notme

@olessko I found myself in the same boat a little more than a year ago, but I live in the south of Germany and for a German MNC Giant. I essentially slowly offloaded all my responsibilities off  to my colleagues, and focused on specific skills I wanted to develop and practice. And, that left me with a lot of free time time at work, which I then used for checking out some alternate domains and emerging tech, as well trying out some new roles, and communication styles. I also got a lot of time to read more, plan things outside work, thereby meeting more people, traveled a lot more, spend more time with my family around the world combining it with remote work. Maybe there are some improvements(communication,management-style...) that you wanna try out without getting worried about pissing people off or risking your career in the company. Another option is to, get certified in something new, a Scrum Master or so would almost definitely not give you a pay-raise, but might open up some new doors to transition in to something else, or round your profile up. I did consider getting a master specialization on the side, but the compatibility with the German system made it kinda difficult for me.   If you extend your search to the south, especially in the IT divisions of the Automotive Companies, they would have some jobs in whatever niche experience you bring to. Depending on how you fit in to their Vision/Org-setup you would be able to keep your current salary. Chances are, unless you are in to Big-Data/AI/Machine-Vision(or any of the Innovative areas), you wouldn't be able to higher offer, and you might lose some flexibility. But, on the plus side, the are more chances to develop your career further ahead, or take up well defined roles in a structured organization. These may or may not be what you might be excited about now, it is still worth its value in the German career market, especially in these big companies with all their processes and internal politics. There are also Inno-tech firms that let you work remotely, and match your current pay grade with a different workstyle and organizational structure, that you might be interested in.   Finally relax a bit, use the time to figure out what you want, and sometimes going "up" would require stepping down(could be salary, perks,Job-title,other expectations..) a bit so that newer ways of going up opens up.  I remember telling myself, that once the boredom, monotony and bad feeling get too difficult for me to bear with, I would find some internal motivation to get myself out of the "cage".   PS: In my case, i looked around inside the larger Organization(read Central), attended a few interviews, and one of them lead me to a yet-to-be-open position, where will I take up more responsibility, have higher visibility and report higher-up than now, albeit without a pay raise. I am starting next month, but am looking forward to this change, and a fresh start    

Heilbronn is a midsized German city, with a rapidly increasing Expat(as well as german) population, fueled by the Headquarters of Kaufland and Lidl as well as the big production plant of Audi, in the neighbourhood town of Neckarsulm. There are then Bechtle, Unilever, Bosch and other Automotive supplier companies in a 10 kilometer radius. So, there are lots of Jobs here even for non-german speakers, and the bigger cities of Stuttgart ,Karlsruhe and Mannheim are all around an hour away.   All this sadly also makes Renting quite pricey, not quite as high as Stuttgart, but still one that would take a sizeable chunk of your Income away, especially if you choose to live within in the city. As a family, it may not be a bad idea to look in to one of the smaller villages outside the city area too, Flein, Lauffen,Weinsberg etc are viable options. Renting is the norm in Germany, and buying a property may not be that attractive at the moment, since the prices have been steadily on the rise these last years in the area.   The Public-transport infrastructure isn't the best, but there are buses until midnight to most places around at 30-60 intervals, trams in the east-west direction and to/back northwards Neckarsulm. Traif is available here: https://www.h3nv.de/fahrscheine/fahrkarten-preise/monatskarte.html. , so around 60 EUR per month, and most ppl get by fine without a car. If you, do choose the city to live, then everywhere is easily reachable on foot, and supermarkets/grocers/drugstores quite close by.   If you have more specific questions, feel free to join the Heilbronner expat community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Heilbronners.of.Leisure/ ,we have many families too. I hope to see you guys at one of our expat events