Should I stay at IBM or jump to startup
IBM - TC: 109k - WLB 2-3 hours of work per day - Fully remote STARTUP - TC: 145k + 45,000 shares - Series C, $73m funding - Interviewers mentioned bad WLB, guessing 60+ hours a week - Hybrid (1 hour commute 1 day per week) Is it worth the extra 36k + shares? YOE: 1
Stay and leetcode. Aim for a higher tc.
What would you say is a good enough threshold to jump ship?
Do a startup. Maybe not this one, but there are so many out there right now. It will be worth it if only for the experience. You're at a point in your life and in your career where you can afford to take big risks.
What do you think would be a good enough TC to jump ship in the future?
If you worked at Google or Facebook your TC would double compared to what you make now. Same for other big tech companies. Even Amazon would be better. The point is, learn all you can where you are, learn from anyone who's willing to teach you. Find people you think are successful and emulate them. Find people you think suck and learn how to not be like them. Keep your interview skills fresh
Do both at the same time
Startup requires 1 day in person per week, how would you pull that off? Haha
Fuck that. Keeping grinding LC
What would you say is a good enough threshold to jump ship?
It depends. Look at the $/hr in addition to other factors.
Stay at IBM and LC, aim for higher TC. Once you go to this startup, you might not even have time to LC and search for other opportunity
How long do you think I should stay and what TC should I be aiming for? I thought 145k base with options was pretty decent?
Unless you believe in a startup, I would suggest to go for public companies, RSU are real money, startup options are paper money.. Aim for base around 170-180..
IBM is like a launchpad to a FAANG or faang like companies, use it wisely.
You won't find many other places where you'll have this amount of free time and a comfortable situation like IBM. Use this opportunity wisely, invest in yourself, it will be more valuable than this start up offer in the long run. As others have said keep grinding LC, prepare for interviews, pick the companies you want to move to and target those after preparing for a few months and taking warm up interviews.
How much TC do you think I should aim for before switching? If this startup counter offered into 170 base range, do you think it’s worth hopping? I’ve already been grinding LC/interviewing for a few months now so just trying to figure out when to actually pull the trigger
Figure out the market rate range for the roles you're be looking at : https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/Software-Engineer/Entry-Level-Engineer/country/United-States/ . Set your own threshold based off what you think you're worth not what companies are willing to pay you (Eg. IBM is lower than what you can get in the market) - but also be realistic. FAANG is going to be up there for comp, learning and will look good on your resume, a few years there you'd be able to score a nice level role at any start up if you still wanted to get that experience. It's not the be all and end all though so don't put too much pressure on yourself, if you find a start up that you're interested in go for it!
As a former IBMer I would recommend to leave. the compensation of startup looks good. better than what IBM will ever offer.
Even with the worse wlb (70+ hours a week)?
stay