Want the sad truth? You have to leave. I was in this exact position once. Fun team, fun tech, lots of freedom to experiment and prototype new stuff just in c

Want the sad truth? You have to leave. I was in this exact position once. Fun team, fun tech, lots of freedom to experiment and prototype new stuff just in case it became useful. Supportive management and sane working conditions. $37k/year. Leaving that place was one of the toughest decisions of my young life. I had managed to secure the biggest percentage raise they were willing to give, at the end of a long negotiation explaining the state on the ground as it was in 1998 (when much like today developers were very much in demand and could essentially name their price), but that only got me up to the mid $40s. So I took the leap. Responded to one of the mails in my inbox and took a job for another shop in town for twice the money. Folks at the old place were stunned and saddened. I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. But it was. Absolutely. 15 years later, I was on an even more fun team, with cool tech, respect, and all that stuff from above, but for 10X the takehome pay of that "Dream Job" from the 90s. To put it mildly, that's not where I would have been career-wise had I stayed put. You have a whole life ahead. Even the best thing to ever happen to you will be something you look back at as a local maxima. It's not worth leaving millions (and I do mean actual real millions) of dollars on the table just to stay someplace fun. Float your resume today. Future you will thank you for it.