Medium director or Big AD?

Experienced Career Advice 🌳

I’m a director at a medium sized pharma. I work across a portfolio of 3 products with probably $350M in sales, probably $6-700M if we reach our potential. I’m remote, I like most of my team and work. The challenge is that I don’t see much investment in the BU and if I want to switch roles, I may have to relocate to HQ. In some ways it feels like a dead end role, but the people really treat me great.
After recruiter outreach, I ended up receiving a job offer at AD at Big Pharma on a mega blockbuster. It would be 3 days in office hybrid. I don’t need to relocate for this, unless I move to suburbs instead of city proper. The base is 20K better, despite drop in title, which also pumps up bonuses a little bit. In addition, I don’t have to worry about the whole relocation thing if I want to switch roles because I am already local.
I’m 11 years into my career, so really hesitating to move backwards in title, but I understand these are two operations on a completely different scale. Any thoughts on how to weigh the opportunity or what to do? I’d love to know if others have or haven’t made a change like this. I have great WLB balance now, but really working on some no name products that aren’t exactly prioritized by current company.

Posted Aug 14, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

2265
Loading comments…