Your job sure does sound depressing, and it's not one I would succeed at, but if you can power through and turn this product around that's a hell of an accomplishment you'll have to be proud of.
I'm curious what you'd like to do next. You could probably have a great career doing these sorts of turnarounds repeatedly across companies, maybe even as a consultant, but would you want to?
> that's a hell of an accomplishment you'll have to be proud of.
It's hinted by the C-level that if I can pull this off, it would be nothing short of a miracle. I'm pretty sure I can negotiate salary, education, bonus, and what not if I can pull this off.
As far as next, I've thought about that. It would be funny to call myself a turnaround specialist. This would be quite a remarkable feat, but I really don't know if I would have taken this job if I knew what a mess this was...
> I'm pretty sure I can negotiate salary, education, bonus, and what not if I can pull this off.
Do this up front. Do it as soon as you possibly can. You will lose a huge amount of negotiating leverage if you "wait until you show them". I cannot stress this enough.
Same! It’s the same principle as CEOs and stock options. For instance Musk that set several goals (x% market share, x unit sold…) and the hardest they get the more he will receive compensations.
I am not sure how much you could negotiate but you can have something like that and being metric based. X% customers happy, x% rating change, x% customers retained when they were close to leave. Then you make the math of the revenue and profit and it’s hard to say no.
I'm curious what you'd like to do next. You could probably have a great career doing these sorts of turnarounds repeatedly across companies, maybe even as a consultant, but would you want to?