Update:
1. I got promoted
2. I have as asked to choose between 4 new roles. 5 if you count keeping my old role and adding a new one as an option.
I have about 2 weeks to express my prefences. The 4 new roles aren't absolutely guaranteed, but I'd guess 1 is 100%, 1 is 90%, and the other two are 60%.
Moral of the story:
1. If you are willing to be open about where you are at and you are considered a high performer, sometimes the powers that be will make things happen
2. If you are really willing and ready to walk, you might as well try #1 anyway because what have you got to lose?
3. I was obviously frustrated when I wrote my OP, lol.
Meanwhile I got an interview for my "dream job" at another company. I had applied right around my OP. So..... Now I don't even want the hassle, lol! But I'm interviewing anyway because you never know.
For the curious, my current role is in quality management at a manufacturing plant. My promotion is to a higher level of manager (I could keep same job for more pay). My options for new roles are in project management and two different engineering functional management roles, both of which are quite different than my current role in various ways and will be systemically different in some of the areas that currently frustrate me. The interview is for a high level engineering individual contributor role.
I have meetings with internal people this week and next, interview next week, go on PTO the following week, so things shoyluld shake out one way or the other by mid to end of August. Slightly later than my last timeline but that will shock no one who had worked in corporate America.
This is a GREAT update. My thoughts, as a fellow engineering manager.
Quality management - interesting, but kind of sucks. We have just ONE person in quality at my location (the VP), and his job is SAFE because nobody wants to do that.
Project management - I like this, depending on HOW MANY projects. (I'm doing some of that right now, but I manage larger programs.)
Engineering functional management - I've done this too, in the fab area. I did like this, but we were a 24/7 operation, so I didn't so much like the late night phone calls and weekends when shit broke.
High level engineering individual contributor - isn't this almost every engineer's dream job? I feel like it is. I would love this, but the problem with being organized is that you get pushed into management roles.
Give me experiments and data and problems to solve and work through, and I'm a happy camper.
