I won't go into much details (colleagues read HN), but my dev stack isn't the best paid, however I am in the process of becoming a Team Lead at the current company.
I recently got offered to interview for a senior position at another company where I will learn a much better stack and new technologies.
All was well on the interview (from my point), but it seems that they didn't deem me as Senior material yet and want me to join as a mid level (pay is still higher than current, but not that much and is a lot lower than what I wanted).
At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it? Does it actually even matter if the pay is better and I will learn a better stack? However I will likely make TL soon and get the same pay in the following months.
I feel a bit cheated by the whole process.
Don't join on these terms, from the first day you'll be resenting the company and thinking about how to move somewhere else or how to get a promotion. It's a bad position to start the relationship for both sides (which is also why companies shouldn't aggressively low-ball offers).
"Software dev" encompasses a wide variety of work. As a simplified example, if you were a senior frontend JS dev who wanted to get into writing kernel modules, you might have to take a job title and/or pay cut since you're less senior in that niche than your current one. But if you really want to be a kernel dev, it might be worthwhile.
So, what do you want to do? What kind of dev do you want to be? Will the new gig get you closer to that, regardless of title? Thinking beyond just tech stack to how you want this arc of your career to progress, will new job be better?
Also look at non-tech stack things. Do you like your team? Do you like your industry? Has your boss treated you well? Do you have equity opportunities at current or new gig? Which stack/niche has a higher ceiling of potential opportunity?
Titles are fungible and don’t cost the company. You may run up against some ego problems if you skip over the title of your supervisor but that’s about it. Taking what they offer isn’t your only choice.
The same is true of salary. They’re likely hoping you will take just a little more to join. If they won’t raise salary, seek a signing bonus, equity, or other incentives. Leverage the weak title to your advantage but emphasizing that the role is a step back and you’ll need some assurance/security/benefit beyond the small increase in salary.
here’s a good article about the status vs money tradeoff
https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-over-money-money...
Job titles have different levels of inflation at different companies.
You mention that "seniority" comes in two flavors: More specialist, more responsibility.
You wouldn't be taking a step back in seniority either way, but you'd be choosing between growing in two different directions.
I currently work for a company where we choose to not differentiate job titles among developers, so I'm really just a developer. Still, it's the most challenging job I ever had, and it'll look cool on paper in spite of the lack of "ninja" in the title.
> I will likely make TL soon and get the same pay in the following months.
As @jstx says in another thread: Accepting a low-ball offer has bad psychology.
It sounds like the pay difference for their mid-level position isn't big enough.
If you don’t get offers at the level at which you feel best matches your level of experience it may be time to adjust your expectations. If you apply for a position and the firm feels your skill set is better suited for a more senior role then your all set.
It’s not personal. Management loves hiring competent people for the positions they need filled and don’t like hiring people without a skill set that can make their team meet expectations.
Another thing to realize is that tech companies, in my experience, are less interested in your title and more interested in the work you've done and what they perceive your potential to be.
This brings me to your question: "At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it?" I think one key thing to consider is whether the step would expand your skillset, stretch you in new ways.
Job titles don't may not mean much while you are at the same company, but once people review your CV, it's a BIG deal. Having a leadership experience opens doors like no other, both on the amount of offers and salary.
The catch is that you will be expected to have lot more soft skills - raw coding chops are not that important for an engineer, even less for a team lead. If you are up for this, and you feel fine at this company, it's probably worth to stay in the lead position for ~1y and then look around with your refreshed CV.
Let's say you felt neutral. If you want to stay a programmer and make more long term changing stacks now will give you the same pay less responsibility (more time to learn the new framework) and put you in a better position. If you want management stay where you are.
Based on why you started looking you should switch the next time this comes up. Switching stacks is harder the further you go, don't let this gift drift away.
Look at the quality of the people and your place among them. An increase in responsibility is a step up, but moving to a stronger team might be even more so.
If you like the tangibles, and you think the company culture and coworkers are good, take the deal (after some negotiation of course)
Do this. Learn from the place with best practices, it has long term positive ramifications for your career well beyond the next job.