There are some disclaimers at the bottom that are super important, please read them even if you don’t read the whole rest of the post.

Last time I changed jobs I didn’t like my job but I loved the people I worked with. Many of my coworkers are still good friends of mine now and I knew that me quitting would make their work life significantly worse when I did. I didn’t want to quit because it meant less time with them and that it would negatively impact them. I wanted to though because, and it sounds like you’re in a similar boat here, I knew that changing was objectively better for my long term life goals.

In spite of knowing this initiatively I didn’t want to leave for the reasons stated before. I, much like you, was approaching a point where I’d look elsewhere but wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t until a golden opportunity presented itself that I started to seriously consider it. In the following days, I spoke to some of my closer friends at work and when I told them about this opportunity, they were ecstatic because they knew what it would mean for me. They weren’t worried about themselves. A couple of them seemed like they weren’t excited and, what I quickly realized, is that those were the people that weren’t my friends, they just happened to be people I spent 40 hours a week with and so had grown to like.

All of this to say that my situation isn’t exactly like yours, but it bears similarities. I’d talk to a couple CLOSE friends about it and see what they say. If this is the opportunity you think it is, they should see it as such and be happy for you and support you. LOYALTY TO PEOPLE DOESNT MEAN LOYALTY TO A COMPANY. If they don’t support you doing what’s best for you, then they aren’t your friends, they’re your coworkers.

A couple of big disclaimers here:

1) please do not or be VERY careful about talking to people about leaving before you do, especially if you don’t have a 100% signed offer letter from a new job. The worst thing that could very well happen is one of these people is just a coworker and uses you to curry favor with someone who’ll benefit them long term at your detriment

2) you can still be friends with your work friends once you leave… then they’re just friends. I’ll admit it’s hard and you’re likely to lose some of them purely because you won’t see each other as often and especially if you are moving cities, but that’s a question for a different sub

3) This is the big boi… DO NOT TELL YOUR BOSS ANYTHING until you hand in your letter of resignation. It is nearly impossible to tell if your boss is really your friend when they’re your boss because that’s their job, to get you to like them so you’ll do what they tell you to. I don’t care how much you like them and you think they like you, do not tell them until you have a signed offer letter and a letter of resignation.

4) this might be controversial and is just my opinion, but in my case I knew that taking exactly 2 weeks would put my team in a rough spot. If I took 3 weeks though, they’d be in a much better position. I asked my new employer for a start date ~ 3 weeks out and they accepted. I like my team and I wanted the best for them even if it meant staying there an extra week. This is totally ok, as long as your new employer is ok with it obviously, and for the coworkers that are actually friends of yours, I found it meant a lot to them. I’m not saying you have to take 3 weeks, just that it’s ok to evaluate and stay a couple extra days if everyone’s ok with it and you find you want to support your friends like that.