Right now the pay is great at around 100K USD in a country with median income of 3k USD. However with the pay comes the need to manage more and more people and manage more and more charters to keep growing. This conflicts with my core value of learning in depth about technical disciplines and delivering value in medium to high complexity projects rather than delivering low value in a high number of projects.
Since I was suffering with depression(ADHD) and alcoholism for the past 10 years, the suppression of my core values in return for the great pay and benefits was worth it to me and I kept moving in the direction prescribed by the organizations I worked for.
However with my ADHD now under treatment and alcoholism now gone(6 months :) ), I have renewed energy and focus to circle back to my core passion and excel in engineering rather than delivery management.
So I need suggestion on the below two issues and would also be open if someone can DM if they have had a similar story
1. There are other cities in my country which are better in terms of pay and work quality, however the language barrier there vs europe would be similar and the political scenario would be same. So I am looking at emigrating to europe. US is a no go for me right now due to lack of healthcare an polarization of masses.
2. Will it be easy to convince potential employers on the change from Management to engineering oriented roles, or would I first need to take up a role in management and then switch to Engineering role.
3. I work with a fortune 500 sized company and handle a complex high throughput engineering portfolio, most of which I myself have coded first hand or reviewed as a lead. Will this be sufficient to suppress the lack of a decent college on my Resume and get 200K-250K USD opportunity.
I am looking at Amsterdam, Ireland and UK as potential destinations as the language barrier there will be small.
Also, bear in mind that most of the Western Europe countries have extortionate income taxes, you'd be lucky to keep half of that $200-$250k in some of the places.
Now, of course there are perhaps 10 or so companies in Europe who can pay ~180K for a Staff position. But that’s like winning the lottery.
You are making an ungodly amount of money in your home country, where taxes and living expenses are low and there is a lot of growth prospects. You could make more money even while switching to engineering if you were to relocate to Silicon Valley. That's pretty much the only option though--you are not going to make more after tax, take-home pay in Europe or Canada.
You are very highly compensated even by European standards. Are you certain you can find an engineering position outside the US that pays as well, especially after considering higher costs of living?
Emigration won’t solve any personal problems. I would do it if the opportunity presents itself (well paid job) or if it’s something you want to do anyway for other reasons. But don’t jump ship just because the grass seems greener on the other side.
2) Yes, it will be relatively easy, but I suggest doing a bit of soul searching to figure out if it's really the role or rather the environment. I wouldn't pin it on ADHD, lots of people have it (and it's a spectrum not a yes/no thing anyway), but rather on: do you prefer working with people or with code? Working with people means nerding out on organization structures and people management, which is different from mentoring. 3.) In Europe, 200-250k USD is hard to come by, and almost impossible for engineering roles. Exceptions apply, of course, but normal engineering roles at medium and large companies are still <€100k. Salary structures are very different here as social security in most countries is stronger.
> This conflicts with my core value of learning in depth about technical disciplines and delivering value in medium to high complexity projects rather than delivering low value in a high number of projects.
To be happy in engineering management, you need to look at managing a high number of projects as a technical discipline. This IS your discipline. You're doing chaos management. It's a bit like a big data approach for people. You just need to understand that your engineers are not your peers. There is much to learn in building organisations, and you can nerd out BIG TIME with it.
For reference: was a startup CTO of a tiny team, got acquired by a big corp, became engineering manager, grew the team to several teams across continents, switched back to engineer as I got frustrated with my work, became less frustrated but also bored and then founded a new startup as CEO (i.e., in your world, switched to product role). So I've done a few of those things, although not from a third world country but rather a privileged first world country position. Still, few people in my journey were able to help me understand the engineering manager position, and our org also wasn't designed to really help me execute it as too many decisions were based in the product org. So I hope my advice helps you a bit. The key to being a happy engineering manager is to understand that you're not doing a bit of this and that, but that you're nerding out BIG TIME in this rabbit hole of building organisations that can house many, many people and make them work together.
If you're looking for a material increase for life, it's highly unlikely - even if your pay are bumped slightly.
But if you're looking for a change of direction, like not managing people or greener pastures and surrounding, then maybe go for it. But from your description that doesn't seem to be your first priority.
Grass isn't always greener, being at home has its own perks.