A 24-year-old professional working in a corporate technology role feels unfulfilled and bored with their current job. Despite a decent salary and benefits, the work is mundane and does not align with their passions for mathematics, AI/ML, finance, or investing. The individual is considering an offer to join the family business, which presents its own set of opportunities and challenges.
Pain Points
- Unfulfilling and boring work in the current corporate job.
- Lack of alignment between current job tasks and personal passions.
- Job security and benefits concerns when considering a move to a family business.
- Potential conflict with future personal business aspirations.
- Geographical constraints and remote work challenges in the family business.
Hi, I'm 24, I've been working in the corporate world for 4 years now in technology roles. For the first 3 years, I was a software engineer and I started my current job at a bank a year ago as a Data Engineer in Australia. My salary is decent (130k AUD) and I get pretty good benefits. But I'm honestly not enjoying it at all -- the actual work I do is boring, my team members are rude and mostly off shore, and even though I provide ideas and designs for projects (which they actually use and develop further), I'm constantly shuffled to the side on the more mundane tasks. I'm basically just developing API endpoints and providing support on our data pipelines. I studied maths at university and I'm passionate about that and AI/ML (as well as finance and investing) but despite working as a data engineer at a bank, I don't get to do anything remotely close to work in this area. Since I'm thinking of leaving, my dad has offered me a spot in the family business. They specialise in telecommunications/transport/logistics for small to large businesses and government, as well as a secondary business in property management. The business does about $5M per year in revenue. My dad says I'd be entering the company as an "AI strategist" and R&D consultant, to work on new projects and align with new AI tech (as they're currently lacking here). He says there's absolutely no pressure to take over one day, and that decision is entirely up to me. He's offering slightly more than I make now, about $140k. I guess I'm conflicted because of job security, freedom and benefits. There's more risk in a small family business compared to a large bank. But, I also don't see myself here, and especially not a data engineer. It's probably the least fulfilling work I've done so far. I also \\\*do\\\* want to start my own business (probably soon) so I'm worried that the family business would overlap/conflict with that. Also, my girlfriend probably wants to move states in a few years, but the business only has an office in one state (although he has employees working remotely in different states) - my dad says it's not ideal to run the business from a different state, if I do end up taking over. Looking for some advice on this - thanks!