[l_t]

I'm in my late 20s, and went through something similar when I left my first job a few years ago. I'm sure that has both positive and negative implications for my advice!

The book "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport was really beneficial for me to build a mental model about career growth.

In short, "career growth" is basically _building an asset_ and then _bartering that asset_ for things you want. So in your case, it's really important to understand two things:

1. What assets (career capital) do you have? e.g. Authority borne of experience, a history of demonstrating excellence (or at least good-enoughness), a good network/references, etc.

2. What do you want to barter those assets for? What kind of job do you want to have, ideally?

As an example, in my case, I felt my "capital" was fairly low -- I was still a junior developer. But, I really wanted to work remotely, and work-life balance is very important to me. So, I willingly accepted a pay cut to work from home. Then by building more capital over time, I've been able to raise my salary back to the original level, and above.

In your case, perhaps you should evaluate whether you have accumulated enough "capital" to "fund" a significant spike in salary, or not. (Chances are, if you've been working at a place for years, you have also made some demonstrable growth. If not, you might want to think about how to grow your responsibility at your current gig.)