On Seeking New Roles: My Personal Guiding Principles

Why I accepted a Senior Engineering role after being a Lead, and turned down a Staff opportunity.

Back in the summer, my wife and I finally followed through with plans for relocating and traded London living for village life, a hundred miles away from the city where we first met. We had loved our metropolitan lifestyle, but when we found out we were expecting our second little rugrat, we were motivated to move closer to family for support.

I attempted to negotiate a more flexible working arrangement with my employer, but they were having none of it, and so I found myself in need of alternative employment.

I needed to find a new job as quickly as possible – the long commute to London was awful – but finding the right fit was important. So instead of just grabbing at the first job that came up, I decided to establish some guiding principles. I decided I was unwilling to compromise on:

• Salary – money isn’t everything, but I still need to be able to comfortably cover the bills, support two kids, and be financially prepared for the future.
• Risk – I have a family and a mortgage, so I need to work for an established company with low risk of failure or redundancy. Early-stage startups were out of the question.
• Nature – Is the work I’m doing important? Meaningful? Worthwhile? Ethical? I enjoy my job most when I feel a greater sense of purpose.
• Remit – do I have the freedom to get the job done, influence decision making, provide mentorship, and take ownership of high-value initiatives?
• Balance – I’m not averse to the occasional trip to the office, I value face-to-face time immensely. But I need an employer who treats me like an adult and trusts me to effectively balance work commitments with the realities of daily life.

I was a lead engineer at a small startup, though the engineering team was so small that in reality I only actually led a team of two (including myself). While I had a lot of freedom to make important decisions about technical direction, there was little opportunity for the other stuff that would usually fall within the scope of an engineering lead, and so I remained an individual contributor for the most part. But I liked that – building things is what I’m passionate about.

So when I plunged into the job market, I wasn’t precious about titles. I applied for lead, staff, senior and all variations of those, but only to those which met the criteria: Balance, Risk, Remit, Nature and Salary. Over the course of several weeks I had secured interviews at five companies, reached final stages at four of them, and received offers from two.

The first came from one of the UK’s largest and most well known retailers. It was a Staff level role that would oversee the e-commerce app for one of its largest business assets.

The other came from a renewable energy supplier, well known for disrupting their industry and leading their sector. But the offer was for a senior role, with a slightly lower salary than the retailer job.

On paper then, the choice would seem obvious – more money and a more prestigious job title… Wouldn’t it be mad not to accept the Staff position? It was time to consult my guiding principles.

For the Staff role, the salary offer was good – higher than the range advertised. Remit was also strong, as the scope of responsibility was clear. Risk wasn’t a major factor, as the company was >150 years old and still going strong.

But it wasn’t necessarily the most inspiring or groundbreaking industry by nature (purely in my opinion of course – but that’s what matters most here). And while the working arrangements were indeed flexible, I was warned that expectations might change in future. I’d heard that some areas of the business had already been hit by RTO mandates, and given I lived hours away from the nearest office, this was something to consider when weighing up the work-life balance.

Now for the senior role. The salary wasn’t as enticing, but it would still allow me to meet my financial obligations and was close to the competing offer. Risk was stymied by the fact that in the ten years since the company was founded, it had already overtaken the UK’s previous market leader and successfully disrupted global energy markets as well. The nature of the role was one that I strongly aligned with; making energy cleaner, greener and cheaper for everyone, which was very compelling. I was assured that I would have the remit and responsibility to add meaningful value to the company’s mission and to its customers. And perhaps most interesting of all, not only were the work-life balance policies attractive – unlimited holiday, flexible remote working etc. – but the company had also just been recognised as the UK’s best place to work, backing up its balance credentials.

In applying my guiding principles to both offers, I was surprised to find myself more intrigued by the less-obvious choice; forgo the title, but be in the right place.

From what I’ve observed through my career, job titles are often arbitrary and interchangeable. A lead at one company might only have the same experience and skill as a mid-level engineer at another. A senior engineer may be as brilliant as a lead, and yet not have had an opportunity to move up. Titles such as ‘distinguished’, ‘principle’ or ‘fellow’ can mean vastly different things depending on company and context. So I feel secure enough to make a choice such as this with great confidence.

As a final thought, I find myself deeply aware of my privilege. While the interview processes were incredibly tough, my years of experience and the wisdom of some incredible mentors helped to propel me toward a position where I had a choice of offers, and I realise that this isn’t a luxury that many people enjoy when entering the job market, especially for the first time. But perhaps having a clear set of principles might help to steer you along the path towards your dream job. It seems to have worked for me, at least – I’m a month into the new job, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.