> Opportunities need to be weighed against what you want.
Yep. Sometimes the negatives can be outweighed by some strong positives -- a 30% increase might be worth more than 6 hours/week on the road to you (the general "you") or it might not. Sometimes, corny as it sounds, sitting down and writing out the ol' positives/negatives list helps.
It's also really about what you want for your life. Do you want to build a startup? Do you want to work at a huge company? Do you like time for your own projects, or is a great day at the office all you need?
> My wife came to the point -- are you willing to give up your own projects and 6+ hours of commuting a week for the $ difference?
That calculation ignored the quality difference of the new job, which circles back to the /. post. How do you quantify that? What value and weight does it have in your calculation? If the quality of work + environment + coworkers was sufficiently better, what difference would that make on your calculation different values of "sufficiently"?
In my case, I think the quality of the jobs was probably equal -- I know people at the other location.
In general, there is a risk in trying to assess quality of life at the possible opportunity. Unless one knows someone working in the group, you are going off of impressions formed off information through interviewing, possible external contacts, and the like. I do think you need to factor in what you are used to into the equation. I've been guilty of seeing a shiny technical challenge and running towards it only to realize a few months later, um..how'd I get here?
Quality of work is probably easiest to evaluate
Coworkers - you need to do the homework, find connections, references, etc.
Environment is probably the hardest to evaluate -- asking questions will get you some answers - but has the company/group been through any challenges? If not, how can you gauge that? How will management react? This is a risk.
You raise some great questions.
In my case, quality was probably a slight plus, environment (counting commute) a wash to slight negative, coworkers (a wash to some unknowns). So not enough of a net positive to give up the time working on my own projects.
> Opportunities need to be weighed against what you want.
Yep. Sometimes the negatives can be outweighed by some strong positives -- a 30% increase might be worth more than 6 hours/week on the road to you (the general "you") or it might not. Sometimes, corny as it sounds, sitting down and writing out the ol' positives/negatives list helps.
It's also really about what you want for your life. Do you want to build a startup? Do you want to work at a huge company? Do you like time for your own projects, or is a great day at the office all you need?
> My wife came to the point -- are you willing to give up your own projects and 6+ hours of commuting a week for the $ difference?
That calculation ignored the quality difference of the new job, which circles back to the /. post. How do you quantify that? What value and weight does it have in your calculation? If the quality of work + environment + coworkers was sufficiently better, what difference would that make on your calculation different values of "sufficiently"?