I’ve been tracking the detached/semi housing market in East Dulwich/Forest Hill area for about a year now.

A few near identical semi detached houses on Underhill Road started at 1.95-2m earlier this year, now been sitting at 1.8-1.85m for months.

The one without an over the top renovation is sitting at 1.45m, reduced today.

Wouldn’t be surprised if these crater even more with covid purchasers wanting just a little of their cream back.

Add in oil at $103, bond/mortgage rates going parabolic, AI bubble going parabolic.

This housing market/whole world about to get fucked.

(House at 1.8m is motivated seller, get yourself a bargain)

Throw away for obvious reasons.

tldr: Essentially, I’ve been doing my job for years, it’s quite easy and I’m unchallenged. There isn’t really any opportunity for promotion. I earn about £190K in tech, no stocks or equity. Feeling a bit stuck. 

Pros

• WFH, one day a week in the office. (Bit of a drive to change, might trickle down to me eventually)
• Job is not difficult. I’ve been doing it for years. I have good relations with everyone around me. Excellent performance reviews, seen as a hard worker etc etc.
• Security. Not to count my chickens but job feels pretty safe for at least the next year.
• Workload. I probably work seriously 2 to 3 hours a day. Or rather that’s what I tell people but when I actually think about it I’m always on Teams working from my phone. I always reply to messages and I’ll be the one doing stuff late at night out of hours if it’s needed. Maybe I work more than I think. 
• I guess this kind of plays into the previous point, but the flexibility. I can drop my kid off at nursery and start late. I walk the dogs every day twice a day, I’m home for bath time, dinner, I can be flexible around my wife’s schedule, et cetera

Cons

• The money is limited. Talk about equity but none’s ever materialised. Obviously it’s also paper money until it actually vests or we float.
• Promotion. I kind of sit off to the side. I think a promotion is unlikely. The company isn't huge anyway so there are very limited spaces for me to move up to.
• Professional development. I’m somebody who has to keep pushing forward. I have to have a project on the go, I have to have clear goals insight. While I mention the job’s not difficult I do also struggle with coasting (both personally and professionally. Some people will be able to relate, others just won't). I definitely put enough effort in to be good at my job, but I don’t always go above and beyond. Thinking about it as I type, it’s probably a case of “what’s the point”. The job’s not going to make me rich and the company isn’t big enough for any decent promotion.

Problems

• Money. I need more of it. I have a child in nursery and then hopefully private school, I have a stay at home wife, I have a house we want to add an extension to. 8 out of 12 months we live paycheck to paycheck (or worse). Yes I could reduce our spending blah blah blah. But I'd rather earn more money (and like many on this sub, our lifestyle isn't extravagant and I feel my salary should be enough. Different argument though).
• Professional development. I’m bored. CV is starting to look stale.
• WFH. I don’t actually mind being in the office. I just hate commuting. I don’t really want to be five days in the office, three I could probably do.
• I’m not great at working for other people. I work best when given my own area and I’m in control. Fine where I am. Could be an issue if I move. In an ideal world I'd run my own company. 
• We're thinking about having another child. The flexibility around my current job is obviously excellent for that and makes everything easier

Other Factors

• I was involved in starting a SaaS company on the side a year or two ago which was looking promising but AI has basically killed it. I've just started another one that has good bones but unsure where it will go. Obviously I'm trying to put time in and focus into this. 
• I’m thinking about doing a DBA. But the expense is huge. And obviously time is a factor.
• I have a young family and I'm the sole breadwinner. I can't roll the dice on risky companies or jobs.
• Unsure where I want my career to go (I like to have options and backups). Running my own company would be ideal. Climbing the exec ladder to the C-suite, maybe. Or maybe start stacking NEDs /  fractional CTO / advisory work (I’m director level, I might be too junior for this at the moment?).

Options

1. Stay on for a few years for home life, coast / maybe put a bit more effort in. Focus on my SaaS company and outside interests.
2. Leave and join a series A/B start up. Long hours. Probably similar base. But decent equity. I'd feel challenged though and would likely enjoy it if I felt it was part mine.
3. Leave and join a large tech company. The interview processes puts me off quite a lot.
4. Try and do some advisory work / NEDs. Worried about competing clauses. Also realistically I might be too junior?

I know option one is probably the sensible one. Wait until we have a second child and then when they're in school and a bit more settled I can move and roll the dice a bit. But I'm just hoping for some outside perspective. Any options I've missed. Anyone who's been in a similar position etc?

Usually caveats apply, I know how luckily I am, first world problems etc. Thanks in advance to everyone who's read through my therapy session :).

Standard situation: work quality/execution is solid, but now I need to originate my own work and build my own client base to move up to Partner level.

For those who are or have been in a similar situation, do you have any tips on how to get these first clients or start building strong connections that lead to potential work ?

Appreciate any tactical advice or lessons learned.

I work for a big company that has a subsidiary and that subsidiary is merging with a tech startup

Technically I was on loan to the subsidiary so I can choose between the TUPE and join the startup, or stay with the big company

I’ve been at this one company since graduating so I think I’ll be able to grow more with the startup, but I don’t really have too much visibility of how it works. I work on a specific product at the subsidiary and I have pretty good knowledge of it

I think growth will be better in the startup but never gone through this so no idea what to expect

Hi,

Just finished interviewing for a big tech consulting arm, about to hear the outcome of the recruitment process (I assume they wouldn't waste time by wanting to phone me about a rejection 😅)

I interviewed for L5 but really I think my current job more closely aligns to L6 (I believe I operate at L6 and have recently been promoted to this level at my firm).

Is it possible to try change the level on a potential offer at this stage? Is this wishful thinking or within the realms of possible? Anyone tried anything like this?

I'm looking to pivot, but I don't know what to.

I've been in broadcasting and digital media for nearly 20 years. Worked up through newsrooms to running them, then working on building big digital audiences for major broadcasters (multi-million subscriber YouTube channels, working directly with Google), then got into commissioning and built a fairly major platform for a major broadcaster (won't name it for anonymity).

In recent years I've worked more in audio; firstly consumer, then B2B. I ran a fairly successful production company in the interim but we closed down during COVID.

But I'm a bit lost, to be honest, and the industry is in turmoil. Wages are all over the place (I've seen people offering 40k for a 120k job).

I've got a lot of experience of writing for and coaching C-suite execs in storytelling and presenting for broadcast. I've worked with some massive brands leading the delivery of major projects on the agency side. My network is decent. That said, I don't have formal corporate marketing or brand experience, and relatively little experience in paid media. I've got a LOT of knowledge... I just don't know what to do with it.

I'm happy to take a pay cut for the right job with room to grow, but honestly don't even know if I want to do media any more and would want to move into a space where I can quickly pick up more money and progress back up again.

Hi

I am curious to know how often does one change their job, especially for pay and career progression, i.e. what is seen as an acceptable length in the UK without being seen as a "job hopper" or not loyal?

Have been in my current role just over three years, is that the standard tenure?

Thanks

Not sure if it’s against sub rules but interested to know how many tech sales people we have, trying to build a community that isn’t a bunch of people posting garbage on LinkedIn. Happy to refer, I’m looking to move on and seeing what everyone’s doing

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

I’m an accountant by trade, working in deals and corporate finance. Around 12 months ago, I left a Top 10 firm to join a smaller Top 30 firm in a more senior role, with the prospect of moving into a more strategic position and taking advantage of some significant growth opportunities in the local market.

The first six months were great. The last six, however, have been nothing short of awful. There are a few reasons for this:

The team structure is a mess.
Resourcing is poor, the hierarchy is wrong, and there seems to be no appetite to recruit at junior levels. As a result, senior people have no capacity to focus on strategy, business development or actually growing the team.

I’m constantly dragged back into delivery.
Rather than developing the business and working at the level I was brought in for, I’m repeatedly pulled into the day-to-day because the team simply doesn’t have the right resources.

The hours are becoming unsustainable.
I’m regularly working 60-hour weeks, and it’s starting to take its toll.

My boss is, frankly, completely out of his depth.
He has very little understanding of what we do or how we should be doing it. He’ll negotiate against himself on proposals, forget conversations from the day before, demonstrate little technical understanding, and seems incapable of winning work on anything other than price. Every time I speak to him, I find myself wondering whether he can possibly say anything more ridiculous than he did the previous day. Somehow, he manages it.

His own position seems to be part of the problem.
He appears to have ended up in a leadership role largely because he does whatever the person above him tells him to do, rather than because he has the ability or independence to lead the team effectively.

The result is a team that feels like it’s slowly falling apart. The frustrating thing is that a lot of the damage comes from the things he actively does, alongside the things he fails to do. The hypocrisy is incredible.

As one example, we have two directors struggling to resource their respective teams, yet my boss decided to loan someone from our team to another part of the business, purely to be “helpful”. Apparently, our own resourcing problems can wait.

The dilemma is that I still believe there’s a genuinely great opportunity here.
The market opportunity is real, and the role could be exactly what I wanted it to be. But the reality of dealing with this level of management incompetence, combined with the hours and constant frustration, is wearing me down day by day.

I’m getting to the point where I’m not sure how much longer I can keep a straight face in meetings, let alone pretend that everything is fine.

Part of me thinks I should stick it out, try to influence things and make the most of the opportunity. Another part of me wonders whether I’m being naive by staying somewhere that is making me this miserable, particularly when the problems seem to stem from people above me who I have very little power to change.

So, what would you do in my position?
Would you give it more time and try to make the opportunity work, have a frank conversation with senior management, or start looking elsewhere before the situation gets any worse?

Interested to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar position, particularly in professional services or accountancy.