I’m a Data Engineer with 6.6 years of experience, mainly working with PySpark, SQL, Airflow, and Python in banking/fincrime data platforms.
I’m stuck between two career options and wanted unbiased opinions from people who’ve gone through similar mid-career decisions.
### Option 1 — Stay at current company (banking domain)
Current compensation:
- 28 LPA fixed + bonus
They really want me to stay and are ready to counter aggressively.
Current discussion is around:
- ~44 LPA fixed
- ~10% bonus
- Possible title correction/promotion as well
Pros:
- Massive immediate compensation jump
- Financially this changes a lot for me
- Strong internal goodwill/reputation already built
- Stability and comfort
- Better short-term wealth creation
Cons:
- I’ll most likely continue doing what I’m already doing for the next 2 years
- When I joined, the role was great because I was newer to data engineering and learning a lot
- But now I genuinely feel my skills have started stagnating
- Work is still more traditional banking/fincrime DE work
- Concerned about long-term technical growth and market positioning
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### Option 2 — Join a product company GCC being newly set up in India
Offer:
- 40 LPA fixed
- 6 LPA bonus
One reason I’m considering it seriously is because this GCC is being built from the ground up here.
Pros:
- Product company environment
- New GCC means new systems/problems/processes being built
- I expect the tech stack itself to still be mostly PySpark/SQL/Airflow/data engineering related
- But I’ll probably face newer engineering problems and broader ownership
- Better learning scope and exposure
- Potentially stronger engineering culture and product mindset
- Might improve long-term career trajectory
Cons:
- Immediate pay is still lower than current company’s counter
- I’ll probably need a couple of years to reach the same compensation
- Risk of leaving an already strong internal position
- New org uncertainty since GCC is still being set up
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My dilemma is basically:
Do I optimize for:
Massive compensation correction right now
ORBetter long-term engineering growth and future positioning?
Some additional context:
- I eventually want to move toward stronger engineering/system design/GenAI-oriented roles over the next few years.
- Wealth creation matters to me a lot.
- But I also don’t want to become someone who is highly paid in a stagnant niche and struggles later because of outdated exposure.
Would genuinely appreciate advice from people who’ve faced similar “money vs growth” choices around the 6–8 YOE stage.