I resigned and now my company is panicking. Is it crazy to ask for a huge raise to stay?

Hi managers!!

Long story short: I put in my resignation last week and now I’m debating whether to make a pretty aggressive counter-request to stay.

I’m a mid-level engineer on a large pharmaceutical manufacturing greenfield project. It’s a massive expansion and we’re already building new facilities before the first one is even finished, so everything is constantly behind schedule and high pressure.

My role is pretty niche, it combines software engineering with biotech/manufacturing systems. It’s not something most engineers can just step into, and there’s a very small talent pool for it. <1000 skilled engineers in the world

I originally joined as a contractor. I wasn’t their first choice (mostly because of my age and experience level), but after they couldn’t find anyone else they brought me on (LOL). I ended up doing really well, got great feedback, and was eventually offered a full-time role. I accepted because I was promised mentorship and a career path that contracting couldn’t do for me.

Almost immediately after I converted, leadership pivoted and put me into operations/startup support and training new hires instead, with lots of “you’ll move to the project soon.” That never happened. They did this, because they didn’t staff enough skilled engineers. Since I’m salaried now, I also lost overtime pay, and because of the small team size and lack of skills, I’ve been asked to pick up a ton of extra work to cover the gaps.

I’m about a year and a half in and completely burned out. I regularly train senior engineers and contractors (who make more than me and have the higher title) and still carry a lot of the technical responsibility myself. A lot of people assigned to this work just underperform or don’t even show up for work, which just pushes more onto me.

I’ve raised workload, burnout, and career stagnation concerns to my management multiple times and nothing has really changed.

After a few too many all-nighters supporting operations, I finally resigned. I’m confident I can find another role paying similar or better.

Now leadership is panicking. My manager straight up said it would take around four engineers to replace me and the project would still be set back significantly because of how specialized the work is.

The only real thing they’ve offered so far is finally putting me on the original expansion project I was hired for. The problem is it’s already over a year behind schedule and I’d again be the only engineer staffed to it.

HR had asked me to consider rescinding my resignation with their gracious offer. /s

And I’ve considered it and at this point, the only way I’d even consider staying would be:

• A major salary increase to senior-level market pay (roughly a 70% bump, around $200k)

• Fully remote work for flexibility (since the workload is heavy and long hours are likely)

Part of me feels like this is outrageous and I should just leave.

Another part of me thinks they clearly understand how much leverage I have right now.

From a management perspective:

How would you feel if you got a request like this?