I’m at the same job, but yes to the bump in pay.

My work life balance is pretty solid. I like and trust my director a lot. I enjoy what I do.

The surreal part for me is that I’ve kept my team intact this year. As a manager of developers, retaining talent makes my job so much easier, and my team so much more productive.

I like to imagine the reason I’ve kept my team is I’m just that good of a boss.

But I suspect the real reason is big companies who used to routinely steal my talented staff are more routinely fucking up their public image by doing layoffs during record profit years, and are asking people to visit in-person offices to spread Coronavirus and the Flu.

But anyway, it’s possible for two things to be true, so I might also be a great boss.

Edit: I daresay developers have long memories, and I may continue enjoying the “fuck those guys” boost to my own hiring for about the next decade. But, of course, Activision’s will rise from Ataris, and Nvidia’s will rise from SGI’s - so I’ll try not to get too comfortable.