I am 37M and I’m the R&S manager of my company since 5 years. It’s a small company (12 people) with a relatively flat structure. Most people are old, and highly qualified (half with PhDs, including me,, as the other half Master’s and with vast experience in complex topics).
We do very interesting work, that any scientist/engineer would probably fall in love with.
However, the work environment is not great. The boss creates a lot of chaos, frequently expresses how I’m not doing a good job as a manager, and everyone is super overloaded with work. We are also not well paid, compared to the market (my peers in other companies are earning 20-40% more than me). It’s a good salary still (60kEur, in Rotterdam), but it’s getting quite tight with childcare, house etc…
This company has the advantage that I’m comfortable (I feel an expert and I do stuff super efficiently), it’s close to home (7km, 20min by bike), and it’s flexible (I can stay home if someone comes to repair something, or I can leave earlier if I have a medical appointment or something – there is not a tough control of the hours you come in and leave; the work just needs to be done). This is nice, now that I have 2 small kids.
I don’t agree with the strategy of the company, it’s not financially stable every year, and I don’t see myself having much margin for progression, career wise (except becoming director, in maybe 6-7 years when they retire).
I received an offer for Project Manager in a large American company with a site in the Netherlands, offering me 85kEur (40% more than what I’m getting now), still to be negotiated.
I respond directly to the R&D director, based in California.
This job is 35km (30min by car) away from home, 100% on site. The site has ~50people, and I would be managing projects via other project managers under me. I was told that this job would be essentially project execution (making sure that the current projects continue to be successfully executed until we have the product ready for market).
It doesn’t seem to be technically very challenging, or a geeky job, but maybe I can live with, I don’t know… Managing people is quite challenging, and I can get a rewarding feeling from it as well… But it depends a lot on the people.
I’m undecided if I should take this job or not. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
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