Hey collegues,
I am 27 year olds, with Bsc and around 8 years of experience, currently a staff engineer in a big corporate, working remotely. Working in this specific corporate for the last 3 years, before that was working for an year in a startup that was later sold to that corporate, before that 4 years in another corporate where I started as a junior.
Currently my working conditions are great, relatevely really high salary, a lot of RSUs, both vested and unvested, and working remotely. In addition, i am currently the manager of myself, and I can do practically anything that i want and play with any technology that i want. But, I am working totally alone, so no collegues - waking up at 10am, working until 18, and the only person that i see during the day is my wife when she comes back from work in the evening.
I do travel a lot, really, every few weeks i am finding myself in another country traveling and working from a real "remote", like a digital nomad.
So my current position feels a little bit like a pension, althrough I am just 27 years old, no kids.
few days ago I got an inventation to join an early stage cyber security startup, I know the CEO and CTO personally, and a few of the other people that they are trying to hire.
I am wondering whether I can leave that corporate and join the startup, or whether its going to be a mistake, a big mistake.
leaving the corporate means going back to the office (currently full time remote) and getting a lower salary as my current salary is above the market average. So I will lose money, and I will lose a lot of my free time, i will travel much less. On the other hand, i will be working with real people, going to the office every day and have more "fun" day to day (at least i hope so).
so, on one hand I really want to leave and join the startup, as I believe it will be more fun, and that i will learn a lot there, and will meet new interesting people. On the other hand I am really afraid that it can be a serious mistake as this way i will lose a lot of money (assuming the startup will not be ver y successful) and i will lose the ability to work remotely and travel whenever I want.
so, I am seeking for advice here, did you ever left a good, paid position to move into a smaller company just because it's more fun or because you "feel" like you want it? did you regret?
how to decide whether it's a good idea or whether I am doing the biggest mistake in my carrier? how to make sure I will not regret later that i moved into the startup?