In my experience, it's important to keep the job at an arm's length - it might be super engaging and satisfying to work with these fantastic people, but a company is still a company - it will always prioritize its own best interests over yours, and those people will tend to choose their own best interests over yours as well. As such, you owe it to yourself to prioritize your own best interests too, including seeking new opportunities to grow and improve, as well as commensurate compensation for that experience. If you stagnate in a situation where you can't grow, you're doing yourself a disservice.

One way to soften the leaving a job I really like is to tell myself "This isn't forever and I can come back later". If I leave a company on good terms, returning is much much easier. When I went back to a studio that I had left on good terms, the process was super quick - I applied to return, they had an opening for me, and that was it - the only interview questions they asked me were "Do you want to come back?" and "When do you want to start?"

I've seen a number of coworkers return to various studios I've worked at as well - they're (almost) universally welcomed back with open arms. We know them, we are already good with working with them, we're glad to have a comrade return. Even better, we can return with more responsibility and solve even more interesting problems with people we still know and care about and collect higher pay for my work. You can always take solace in the thought that leaving a team doesn't mean forever, it just means for now.

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