I’ve been with my current company for almost 7 years and I actually really liked working there. Work life balance was great and it was from home fully which helped me with watching my son grow up. I’m a tech lead and my manager for the past 5 years left so I thought naturally if the role opened I could apply. We got a new director this year who the manager would report to and he has no software knowledge so I was a little confused. The role finally opened last month. When I asked him if I could apply for the role he said “might as well, throw your hat in the ring”. I applied and two weeks later I get a call from HR. They stated my director didn’t think I was a good fit because my Microsoft Teams status goes to ‘away’ throughout the day and that’s not how a manager should act. I didn’t even get an interview which broke my heart. Anyway long story short it all worked out! I found a manager role with higher pay less than two months later still fully remote! Thank you to this group! I don’t post much but I love reading the stories of not taking crap.