I am an engineer with 9 years’ experience all at a large defense contractor. My career moved in the direction of increasing technical depth until about a year and a half ago. At that point, I took on a role where I was part-time technical and part-time in an interfacing with the customer role. The interfacing role was a good opportunity that brought a lot of visibility, but I found that it was quickly eclipsing all of my technical work, and I became worried that my technical skills were going to stagnate.
Nine months into that role, an unsolicited opportunity came along to work directly for one of the company directors in a temporary position as a project lead. I turned down the position at first, but was encouraged by my management to take it (once in a lifetime opportunity, etc). I have been in that role for the past nine months. I have seen this position as an opportunity to experience the management track, and ultimately choose between management and technical.
The project I am working on has been very successful – when I came on, the customer listed it as their number 1 concern. A few weeks ago, I presented our current progress and the presentation was received very favorably. The customer responded that they are no longer concerned with the project, and are highly pleased with our progress. Because of this, doors are starting to open for me. My boss recently told me that he sees me as just about ready for a position which would be a 3 salary grade promotion (raise of about $50k). This is a company at which raises are painfully low (good raises are 3%). I would likely be the youngest employee in that position across the entire company.
However… I look around at all of the other people in that position at the company, and they are running ragged. Their health is failing, they are repeatedly cancelling family vacations to accommodate their work schedule, they are managing in constant crisis mode, they are losing people left and right and they aren’t really empowered to keep people. I see these things, and it makes me want to return to a technical path. Sure, I won’t make as much money, but that honestly is not high on my list of most important things for job satisfaction. The three things at the top of the list for me are (not in order) 1. I need to respect and have a good relationship with my direct boss, 2. the work has to be interesting, 3. reasonable work life balance (I am ok with occasionally working like a dog, but don’t want that to be the norm).
I recently found out about an opportunity to pursue a PhD while working. I would have to go part-time, and the school would make up some of the salary difference. Overall, I would lose about 30k for each year I go part-time. I would probably go a maximum of 3 years part-time, which would mean I would lose about 100k. I might make up some of that with better raises over the years, but the reality is that getting a PhD would never really pay off. The benefit though would be that I would then have full control (from what I see of other PhDs at the company) over my work. I would essentially be allowed to continue my research while working at the company. Because my work would be so far removed from actual production, schedules wouldn’t really be much of a factor. As a result, I would be able to work 40 hr weeks. The biggest downside here is that I am married and have three kids. I am trying to feel out from others who got a PhD while working at my company whether they were able to maintain a reasonable work life balance, and the answers have not been encouraging.
Anyways, I’m at a pretty major career and life altering cross-roads. Every possible path I take will have downsides. I figured I’d lay it all out in front of the good people at eng-tips.com and see what responses I get. Any and all thoughts are much appreciated.
Nine months into that role, an unsolicited opportunity came along to work directly for one of the company directors in a temporary position as a project lead. I turned down the position at first, but was encouraged by my management to take it (once in a lifetime opportunity, etc). I have been in that role for the past nine months. I have seen this position as an opportunity to experience the management track, and ultimately choose between management and technical.
The project I am working on has been very successful – when I came on, the customer listed it as their number 1 concern. A few weeks ago, I presented our current progress and the presentation was received very favorably. The customer responded that they are no longer concerned with the project, and are highly pleased with our progress. Because of this, doors are starting to open for me. My boss recently told me that he sees me as just about ready for a position which would be a 3 salary grade promotion (raise of about $50k). This is a company at which raises are painfully low (good raises are 3%). I would likely be the youngest employee in that position across the entire company.
However… I look around at all of the other people in that position at the company, and they are running ragged. Their health is failing, they are repeatedly cancelling family vacations to accommodate their work schedule, they are managing in constant crisis mode, they are losing people left and right and they aren’t really empowered to keep people. I see these things, and it makes me want to return to a technical path. Sure, I won’t make as much money, but that honestly is not high on my list of most important things for job satisfaction. The three things at the top of the list for me are (not in order) 1. I need to respect and have a good relationship with my direct boss, 2. the work has to be interesting, 3. reasonable work life balance (I am ok with occasionally working like a dog, but don’t want that to be the norm).
I recently found out about an opportunity to pursue a PhD while working. I would have to go part-time, and the school would make up some of the salary difference. Overall, I would lose about 30k for each year I go part-time. I would probably go a maximum of 3 years part-time, which would mean I would lose about 100k. I might make up some of that with better raises over the years, but the reality is that getting a PhD would never really pay off. The benefit though would be that I would then have full control (from what I see of other PhDs at the company) over my work. I would essentially be allowed to continue my research while working at the company. Because my work would be so far removed from actual production, schedules wouldn’t really be much of a factor. As a result, I would be able to work 40 hr weeks. The biggest downside here is that I am married and have three kids. I am trying to feel out from others who got a PhD while working at my company whether they were able to maintain a reasonable work life balance, and the answers have not been encouraging.
Anyways, I’m at a pretty major career and life altering cross-roads. Every possible path I take will have downsides. I figured I’d lay it all out in front of the good people at eng-tips.com and see what responses I get. Any and all thoughts are much appreciated.
