Still on the fence: to jump to the dark side and become a consultant - or stay where I’m at. There be cookies on both sides. And now there be offers aplenty as well…

To stay and do DevSecOps and refactoring (and hopefully in the future rearchitecting) in an environment I’m very damn comfortable in or jump into the unknown (tho into any of the few tech companies I have a positive image of) to become a cloud consultant? Or to work with F#? Or to the EV industry? So many options…

I’m spoiled with choices and I don’t like that.

is a cloud consultant that guy that presents the weather forecast?

@Jedidja could be. In this case it’s really just the title for an AWS solutions architect consultancy position.

I’ve just jumped to consultancy too. It would be easier if there wasn’t so many options because, for me, I then start rethinking everything and wondering if I’ve done the right thing.
Doesn’t matter that it’s a 20% payrise. Doesn’t matter that it’s less contractual hours.
Or that they have a training and development budget that they make sure you spend on yourself.
I still keep wondering if I should’ve done it even tho the last company just burned through people and I was doing the same things over and over.

So I get it.

But sometimes the walls on that comfort zone start to creep in without you realising.
Maybe you’ve got past the design stage in what your doing and it’s just rinse+repeat.
Maybe new roles were created and now you’re doing a little bit less than when the company was smaller.
Before you know it you can be institutionalised.

New role could be tremendous and lead onto other things + help you become comfortable being uncomfortable.

@TrevorTheRat your rant was the reason I thought of posting this.

Just for the record, the design phase of the product I’m working on was well and truly completed a decade ago. Now I’m mostly dealing with tech debt and security - which I like. Also, as the company has grown, so has the pile of hats on my head, so to speak. If I decide to jump, I’d be doing less (in the way of a more defined role) than I am now. If that’s what I want at this stage of my career I don’t know. Right now I have the opportunity to keep learning a wide spectrum of skills. Changing jobs would mean specialising.

There are a lot of other things to consider. A change of jobs would mean redesigning my way of life, which now is beautifully supported by the status quo. Change isn’t bad per se, and I’ve never against change by default. There’s just a lot to consider.

@100110111 yeah that does sound like a compelling reason to stay to be fair.

I had a setup like that at a company once and I would never have left hadn’t it been for the company moving to offshoring. I often wish I was back there, even though it was considerably less money, because the work life balance was terrific and money isn’t everything.

You sound like your in a good spot.

@TrevorTheRat exactly. That’s why breaking the status quo is an intimidating prospect, even though I’m offered exciting opportunities and considerable salary jumps.

So you basically found the perfect job and are happy with the situation. And you wonder whether you should change that...