Just this week I chose to move laterally within a company. But that does entail leaving my former role, so I think the psychology is similar.
I had been working in a game development role, developing gameplay features. The position I moved to is developing service infrastructure for the game developers.
For a bit of history, my software career started at this company developing tools for the customer support department (I actually originally worked in customer support and my development promotion came about because I was developing tools for myself and my teammates). That went on for a number of years and I enjoyed it. I also did a bit of anti-cheating work, which I pushed for, so that was a good time too. Then I was placed onto this game feature role without any say in the matter.
I knew even before this change occurred that I don't care about commercial game development. I have plenty of amateur game development experience, but it's not something I have any interest in doing all day every day, especially when the motivation is commercial rather than artistic, and especially especially when higher-level decision makers relentlessly interfere. What I care about to the extent I can happily do it on a daily basis is making tools that make those around me more effective, pretty much regardless of what they're doing, because that makes the people around me happier.
So when I was asked if I was interested in this role, although I negotiated terms a little bit, basically I realized I had no actual leverage because just the work itself was such an appealing change to me. Incidentally I did get a substantial raise, but I'd made up my mind before that was even presented.
I also had some minor frustrations with the team I left, but I honestly think the team itself was on a promising trajectory, just the larger game development organization they were in (and my new team is outside of) was not. So I suppose in the "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers" frame, I quit the senior leadership of the game.
I had been working in a game development role, developing gameplay features. The position I moved to is developing service infrastructure for the game developers.
For a bit of history, my software career started at this company developing tools for the customer support department (I actually originally worked in customer support and my development promotion came about because I was developing tools for myself and my teammates). That went on for a number of years and I enjoyed it. I also did a bit of anti-cheating work, which I pushed for, so that was a good time too. Then I was placed onto this game feature role without any say in the matter.
I knew even before this change occurred that I don't care about commercial game development. I have plenty of amateur game development experience, but it's not something I have any interest in doing all day every day, especially when the motivation is commercial rather than artistic, and especially especially when higher-level decision makers relentlessly interfere. What I care about to the extent I can happily do it on a daily basis is making tools that make those around me more effective, pretty much regardless of what they're doing, because that makes the people around me happier.
So when I was asked if I was interested in this role, although I negotiated terms a little bit, basically I realized I had no actual leverage because just the work itself was such an appealing change to me. Incidentally I did get a substantial raise, but I'd made up my mind before that was even presented.
I also had some minor frustrations with the team I left, but I honestly think the team itself was on a promising trajectory, just the larger game development organization they were in (and my new team is outside of) was not. So I suppose in the "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers" frame, I quit the senior leadership of the game.