Mid size SDE role vs. startuppy SE role as a new grad?
I'm a recent grad with two options: 1: I have an offer from a mid-size software company at $90k comp with good benefits. They're doing cool stuff with ES6 and AWS products, lots of opportunities to learn. Their Glassdoor sketches me out, though: 3.0 rating with lots of reorgs. 2: I work part-time at a small data science services consultancy, and they want me to come on full time. A client (2 year old startup with a new enterprise product) wants us to build their sales funnel, and I'd be one of two people doing that, taking on sort of a sales engineering role. No benefits, 1099 job, and initially at a lower salary - but the salary will go up to $90-100k in 6 months, I'd get to have that sales eng. experience, and there's potential to grow. Also the people there are great. Which option should I take? Any advice? Thanks!
First, the biggest depends for me would be which career track appeals to you. Getting back into product SWE/SDE isn't going to get any easier, and I'd assume the same is true about moving into sales engineering. Second, do you need health insurance? If you have it elsewhere, the benefits won't matter but if you don't that's a big net comp difference. Third, check out how much you're going to lose in self employment taxes on a 1099. As a new grad - and I'm guessing not SfBay based? - the difference may not matter to you but make sure you understand it. Fourth, promises of a future salary bump are meaningless. Compare the offers as they are. Which doesn't mean take the higher one, but it does mean be really realistic about the net comp as of the day you start. Last, all other things being equal (for you), choose on the people.
The startup job is a huge ripoff. Since it's 1099 keep in mind that you need to pay your own FICA and Medicare taxes, so it's even lower than you think. Ideally you get more offers and find something you really like.
I was actually thinking of saying no to both and just continuing to apply, but idk if I could get a better offer. I've got an internship with a data science startup, a college research project, and my part time job as experience. Leetcode ranks me in the 5000s/50k. I had a Facebook onsite but didn't get in. Maybe I should give it a few more months, but this may be the best I can get right now.
5 years in sde will be better.
No benefits? Oh god. That’s the deal breaker. Insurance premium can eat up your salary by 1/3 if you are getting 90k-100k. Why do you have to wait 6 months? Because of the stupid once-a-year promotion? No. While it sounds exciting to build something “impactful” in a small team, you are taken advantage of by “honoring” you and with a full time position. Don’t. If they don’t provide health benefit, say no. Also, wtf? It’s illegal to not provide healthcare if you are hired as consultant under a staffing/consulting agency like HCL. Now if they are hiring you as an independent contractor (self-employed), that’s even a bigger reason to say no. Avoid self-employment as much as possible at your age... You are young and you should stick to a real full time. I do have to disagree with some comments here: glassdoor reviews are not always BS, but you do have to take them with grain of salt. Negotiate with the first. 90k is still low for your 2-year experience. Maybe not much in ops?? But negotiate harder.
Thanks for all the replies! Some clarifications: I'm on the east coast. I really like coding and solving hard problems, but it gets lonely sometimes. Presenting to people, communicating technical concepts, traveling, etc is also super appealing to me. I'm not good at lying, though - but I'm pretty sure good sales people don't have to lie. The reason for the salary bump in 6 months is that the consultancy is very small (<10 people), and my boss would have to start generating revenue from the sales funnel to be able to pay my salary. Now, that sounds super sketchy - what if the sales thing flops? Well, my boss basically told me, "give me six months to make this revenue stream work. If in 6 months I still can't pay you competitively, I'll use my connections at {{Large Hadoop Vendor}} and get you a contract there so you get paid fairly." From what I know about his network, I'm very confident he could make that happen. Self employment tax is a real differentiator financially, and so is the lack of a 401k match. I can get health insurance through my mother's policy for a few more years, but I'll want to reimburse her, so that's also a hit, comp-wise. That said, right now I'm trying to prioritize experiences and future opportunities over comp, but idk which position's best for that, either
You can't count your chickens before they hatch. The only thing this start up can offer you is a whole lot of what-ifs, not even a real job.
Not voted (yet) because it’s not clear what direction you want to take your career in. If you plan to be a developer then the mid-size company SDE role is better - you need to be coding all the time, developing experience, patterns, practices, early in your career development. Hopefully there are other good devs in that company as well you can learn off. If on the other hand you don’t plan to take the developer track, perhaps being a sales engineer, BizDev or PM later down the line then the startup is better - there’s always things to do/learn in a startup, and not much support so you’ll learn to fish (great in a lot of roles, other that SWE where I believe fundamentals count). Don’t worry too much about Glassdoor ratings - a lot of them are BS and reorgs are common in startups as well. Pay/benefits are something you have to factor in for yourself. Early on, comp isn’t all that important, but knowledge and building networks are (they get you your next, well paying, job). I’d worry about the startup being 1099 (no stability) and no healthcare.
Thanks for the response! I added some more clarifications below, but essentially: I really enjoy writing code and solving hard problems, but it can get lonely. I like being client-facing and talking to people about tech as well. I don't want to be writing code to be my main responsibility 10-15 years from now. I'm totally okay with not being an IC if I still get some say on the direction whatever we're making is going. Does this help?
10-15 years is a huge amount of time in our industry. Yes, coding itself can get lonely, but if it’s always like that they you are doing it wrong - software engineering (at scale, which is IMO where you want to be, not writing little apps) is a team sport. For me, early on in career, I’d want to get deep tech experience that I can use as a foundation - it helps be able to understand systems/problems better than non-tech people, and the leaders/execs that I look up to (I’m at MS, so will use Scott Guthrie and Jason Zander as example, but there are others across the industry like Jeff Dean) earnt their chops as devs and still use those skills and knowledge. On the other hand, startups and taking risks should be done when you are young. I wouldn’t take on a 1099 job - there’s too many FTE jobs out there to give up that stability.