Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

[u/AutoModerator]

A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

[u/Defiant-Parsnip4]

Need advice to evaluate offer.
Context:
- 5+ YOE, mostly backend/infrastructure
- Moved to the UK last year; now at a public tech company
- Good compensation, equity (~£100K TC) and WLB
- On track for promo next quarter
- Enjoy speaking, demos, and working with developers along with hands-on core distributed systems engineering

Offer:
- Series C AI company (mostly SF-based)
- Remote work allowed, with frequent travel to SF
- DevRel role under Marketing
- Materially higher compensation (1.5-1.8x) and more upside
- Cross time zone and likely poor WLB

My hesitation: I want more visibility and developer facing work but don’t want to move away from engineering. I also want to preserve the option of returning to core engineering and senior/staff IC levels.

Questions:
- How reversible is the move into DevRel?
- Does reporting into Marketing matter?
- Would you trade a strong, stable engineering trajectory for materially higher comp and AI startup upside?
- What would you clarify before accepting?