I joined the company about 3 years ago as a Senior Engineer, and I was quickly moved into a lead position that ended up turning into a Principal role. I didn't ask for any promotions, I just kind of fell into it with a company that is great about recognizing its employees.
I'm on track to make $500k this year (though it will probably be closer to $375-400k in subsequent years). I never imagined making this much money in my life, and it's really helped me and my family to quickly contribute towards our retirement when we were essentially living paycheck to paycheck about 5 years ago.
The challenge I'm encountering is that I've been feeling burnt out on tech. Perhaps more accurately, I'm feeling burnt out on the _leadership_ aspects of the Principal role that I've stumbled into. To be clear, I've been having a lot of feelings of depression that are strongly tied to my job satisfaction.
A few months back, I requested a demotion into a Staff level position, which has happened, and it did alleviate some of those feelings. However, I'm still longing to spend more time building like I was in Senior roles in the past. I think the solution is to find a role that more aligns with that interest, but I'm having what amounts to a huge mental hurdle with two aspects of this want:
1. My income would drop significantly compared to what I'm currently making. Even just my base salary without bonuses is about $285k, and I would probably be making $100k less building what I enjoy in a role I'll be happier with.
2. My resume would show consecutive growth towards where I am today, followed by what amounts to a huge jump backwards. This feels like I would be hurting myself when it comes to future opportunities and how that might be viewed when applying for future positions.
It feels a bit like a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" type scenario where I'll continue to be unhappy if I stay put, but I'll be giving up so much if I make a move to something I'll be happier doing.
What would you do in my shoes?
While my dollar amounts were lower, I have been in a similar situation. I wasn't ready for the leadership role I was in, but they were paying me too well to leave. But this actually led to a lot of my anxiety about it. Once I realized I didn't need the extra money, things became clearer.
0. Talk to a therapist/psych. You may be depressed.
1. Assess your financial situation. How much do you NEED to achieve your goals?
2. Take leave. If the psych diagnoses you with depression, medical leave may be an option. If not, well, you can always just try to take regular unpaid leave at the risk that your job may not be there when you get back (what's your relationship with your employer/boss?). Seriously, take 3 months or more.
3. Start to look for a new job that you think you'll be HAPPY doing. If you're not happy working as a principle or a staff eng now, what makes you think your next job should be that role? You sound like you'd be happier at senior. That's fine! Maybe with more experience as a senior someplace else, you'll find that you're more prepared for the staff/principle level responsibility later on. You think you want to do senior-level work -- so go find someplace you can do senior level work, where you're happy!
Job titles are so different depending on company/industry, it may not look that weird on paper anyway. But you've already proven to yourself and others that you can get promoted and can handle more responsibility (even if at cost to your mental health). You can get there again.
It sounds like you’re in a company that only has Tech Lead and Right Hand staff+ roles available, and the responsibilities of those roles are at odds with what you want to be doing.
I would actively seek out companies that offer Solver or Architect roles. These tend to be non-tech companies with large internal technology teams, so you might need to look further afield than the organizations we typically see represented on HN.
Overall though, optimize for your happiness at work. If you suffer through a role you don’t find fulfilling you will burn out.
I wouldn’t worry about the optics of your CV. Any place with a decent culture (i.e. somewhere you would actually want to work,) will listen to your story and appreciate your self-awareness and candor.
I don’t see any exit except building my own company one day which will work by my rules and where people like you are welcome to earn as much money as the contribution they make irrelevant of titles and frequency of meetings in their calendars. And treated like people and professionals, not like cattle contributing to statistics and KPIs.
There’s is just no corporate ladder called “improving performance and produced software quality” these days - you either senior, or you grow to managing people and bureaucracy one way or another.
And from a company’s perspective all seniors are more or less the same, like cows of the same age in the farm.
This is not your problem, this is the status quo faang cargo cult problem.
Your resume isn’t a deposition. It shows what you put on it — and what you put on it is a good story that will get you the next job you’re applying for.