Experienced Devs

Hey! So to make a long story short, about 2 months ago I learned that I’ll probably be PIP’ed (posted about this here btw and received super helpful advice, thanks <3). I thought this comes only from my direct manager (who is leaving now), but after talking to my skip level they seemed to support the decision. 
After learning this I immediately started reaching out to other teams who were hiring, because I’m in a big tech company and an external switch is complicated in the current market.

Fast forward, a manager from another team wanted to hire me. I didn’t want to raise any attention until I had a confirmation that this is a done deal. Hiring manager + recruiter told me they want to hire me, so I had to talk to my skip level & manager. I was really afraid of doing this too early because of how bad it looks if it doesn't work out, but at this point I had no choice.

I phrased the conversations with my managers as asking for advice if it makes sense or not. Skip level told me immediately it’s a great idea and I should go for it, manager was more neutral, but there were no efforts made to retain me.

Last week, I told them that I’d decide to go for it, so my managers and the hiring managers had a conversation.

In the meantime, I did my job as usual and didn’t inform anyone else. This week I learned as expected that I’d be pip’ed in my current role if I stayed, so leaving would have been a good choice. However according to management the PIP isn't designed to force me out but "to help me improve" (not very conifdent that they really mean it though).

This week, I also got informed though that eventually the other team moved forward with another candidate. Fair enough, no hard feelings, but why do you make me go to my managers if the decision isn’t final?

The reasons were:

1. Concerns regarding remote work
2. Technical skills

My company has RTO going on and I’m currently remote, apparently the new director is a fan of coming to the office.

Anyway, I’m applying externally, and I have some processes going on, but nothing concrete, so it seems like I’m forced to stay in my current role. I’d be okay with being laid off, but I can’t quit myself because I’d lose on a lot of benefits (not in the US) and also severance.

My idea was that I would need to say that eventually I backed off due to not being able to agree on some issues revolving around workmode and start date.

Afterwards I would then ask to sit down with manager & skip level and address the points that make me unhappy and ask for a clear trajectory from their side to address these and also on how they imagine collaborating given the PIP they triggered.

Does that seem to make sense to you? I mean if I can leave I will leave immediately, but currently that's not an option yet.

So now I’m really wondering how to go from here? I’m currently aligning with the hiring manager & recruiter to align communication, but given that I already said I’m leaving that can only be damage control.