Leaving Part I

I'm having a hard time deciding what my next career move will be. I can't help but shake this feeling that moving from my current employer will be a mistake. The compensation is good, the team is nice, the work life balance is great and there are opportunities to grow in different areas.

But staying in my current team is a hard pass. Although they're a great bunch of people, there's some huge issues with the way the team has been managed over the past few years. The team started out as just a single team under one manager but naturally grew larger. At some point the decision was made to split it up among 3 managers which seemed like a great idea except the fact that nothing changed. We still had the same daily 30 person meetings and bi weekly planning sessions. In such a large team, it's hard to get everyone to agree on any sort of change and thousands of dollars are wasted in unproductive meetings.

Changing teams is another option. Maybe I can find a smaller team that is working on something interesting, that way I wouldn't need to deal with changing employers and leaving the country to renew my visa. Although not having to renew my visa would be nice, it's a small detail I'm happy to overlook for my decision making process. My biggest concern with changing teams is that it's still the same large company. I may still end up feeling like a cog in a machine. The feeling that my actions barely make any visible change.