I'm basically a skilled DevOps engineer with a top secret security clearance. Many years of experience, but minimal experience with hardcore coding and algos so I cannot expect top level comp. I'm an "SRE II (61)" at Microsoft, would be some generic SDE/SWE at Oracle, an "ADC Engineer L5" with fast-track to SysDev Eng L5 supposedly. Current TC @ MSFT: 265k I have two offers: 1. 325k/year two year CONTRACT at Oracle. No benefits, all cash, it's a W-2 contract and can convert to FTE after 2 years, but no guarantee on TC on conversion. 2. 300k/year offer from AWS. They said it's final offer and can't budge. All these TC numbers include the premium paid for security clearance holders etc. I interviewed with loads of startups and none of them were even close to 300k. What would you do? #offers #aws #microsoft #oracle
1. Make this a poll. 2. No brainer, stay at Msoft
Aws better brand name and is not a contract position. You can make up the 25k difference through perfermance/stock appreciation The above only if u really want to leave msft
Microsoft, no brainer
Microsoft. I know cos I’m joining soon. Xbox Cloud team woot woot !
That's probably a lot better than what I'm doing, government datacenter software shit
Oof. Sorry man. Have you looked at transferring to other internal teams ?
Amazon imo if you’re ready to move. How long have you been at MSFT?
2 years. I have good WLB and nice manager, boring work and slow promotion path
If you already ruled out AWS reject and say you don’t want to comprise your worth in today’s market. Nothing to lose and they may just come back with a stronger offer
What is security clearance ?
I'm talking about a USA security clearance. You have to be a US citizen and do an extremely thorough and invasive background check and even polygraph test. Your employer has to nominate you. A lot of people who have security clearances are from the military. But I got mine through company sponsorship and it took over 2 years. It's a huge pain and waiting game, but companies like MSFT and Amazon pay ~45k extra for having it. But it means you have to work on some terrible crap, in secure work areas.
Does it mean you will always have to be onsite at the federal office? And are most cleared positions in D.C?
Any insight into if the cleared SWE stuff at Microsoft is all actually just DevOps? Do all the positions require FSP? I want to get hired on since I have TS and then transfer internally to commercial but not really interested in getting poly
Definitely depends on the team/service. On my team, the SWEs do a lot less DevOps then us SREs who do all the deployments and incident response. But there are SWEs who complain about doing ops work all day, for sure.
Regard Poly though, ya, you would almost certainly have to get one for all the positions I am aware of, because you need access to multiple cleared environments simultaneously
How are the interviews at msft for ts/sci with poly positions?
Kind of a mixed bag. I was passed on during a group hiring event because I didn’t know binary trees etc. But I got an interview with a specific team and it was much more conversational and I got to talk about my experience rather than being quizzed
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Definitely Microsoft. I would take the AWS offer back to Microsoft and ask them to match or come close to it. 35k comp increase is not worth the general annoyance that comes with changing jobs plus the wlb and mental stress that comes with working for Amazon. Edit: or if you're worried that will put a target on your back, just stay at msft and don't mention the outside offer. Wait to get levelled up or a better offer.
I'm not worried about that, my boss is cool and it's hard AF for them to get security clearance engineers. But I hate MS technology that I work with. Team is nice.
I would stay and wait for a better offer then.