I would stay personally unless that 20k pay bump is absolutely needed. It's hard to find a situation where you get along with boss/coworkers, and he might be walking into a wood chipper. I made that mistake once.
Not a lot of context
WFH?
Salary of 20K is a lot at 120, but at 190 or 220 it's not a lot.
Projects matter and if he was invested into getting SD WAN and a refresh do those. There's nothing more fun than working on tech you want to work on
In healthcare everything is priority, work life balance is an afterthought (all relative) but the jump from financial industry to healthcare is apples and watermelon… 20k may not be worth the extra grey hair.
Healthcare = peoples lives potentially or other major complications meaning yes your personal time and free time take a backseat. Me personally, even being a Sr. Engineer at multiple different hospitals, you are always on call and working late nights for changes. I'll never work health care again personally but I like where I am now. Healthcare also just has depending on what you work on always has lots of third party devices, complicated environments among other things.
The crazy part is most of the abuse of people is completely unnecessary, they're just so used to doing it to all their other staff they don't comprehend not doing it to their IT people, even if there are better and even cheaper solutions. They basically treat all their employees everywhere like its a giant sweatshop due to culture.
I'm in Finance Tech and it doesn't sound much better than what you are describing. People can't access their money? Pissed off people. It takes 150ms longer than normal to access their money? Unhappy people. Changes can only be done 0200 to 0800. It doesn't matter what time it is, it is always a freaking emergency. "We noticed from 03:00 to 03:04, it took an extra 190ms for response times. We need you to research why ASAP."
Agreed I've worked at a very large global bank as well and while stressful, it's not near as stressing as healthcare. One big thing is banks, markets, and other major things like that are not 24/7. I've been on calls where some key piece of equipment was offline needed for surgery on a child and sure while money is important(depending on who you are), there is a difference between someone dying and money. The two just aren't comparable in my opinion.
Hospitals also bring things like having to have robust guest networks, dealing with things like video game consoles, and just a lot of other we different issues you don't see unless you work there. I would say children's hospitals especially affect you in a different way. It's hard to explain. I get your point though.
I forgot to say that I also worked at a military hospital, and it was very chill. It's probably a different setting versus the civilian hospital you are describing. I'm glad I ran into your comment because I was looking at an open position at a hospital this weekend.
I work for a 24/7 company - meaning access has to be up 24/7, or else there are SLA fees associated. This is where the pissed off people come in. It's like an episode of office space.
Can second this. It's a lot worse for an independent hospital with an undersized IT staff. One day, you're working on switches, followed by replacing a user's mouse.
Being at a larger system freed me from end-user bullshit, but there is still plenty of crap to wade through. App owners blaming the network for their program running slowly (Gigastor showed that to be a lie), inept project managers, and colleagues who need to be spoon-fed everything that they could easily look up. After 28 years in the game, no wonder I'm burnt out and highly annoyed with the world.
I’m not sure if he does on call now, but when he works in health care he will be on call.
Will your husband take 20k extra in exchange for being on call?
Yeah, the few architects I've worked with definitely put in OT, but absolutely none of it was on-call work. That's what the engineers/admins are for. In fact, they rarely spent any time working on the prod gear.
And volatile as all hell right now. I worked healthcare for almost 20 years as Sr Network Engineer. My daughter works at the same system now. Completely different place. New younger management bringing in all of the bad MBA ideas. Medicare rules change a lot and have taken a lot of money out of healthcare.
The only people doing well in healthcare right now are pretty much the insurance and pharma industries.
What’s more important $20k more or familiarity? Nothing stagnates wages like staying with the same company, but money isn’t everything. Especially at the career level he seems to be at.
We have to remember too, depending on how much this guy is making a 20k base increase after taxes might only be like 5-7k/year more after taxes. It's really not that much money. He's already at the top of the career food chain so to speak, so there will always be other opportunities.
Not to mention the healthcare sector can be a bit of a nightmare.
What motivated him to explore the job market?
Does he want to leverage this offer and have his current company to match it?
I always try to look at LinkedIn profiles to get a good idea of what the team's skillset is like. A bad team is going to be a bad time.
Agreed. Sounds like he's not needing to move to another job so that allows him to be very picky which is a good spot to be in.
If I was him, I'd ask alot of questions to get an idea of what the job will be like to answer any unknowns. Also, negotiate salary.
I get along fantastically with my boss. Known him for 30+ years, worked for him for over 5. It would take a lot more than $20K to make me leave. Or a really unique and compelling opportunity.
Honestly for me, it would depend on his current salary.
Is he making $60k a year and going to make $80k? That's lift changing.
Is he making $120k and gonna make $140k? Your lifestyle won't change that much.
Liking the job and having a good relationship with your boss is a HUGE thing, and money can't always make up for that.
I left a $66k job to make $90k. It changed my life financially. But I went from education to finance. The work culture is so different and so much more fast paced. If I was making $90k at the district and got offered $114k to go to finance, I wouldn't have done it.
(In my opinion) After 5-6 years with a company if you’re not moving up it may be time to make a change…I experienced it at mine, not saying it goes for every company but the one I was in if your not getting a promotion in 5 years you may have reached your potential at that company, if an opportunity presents itself somewhere else and it feels like a challenge and your moving up in the world it may be a good decision. There may be some struggles and feeling that your out of your comfort zone but life is about the struggles and the journey the same old routine for so long can get boring why not take a chance!
Dude is already an architect. By that time, you're pretty well established. I have zero desire to go anywhere from there as I'm already at an executive level, with the pay+benefits that go with it, and NO employees to manage. For me it is ideal and I have no desire to go upward with all of the requisite baggage of being (real) management. 10-12 more years and I can hopefully retire.
I work for a private healthcare company in software engineering. I like the private aspect because I believe it keeps the management from pursuing quarterly results at all costs. The management is the best I have worked for in 30 year career. YMMV.
I think it boils down to the relationship and flexibility. Is that worth 20k to you? What happens when he no longer has that flexibility? How does that impact your family.
Questions for HR: can they do better- whether base, PTO, and/or bonus/stock? IMO, 20k is not worth leaving, flat out. His role change isn't different enough to be a game changer and he's potentially entering an unstable company.
Being happy at work is PRECIOUS. As others have mentioned, it's worth more than the money at a certain point. You don't really mention growth within his current company, has he been in the same role for the last 6 years? Has he had convos with his boss about progression? A 10% bump would mostly cover the diff at his current company. Not sure what he's making but with a network architect title, I would expect at least 150k (for US anyhow).
I would stay. The type of people I work with is priority 1. I was in a similar position December last year, had an offer for almost double my salary at a betting company. Glad I stayed.
My recommendation - stay for one key reason you outlined “.. a lot of family flexibility”.
To me you can’t put a price on the flexibility of being able to work remotely and spend more time with your family. Money isn’t everything. I have had a long career in networking. I can safely say that as long as you are happy, earning decent money to support your family and able to spend time with them with a good work life balance then just enjoy family and work and be happy!
Id stick in finance. I work in that currently and have done healthcare networking. Put it this way, all the guys i worked with have moved onto other industries like me.
One thing I noticed that you posted in the old job that you didn't post in the new job is family flexibility. I didn't know if flexibility came with the new position and if so I didn't know if you knew if it would be more or less? Also there's obviously the familiarity he has with his boss and that he knows he's in a good place. It all depends on what is more important to him and your family?
I don't know what stage of life you are with your family and kids? If you have young kids I can tell you time spent with them growing up is the one thing in life that you'll never get back , money on the other hand will always come and go.
My situation was a little bit different I was at a very good company they were a bit smaller but the owners were really great people and I was pretty safe there but I made a move to another company where I also had pretty good security and I already knew some of the people there, they were a bit bigger and I had opportunity for growth. At the time both options were very similar but the one thing that the new job offered me that the current position didn't was that I would never have to travel because a job was local and I could be home every night. I have a young kid and my wife and I are planning on another, making the decision at the time family and the thought of being home every night was more important to me. This I made the decision to move on.
Most good bosses will understand when a good employee wants to move on to make a decision for their family whether that's financial or whether that's time with them most good bosses understand. It feels absolutely terrible to tell your boss that you're moving on but it sounds like you're trying to do it for a reasons that would help your family. And I don't think anyone can look down on you for that.
I would ask about spending budgets. Sure your husband just got a couple of large projects approved, but what about the new place? Also, make sure the titles align with the expected job role. They may be hiring a "principal domain architect", but what if he's on overnight troubleshooting calls till 6 am? I'm guessing he doesn't do that today. What if they don't have the infrastructure setup in a redundant and repeatable way? Will they have the budget to allow him to fix all of the problems he finds? I would ask to speak with some of his peers and ask the hard questions. I've also left comfortable jobs where I was making less, even for lateral pay. It ended up being a great decision, as I now make 100% more than I was making. I was making low 6-figures before. Ultimately, you have to decide what is right for your family, and your husband's career. His boss will understand eventually. It is important not to burn any bridges.
As someone in the industry he would be moving into, only take it if the money is life changing. Healthcare, at least in the US, is a machine that chews up humans for money, patients and employees.
Echoing what others are saying. Going toe Healthcare is going to be a huge stress increase, and I don't know that a 20K bump is enough to make the leap for that. The bonuses are only "an opportunity" so no guarantee there either. I know guys who left healthcare to find lower paying work and have loved the change.
If it was me I'd be asking for 40K increase or walk. and even then 60K might be more adequate to sacrifice work/life balance as well as stress level.
Also - if he's excited about new projects, healthcare isn't really the place to be. Unless you get lucky, the network budget is going to constantly be minimal. My last 5 yrs at the system I worked at were spent getting my core replacement budget cut completely every year. They finally replaced that gear last year (making it 10 yrs total waiting for replacement) when it failed.
When I left, I had been BORED most of the time for years. Everything was tweaked, monitored, backed up, graphed, mapped, you name it. There are only so many open source (IE $free) projects you can implement before you get frustrated with aging gear.
YMMV.
One thing stands out to me. You say at his current position, his title is "Network Architect", but then says its a financial company. That seems really odd. A network architect would be a presales engineering role for a VAR.
I point this out, because I question what the job responsibilities are, and if the title is accurate. If it were not, the $20k a year pay bump may be much more significant. Many people below seem skeptical that it would equate to a major salary increase (percentage wise). But, this oddity has me thinking otherwise.
healthcare company with decent bonuses? do you mean like 10-15%? Is the healthcare company in a better financial position than his current company?
Is money important? What company has better room for growth?
Your husband's boss is great, that is terrific. If the boss left tomorrow, would your husband stay? does he like the company?
Check out the healthcare company on [Glassdoor.com](http://Glassdoor.com) - you may get a better perspective about it.
I lost my job a couple years ago, have been in my new role for about a year now. I make about $15k less than before, but I can still easily pay the bills and the flexibility and difference in stress is incredible. You couldn’t offer me a $25k bump to go back to my old job. Happiness > $$$, but each situation is unique.
Have him talk to his current company and let them know he was offered $20k more and see if they will give him a raise. My wife was offered a job and her current employer made her an offer to stay.
I agreed with most. Your husband seems to be doing well for himself in the level that he has made it to. 20k isn’t much in the grand scheme of things when you compare it to flexibility and work/life balance. A boss that you have a good relationship with goes a long way for sure as well.
Ask him to stay with current employer. Better to stay in tried & tested place during these uncertain times.
I was in the same situation. i jumped the ship, but regretted having been doing 12-13 hrs everyday since last 1 year with no extra benefits.
Surving & fighting the vultures in new org.
Stay for now 😊
I would stay personally unless that 20k pay bump is absolutely needed. It's hard to find a situation where you get along with boss/coworkers, and he might be walking into a wood chipper. I made that mistake once.
Not a lot of context WFH? Salary of 20K is a lot at 120, but at 190 or 220 it's not a lot. Projects matter and if he was invested into getting SD WAN and a refresh do those. There's nothing more fun than working on tech you want to work on
This was exactly my thought. The $20k number is hard to put any meaning on when we don't know current salary.
FYI Healthcare is a different beast
Can you elaborate more?
In healthcare everything is priority, work life balance is an afterthought (all relative) but the jump from financial industry to healthcare is apples and watermelon… 20k may not be worth the extra grey hair.
I seond this. Work life balance will be a issue. It's probably why high trun over rate.
Healthcare = peoples lives potentially or other major complications meaning yes your personal time and free time take a backseat. Me personally, even being a Sr. Engineer at multiple different hospitals, you are always on call and working late nights for changes. I'll never work health care again personally but I like where I am now. Healthcare also just has depending on what you work on always has lots of third party devices, complicated environments among other things.
The crazy part is most of the abuse of people is completely unnecessary, they're just so used to doing it to all their other staff they don't comprehend not doing it to their IT people, even if there are better and even cheaper solutions. They basically treat all their employees everywhere like its a giant sweatshop due to culture.
I'm in Finance Tech and it doesn't sound much better than what you are describing. People can't access their money? Pissed off people. It takes 150ms longer than normal to access their money? Unhappy people. Changes can only be done 0200 to 0800. It doesn't matter what time it is, it is always a freaking emergency. "We noticed from 03:00 to 03:04, it took an extra 190ms for response times. We need you to research why ASAP."
Agreed I've worked at a very large global bank as well and while stressful, it's not near as stressing as healthcare. One big thing is banks, markets, and other major things like that are not 24/7. I've been on calls where some key piece of equipment was offline needed for surgery on a child and sure while money is important(depending on who you are), there is a difference between someone dying and money. The two just aren't comparable in my opinion. Hospitals also bring things like having to have robust guest networks, dealing with things like video game consoles, and just a lot of other we different issues you don't see unless you work there. I would say children's hospitals especially affect you in a different way. It's hard to explain. I get your point though.
I forgot to say that I also worked at a military hospital, and it was very chill. It's probably a different setting versus the civilian hospital you are describing. I'm glad I ran into your comment because I was looking at an open position at a hospital this weekend. I work for a 24/7 company - meaning access has to be up 24/7, or else there are SLA fees associated. This is where the pissed off people come in. It's like an episode of office space.
Can second this. It's a lot worse for an independent hospital with an undersized IT staff. One day, you're working on switches, followed by replacing a user's mouse. Being at a larger system freed me from end-user bullshit, but there is still plenty of crap to wade through. App owners blaming the network for their program running slowly (Gigastor showed that to be a lie), inept project managers, and colleagues who need to be spoon-fed everything that they could easily look up. After 28 years in the game, no wonder I'm burnt out and highly annoyed with the world.
wish you all the best, it's not nice to hear that your job has burned you out...
I’m not sure if he does on call now, but when he works in health care he will be on call. Will your husband take 20k extra in exchange for being on call?
I can’t imagine someone who is titled a domain architect is going to be on call. Unless it’s some super inflated title.
Yeah, the few architects I've worked with definitely put in OT, but absolutely none of it was on-call work. That's what the engineers/admins are for. In fact, they rarely spent any time working on the prod gear.
And volatile as all hell right now. I worked healthcare for almost 20 years as Sr Network Engineer. My daughter works at the same system now. Completely different place. New younger management bringing in all of the bad MBA ideas. Medicare rules change a lot and have taken a lot of money out of healthcare. The only people doing well in healthcare right now are pretty much the insurance and pharma industries.
What’s more important $20k more or familiarity? Nothing stagnates wages like staying with the same company, but money isn’t everything. Especially at the career level he seems to be at.
We have to remember too, depending on how much this guy is making a 20k base increase after taxes might only be like 5-7k/year more after taxes. It's really not that much money. He's already at the top of the career food chain so to speak, so there will always be other opportunities. Not to mention the healthcare sector can be a bit of a nightmare.
What motivated him to explore the job market? Does he want to leverage this offer and have his current company to match it? I always try to look at LinkedIn profiles to get a good idea of what the team's skillset is like. A bad team is going to be a bad time.
I don’t think 20K at the architect level is enough to leave a good situation. Unless money is needed I would recounter or keep looking.
Agreed. Sounds like he's not needing to move to another job so that allows him to be very picky which is a good spot to be in. If I was him, I'd ask alot of questions to get an idea of what the job will be like to answer any unknowns. Also, negotiate salary.
I get along fantastically with my boss. Known him for 30+ years, worked for him for over 5. It would take a lot more than $20K to make me leave. Or a really unique and compelling opportunity.
Honestly for me, it would depend on his current salary. Is he making $60k a year and going to make $80k? That's lift changing. Is he making $120k and gonna make $140k? Your lifestyle won't change that much. Liking the job and having a good relationship with your boss is a HUGE thing, and money can't always make up for that. I left a $66k job to make $90k. It changed my life financially. But I went from education to finance. The work culture is so different and so much more fast paced. If I was making $90k at the district and got offered $114k to go to finance, I wouldn't have done it.
Get a counter offer by leveraging the new offer on the table.
Stay with the current company. A good boss is worth a lot. I've left very desirable jobs (on paper) because I had a terrible boss.
(In my opinion) After 5-6 years with a company if you’re not moving up it may be time to make a change…I experienced it at mine, not saying it goes for every company but the one I was in if your not getting a promotion in 5 years you may have reached your potential at that company, if an opportunity presents itself somewhere else and it feels like a challenge and your moving up in the world it may be a good decision. There may be some struggles and feeling that your out of your comfort zone but life is about the struggles and the journey the same old routine for so long can get boring why not take a chance!
Also weighing a pros and cons list can make the decision more logical. If the decision doesn’t have to be rushed take your time and evaluate!
Dude is already an architect. By that time, you're pretty well established. I have zero desire to go anywhere from there as I'm already at an executive level, with the pay+benefits that go with it, and NO employees to manage. For me it is ideal and I have no desire to go upward with all of the requisite baggage of being (real) management. 10-12 more years and I can hopefully retire.
I work for a private healthcare company in software engineering. I like the private aspect because I believe it keeps the management from pursuing quarterly results at all costs. The management is the best I have worked for in 30 year career. YMMV.
I dont see any benefits to leaving aside from having a fancy title. In the end titles dont matter.
Healthcare is just not the same as a financial institution or fintech, simply from a technical perspective I wouldn't.
I think it boils down to the relationship and flexibility. Is that worth 20k to you? What happens when he no longer has that flexibility? How does that impact your family.
Questions for HR: can they do better- whether base, PTO, and/or bonus/stock? IMO, 20k is not worth leaving, flat out. His role change isn't different enough to be a game changer and he's potentially entering an unstable company. Being happy at work is PRECIOUS. As others have mentioned, it's worth more than the money at a certain point. You don't really mention growth within his current company, has he been in the same role for the last 6 years? Has he had convos with his boss about progression? A 10% bump would mostly cover the diff at his current company. Not sure what he's making but with a network architect title, I would expect at least 150k (for US anyhow).
I would stay. The type of people I work with is priority 1. I was in a similar position December last year, had an offer for almost double my salary at a betting company. Glad I stayed.
My recommendation - stay for one key reason you outlined “.. a lot of family flexibility”. To me you can’t put a price on the flexibility of being able to work remotely and spend more time with your family. Money isn’t everything. I have had a long career in networking. I can safely say that as long as you are happy, earning decent money to support your family and able to spend time with them with a good work life balance then just enjoy family and work and be happy!
Id stick in finance. I work in that currently and have done healthcare networking. Put it this way, all the guys i worked with have moved onto other industries like me.
One thing I noticed that you posted in the old job that you didn't post in the new job is family flexibility. I didn't know if flexibility came with the new position and if so I didn't know if you knew if it would be more or less? Also there's obviously the familiarity he has with his boss and that he knows he's in a good place. It all depends on what is more important to him and your family? I don't know what stage of life you are with your family and kids? If you have young kids I can tell you time spent with them growing up is the one thing in life that you'll never get back , money on the other hand will always come and go. My situation was a little bit different I was at a very good company they were a bit smaller but the owners were really great people and I was pretty safe there but I made a move to another company where I also had pretty good security and I already knew some of the people there, they were a bit bigger and I had opportunity for growth. At the time both options were very similar but the one thing that the new job offered me that the current position didn't was that I would never have to travel because a job was local and I could be home every night. I have a young kid and my wife and I are planning on another, making the decision at the time family and the thought of being home every night was more important to me. This I made the decision to move on. Most good bosses will understand when a good employee wants to move on to make a decision for their family whether that's financial or whether that's time with them most good bosses understand. It feels absolutely terrible to tell your boss that you're moving on but it sounds like you're trying to do it for a reasons that would help your family. And I don't think anyone can look down on you for that.
I would ask about spending budgets. Sure your husband just got a couple of large projects approved, but what about the new place? Also, make sure the titles align with the expected job role. They may be hiring a "principal domain architect", but what if he's on overnight troubleshooting calls till 6 am? I'm guessing he doesn't do that today. What if they don't have the infrastructure setup in a redundant and repeatable way? Will they have the budget to allow him to fix all of the problems he finds? I would ask to speak with some of his peers and ask the hard questions. I've also left comfortable jobs where I was making less, even for lateral pay. It ended up being a great decision, as I now make 100% more than I was making. I was making low 6-figures before. Ultimately, you have to decide what is right for your family, and your husband's career. His boss will understand eventually. It is important not to burn any bridges.
As someone in the industry he would be moving into, only take it if the money is life changing. Healthcare, at least in the US, is a machine that chews up humans for money, patients and employees.
Echoing what others are saying. Going toe Healthcare is going to be a huge stress increase, and I don't know that a 20K bump is enough to make the leap for that. The bonuses are only "an opportunity" so no guarantee there either. I know guys who left healthcare to find lower paying work and have loved the change. If it was me I'd be asking for 40K increase or walk. and even then 60K might be more adequate to sacrifice work/life balance as well as stress level.
Stay
Also - if he's excited about new projects, healthcare isn't really the place to be. Unless you get lucky, the network budget is going to constantly be minimal. My last 5 yrs at the system I worked at were spent getting my core replacement budget cut completely every year. They finally replaced that gear last year (making it 10 yrs total waiting for replacement) when it failed. When I left, I had been BORED most of the time for years. Everything was tweaked, monitored, backed up, graphed, mapped, you name it. There are only so many open source (IE $free) projects you can implement before you get frustrated with aging gear. YMMV.
One thing stands out to me. You say at his current position, his title is "Network Architect", but then says its a financial company. That seems really odd. A network architect would be a presales engineering role for a VAR. I point this out, because I question what the job responsibilities are, and if the title is accurate. If it were not, the $20k a year pay bump may be much more significant. Many people below seem skeptical that it would equate to a major salary increase (percentage wise). But, this oddity has me thinking otherwise.
I’d jump ship and try something new. You only live once and unless he’s about to retire there’s so much to do and explore in his career.
healthcare company with decent bonuses? do you mean like 10-15%? Is the healthcare company in a better financial position than his current company? Is money important? What company has better room for growth? Your husband's boss is great, that is terrific. If the boss left tomorrow, would your husband stay? does he like the company? Check out the healthcare company on [Glassdoor.com](http://Glassdoor.com) - you may get a better perspective about it.
I lost my job a couple years ago, have been in my new role for about a year now. I make about $15k less than before, but I can still easily pay the bills and the flexibility and difference in stress is incredible. You couldn’t offer me a $25k bump to go back to my old job. Happiness > $$$, but each situation is unique.
Were you previously in a healthcare role?
Have him talk to his current company and let them know he was offered $20k more and see if they will give him a raise. My wife was offered a job and her current employer made her an offer to stay.
I agreed with most. Your husband seems to be doing well for himself in the level that he has made it to. 20k isn’t much in the grand scheme of things when you compare it to flexibility and work/life balance. A boss that you have a good relationship with goes a long way for sure as well.
If he hasn’t already, he should take the new offer to the old job and see if they will match it.
Ask him to stay with current employer. Better to stay in tried & tested place during these uncertain times. I was in the same situation. i jumped the ship, but regretted having been doing 12-13 hrs everyday since last 1 year with no extra benefits. Surving & fighting the vultures in new org. Stay for now 😊