what you do soon!
I’ll tell you my experience: I’ve been working for 21 years, and I’ve only worked for two companies in that time period (there was a short stint at a third one, but I didn’t fully quit one of the other two so I never really “left”).
At my current job, where I’ve been for 14 of those 21 years, I feel simultaneously underappreciated and overpayed. They pay me too well, to the extent of considering myself lucky if I was able to find a job where I could get 50% of the pay. Yet it bothers me that in 21 years, my only promotion was from junior to senior dev. I’ve seen a few people that I don’t consider better than me, neither from a technical point of view nor a soft skills one, being promoted several times and manage a bunch of people, and that bothers me. The reasons behind it are a mix of being the last member of the “old guard” before a new CTO came about and turned the tables from a technology perspective, and also working remotely. However I’ve always worked hard, created few new issues and solved a bunch of old ones, so they kept giving me unsolicited pay rises.
I’m not crazy about getting into management, however with the rise of AI I think there’s a decent chance of my job being replaced by a machine in the next 5 to 10 years, if not sooner. And even before AI, not many companies are crazy about old tech people without managerial experience.
I’m not good enough to land a job at a FAANG, esp. with my background, and being from a southern European country and as a nearly 45yo with a 3yo child it just won’t happen. But mostly because I’m just not good enough.
We have a saying in my country: would you rather be the tail of a lion or the head of a mouse? I feel like the tail of a mouse, but the job pays too well, so I’m stuck and feeling miserable every day.