I've been happily employed as a software developer at my current job for 5 years, and have survived many rounds of layoffs and management changes.
A few months ago, we had another large change in upper management, followed by another round of layoffs and this time I didn't make the cut. I received a formal notice of redundancy from HR, explaining that I would be let go in a month. Layoffs have been part of the culture for the past few years as the company has struggled to find a product fit and turn a profit, and as far as I know, they only have 2 years left of runway before there's no money left.
I was quite surprised to hear that I'd been made redundant, because I'd just recently received my performance review and had exceeded all expectations and I'm one of the most knowledgable and experienced employees in my team.
My manager was also very surprised to hear that I'd been made redundant, since upper management hadn't consulted with her before making this decision. It turns out that they laid off a huge percentage of the work force in order to save money while they try to figure out the direction to take the company, and which products to focus on.
While upper management was trying to figure out the details of possibly building a new platform, my manager explained to them that it would be too expensive to rebuild the system that I work on, and that we should keep this component rather than trash it and start again.
A few weeks after being made redundant, I was told that they've decided to keep me on for an additional 3 months, at the request of my manager, so that I could continue working on the system. At this point, my manager was trying to understand the direction that the company was headed in, so she could argue with upper management for me to keep my job, but since there was no clarity around this, she had to wait until upper management had come up with a full strategy before she could appeal to them. So at this point, as far as I knew, I was losing my job in 3 months. This was also reiterated to me when I spoke to the head of engineering and he told me that they have no intention of keeping me, since my role is no longer necessary.
During this time I started looking for another job, and I'm happy to say that it's gone quite well. I received an offer last week from a company that I'm really excited about and I feel will be a great step for me career wise, since they're in an industry that I really like, they're building a product that I use and believe in, and they have paths for progression, while at my old place, I was stuck in my role without any chance of promotion.
I told my manager that I've received an offer from another company and that I'm going to take it, and she asked me how much the offer was for so she could give me a counteroffer. Apparently there's a bit more clarity in the direction of the company at this point, and they now know that the system that I work on will be necessary in the upcoming roadmap.
I told my manager that I was offered $133k USD at the new position. I'm currently making $120k USD, so it's a nice bump, but nothing ridiculous. My manager then came back with a counteroffer of $153k as well as a 20% bonus, which would end up as $184k including bonus. This is potentially $51k more than the other job is offering, and $64k more than I was previously making at my job (a 53% raise!).
I should also mention that I have 5 months of redundancy pay waiting for me if I don't accept the counteroffer and just move on.
So this is where I'm at right now. I've been debating what to do, and I'm driving myself crazy. I went from being made redundant to being allowed to keep my job for 3 months to now being told that the same company is willing to pay me $51k more than my other offer in order to keep me, since they've now decided that my position is important and they do in fact still want me.
This whole situation is crazy, and I'm blown away by how incompetent the upper management of the company is. They could've just kept me as a happy employee earning my usual salary, but instead of that, they're now either looking at needing to replace me if I take the other job, or paying me $51k more because of their own ineptitude.
I've gone back and forth about the pros and cons of each option, and I'm really at a loss here. Most of the advice I've found online says never to accept a counteroffer, since the reason you started looking for another job will still exist, however, this doesn't cover my situation, since I was happily employed at my company, and only started looking as a result of being made redundant.
I'd really like to take the new job offer and start fresh at a company that values me, but I'm having a really difficult time turning down an additional $51k in salary. At the same time, I'm worried that I could be giving up a really great position at a new company which won't come around again. I'm sure I'll have other job offers in the future, but this new offer ticks all the boxes of what I'm looking for.
My main concern with the counter offer is if I accept it and the company let's me go in 6 months or less, since perhaps they were just using this offer to buy them more time while they try to find a replacement for me. As part of the pay rise, my redundancy package would also be increased, so it would seem strange for them to increase my redundancy package only to let me go shortly afterwards, but as can be seen from this writeup, logic doesn't seem to apply to the upper management.
I've spoken to my manager about this concern, and she says that she's trying to fix the mistake that upper management has made, and the intention is for me to remain as an employee indefinitely. This is reassuring, however, while I trust my manager and his intentions, I don't trust the upper management anymore, considering how easily they made me redundant and how little they thought about the repercussions.
So I'm wondering if anyone has any sage advice, suggestions, or thoughts regarding this dilemma, since I'm having a really difficult time making a decision one way or another.
Submitted April 17, 2019 at 09:05AM by throwaway438DDD86 http://bit.ly/2v9YfWY
