DS career - choose comfort or risk it for growth?
Should I choose growth or settle for comfort?
I am currently a data scientist in a tech company in the US. I make 130k gross and it is night shift and WFH (I dislike it). My goal later on is to retire as an executive at a local conglomerate/MNC because while WFH is great with the flexibility it gives, I don’t see the career path going further than a technical manager. I don’t know of any executives that work remotely. My original path was data scientist > sr data scientist > data science manager > analytics head > AVP levels > executive levels (CTO or Head of Data)
I have two opportunities presented to me:
Senior Data Scientist for US AI company - just the typical Jira tickets and predictable workload with projects and ad hocs
WFH and dayshift
180k gross
13th month
20VL 20SL
HMO for up to 3 dependents (including parents)Solutions Architect for local conglomerate - I get to speak with heads of departments in different companies and figure out a way to solve their data analytics problems (70% business role 30% technical design)
Hybrid (either WFH, office or client office)
Waiting for offer this week - might be around 160k gross
17th month
22VL 15SL
Car plan
HMO but only for spouse and children (none yet)
Annual package of 2nd job is 380k more plus a car plan on top. I appreciate the freedom of WFH but I feel like the solutions architect role is a shortcut to my goal of gaining an executive position locally by learning a lot of the pain points in different companies. I also feel that I have a disconnect with my work-life balance if I am fully WFH. I feel like I only contribute 60% in WFH compared to what I can with a hybrid role (being a people person). I live in BGC (even while WFH) so the additional expense would mostly be travel costs (which will be reimbursed for client visits AFAIK).
What would you do here?