Dealing with counter offer

Hi all — would love some advice on a situation I’m currently navigating. I recently applied for an internal lateral move into a more technical team within my company and received a verbal offer, inclu

Hi all — would love some advice on a situation I’m currently navigating. I recently applied for an internal lateral move into a more technical team within my company and received a verbal offer, including a solid pay bump. Because it’s an internal transfer, I had to inform my manager right away per company policy. This ended up causing more tension than I expected. My director was quite unhappy and felt blindsided by the news. He mentioned that I should have flagged earlier that I wasn’t fully satisfied in my current role so they could have worked on retaining me. There was also a sense that this reflected a lack of communication on my part, which made the conversation a bit uncomfortable. Shortly after, my manager came back with a counteroffer: an immediate salary increase to the max of my current band, plus matching the new offer and a title change/promotion expected around August. I had a follow-up conversation with my director to try and smooth things over, but he still seemed disappointed. He clarified that part of his concern was that I was leaving for what he saw as a lateral move rather than a clear promotion, and that it raised questions for him about my decision-making. I reiterated that for me, this move is more about long-term career growth and gaining technical experience rather than just title progression. For context, I’ve been hearing about a potential promotion in my current team since mid last year, but there hasn’t been much clarity or progress. One of the main reasons I applied elsewhere internally is because I want to build more technical skills. My current team isn’t very technical, and I’ve spent the past year trying to introduce better processes — but it’s consistently been deprioritized. At this point, I’m leaning toward taking the new role, but I’m still a bit torn given the counteroffer and the tension it’s created with my current leadership. Would you take the new role for growth, or stay for the pay bump and promised promotion? Appreciate any thoughts or similar experiences 🙏