I live in an HCOL (think NY/SF) city, just hit 5 YOE and work as a backend engineer. I've worked at this company for a year and 5 months now. TC is currently 245k and could potentially drop after I hit my 3rd year working at this company since my sign on bonus will be done paying out.
Most of the people on my team are great. We have a strong rapport and frankly I’ve learned a lot mentoring the juniors on my team, and the sole staff engineer on our team.
Upper management at my current job is really just clueless/terrible and has put the team through the wringer. Every week we’re consistently putting out fires, every feature request is high priority and we have to go the extra mile to get things done. I have to go into the office 3 times a week, although it's only a 20 minute journey, so I don't really mind the commute.
The cherry on top is our on call rotation. It should be split between 5 engineers, but one engineer is exempted for medical reasons (I understand the reasons behind it) but this means I’m on call 2 weeks every month - one week I’m primary and the next week I’m secondary on the rotation. Junior engineers routinely need help for pages, so myself and the staff engineer do have to step in once every few weeks even when we're not on call.
There is major inflexibility attached to this job, I can't really take time off without planning around our workload (we have 21 days PTO, I've used 9 days so far this year).
I was fed up with the situation, I started interviewing. Got an offer from a company that comes out to 310k TC and cherry on top is that the job is fully remote, instead of hybrid like my current gig. It would still have an on call rotation, although the rotation is divided amongst more engineers. The project I'd be working on is less impactful and the product is used internally within the new company. My current project is very high impact, millions of customers interact with it daily.
I mentioned to my manager that I have a new job offer. and he escalated the issue. The counteroffer is a 20k bump on my base salary.
My manager has encouraged me to holistically weigh my options instead of pressuring me to accept. On the other hand, I have until Tuesday to accept the offer from the new job.
What concerns me is:
1) my bonus at the new company will be contingent on company performance, which could be strongly impacted in the current economic climate. If we miss earnings, my tc could drop to 275k, which means I changed jobs for 10k. My current bonus is based on team and company performance and I'm more familiar with how bonus allocation works.
2) The team I’d be working on at the new company is very senior/staff heavy, so there might not be the chance to get promoted up to staff engineer.
3) The team at my current company has no clear person to step in for my role. I know this isn't really my problem, but I’d effectively be walking away from the project, and the engineers on my team would have to figure it out, while we're in the middle of high pressure deadline.
Current yearly TC Breakdown: 155k base, 50k RSUs, 25k target bonus (16% of base) based on team performance, 15k cash sign on bonus per year for first 2 years of service (cash that is guaranteed)
Counteroffer would bring this up to 175k base, 50k RSUs, 25k target bonus this year re-evaluated on new base at the end of next year, along with the 15k cash sign on bonus.
New job offer yearly TC: 185k base, 80k RSU/year, 35k target bonus contingent on company/team performance, 10k cash bonus for sign on paid out soon after starting. I would also receive a 1k stipend to set up a remote workstation, along with a stipend for a gym membership, etc.
What would you do in this current situation?