Might be too specific to my case, but maybe someone out there has gone through something similar in the past/recently?
About me: from EU, early 40s, 2 kids and wife, over 15 years experience as full stack dev, based in the UK working for the same company for 7+ years in a stable full stack role remotely since the pandemic as the company sole dev/sysadmin, earning £60k+ ($66k) per year.
About the company: small/medium(?) size company (13 employees + 1 owner/director, ~£15m ($16m) turnover per year), 12+ years trading, I report to the director.
I feel stuck and bored as there is no progress to be made due to it being a private owned business with one director. A lot of decisions taken benefit the director personally instead of the company as a whole.
I want more time to get back in education, but working 9-5/Mon-Fri is really draining and when I finish work I just want to get some rest. I have 3 months emergency fund that could pay for the house expenses if I decide to leave.
There are no benefits except what's required by law (28 holidays, including bank holidays, 3% pension match), no education budget, no perks.
Perhaps I need to look for a bigger company with a better career path? Maybe get back to contracting?
Thanks
Give yourself two hours to study sales and negotiation techniques, it is a worthwhile investment for such an important conversation (and would probably be useful if you went and found something else anyway). The most important thing is to understand what feels important, and what feels impossible, on their side. I remember being shocked that a former employer was willing to discuss a $10,000 raise, but not a single additional vacation day – that’s just how the HR software worked.
2 weeks later
“can I book 2 weeks unpaid leave…”
:-)
That being said, if you want to retain the stability of your current environment, one way to mitigate the precedent/reputation hit of going "hi, pay me more plz" might be to shift the responsibility of the suggestion to a skills guidance counselor, life coach, therapist or similar position (I'm sure I've heard of more technically-oriented roles supporting this sort of thing, I just can't remember them right now).
If *that* person were to hear out your situation, go back and forth on various sundry details and then happen to hear about the pay bracket bit and flat-out tell you you weren't being paid nearly enough... well, you were just going to see them because you were a bit depressed (the circumstances you describe line up perfectly for mild depression), and oh no, this happened. Woops.
For your consideration:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29336234 - hiring a good EA/PA; a guidance counselor needs to be similarly supportive so maybe is relevant
Maybe it's less outside the south-east. But OP works remote, so why not work remotely for a company that pays decent money? I know a guy who lives in some godforsaken fishing village in Scotland and has a remote London job.
- it's easy for me to recommend this because I don't have a family to support, and I don't have to deal with the same amount of risk/uncertainty of potentially landing at a worse company
- £60k is low for 15 years of experience
- 13 employees = tiny company, not not even close to calling it medium-sized
- find a new job first, then quit the current one
£60k is the lower end of senior outside of London. It's not surprising at all.
£60k in a company that's making more than £1m per employee though, that's definitely "Fuck this" territory.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the UK job market, but across the North Sea, in Denmark, you can still more or less pick and choose, there are tons of companies lacking developers and operations people. Not as many as last year, but still more than enough that you don't have to fear unemployment.
Anyhow, I am just coming back from a 5 month break and it's normal for me to take a few months off every year inbetween contracts. I never take a contract longer than 6 months, otherwise I can't take 1-2 months off at a time. Doesn't mean I never extend a contract after 6 months, but before I extend I communicate clearly that I would like to take some time off and then basically line up the continuation at the same place for when I come back.
I do consulting and 100/hour (EU/US/CA, not sure for the UK) is pretty average, and 5h/day is a reasonable number of billable hours in a day, assuming not too much time is wasted on sales (and sales can be a billable discovery phase instead, if the process delivers value for the client).
Basically start doing some interviews now. You'll probably have to brush up for those as well, and practice.
> I feel stuck and bored > Working 9-5/Mon-Fri is really draining
These two statements are contradictory imo. Figure out whether you want to stay in your comfort zone, or take a step in another direction.
Good luck! Though I'm sure you won't need luck, sounds to me like you have a world of opportunity ahead of you.
Trouble is, there are a some good recruiters, and a lot of terrible recruiters. I had a good experience with Oxford Knight, and have warm feelings towards RecWorks, because the people seem nice.
But it sounds like you should look for a new job if management is that bad. Generally, a big company should be better for stability and benefits.
> Perhaps I need to look for a bigger company with a better career path? Maybe get back to contracting?
Career paths are not the accountability of your company to provide. They are your own responsibility.
Most universities allow for cheap or free study for employees, and will be culturally flexible to let you take advantage of it.
Tbh you are severely underpaid. If you are down to do some work and prep for interviews, you can certainly double that income with a remote job.
Like others said, first get an offer. Your runway is too short for someone with 2 kids and wife.
- there's a recession going on
- many companies stopped hiring, they're demanding more productivity from their existing employees, and are laying off people
- there is a deluge of experienced, highly skilled people looking for jobs right now (all the people that fell victim to 10% layoffs)
- inflation is high, people are asking for higher salaries
- many companies can't pay higher salaries
Unemployment is historically low accros Europe and the USA. You don’t have to keep listing to big tech companies which had brain dead hiring policies for the past three years and are now scrambling to protect the value of their shares.
The employment market is doing fine right now for most of us. Most companies certainly didn’t stop hiring. Most are actually short handed.
How do you know this. I still see lots of recruiters pestering me for a 'casual call'.
I think it is a soft recession, and employers aren't looking to cut employees, they are looking to replace them with more cost effective employees.
My advice, go on indeed.com and type in "[your favorite language] remote". Take 1 hour daily and apply for jobs over $100k you think you would be a good fit for. You'll find out very quickly how in demand your skills are.
Good luck to you brotha.
Another option is to start some mental health counseling and get some tools to disconnect emotionally from work, then begin to renegotiate work conditions. Having a note from a professional helps to make your case you are doing your job but can obtain more flexibility for work-life-balance and overall health. This sets a good baseline for the next 20 years of your working career!
Personally I love a fresh start. I occasionally re arrange my furniture just for change. It also is a chance to go into a negotiation with a good list of real priorities that may have been different 10 years ago. Mine sure were. In the US in my field, the tone has changed and they want happy healthy vaccinated employees, and are willing to change their structure (more remote, 40 hours ‘whenever it works and gets it done and the team is good’) and the only way to get it is hit the market as a free agent. The last place I did a gig willingly underpaid me $10k in salary I have realized, and I’m angry at them for it but aiming for $20k more now and will likely get it.
Difficult to see a path forward here.
