Posting for a friend: My friend has got an offer from Verkada in San Mateo as a Technical Support Engineer (Pay 135k in total) and from Hughes Network as a Engineer 3 Customer Networks ( pay 115k ) in Germantown Maryland. Now he’s confused which one to go with Primary concerns: If he chooses Maryland over California would that affect his future career trajectory as in the opportunities that could come his way? or just the networking options that California brings with it? When it comes to work: At Hughes it’s more technical like deployment of networks, architecting and troubleshooting and at Verkada it’s specific to just their own product, for eg providing support to their security cameras etc His background: Just completed masters in Network Engineering and has a work experience of 3 years 6 months in India Would like to know some thoughts /guidance on what to choose
Let me share my two cents! California is insanely more expensive than Maryland. 115K in Maryland would offer a much better quality of life than 135K in California. Having said that, as a young individual, your expenditures to savings ratio is always low so it actually helps making more money than staying in a state with a lower cost of living. Your friend is unlikely going to be purchasing a house at this age so he would be fine making a little more in a more expensive state. Also helps that as a network engineer, California has much better career opportunities so personally to me at least, the California offer looks a lot better in theory. HOWEVER, I would also recommend anyone to stay away from Verkada at all costs. In case your friend hasn’t heard about the company’s culture yet, I would recommend him to seriously reconsider his decision before joining them. Most of the employees including me are regretting joining the company and we’ll be out as soon as the economy improves. The only thing binding us to the company is poor job opportunities in this market. The company’s culture has worsened even further recently. Glassdoor and Blind ratings for the company might be “average” instead of “pathetic” but that is only due to tons of fake reviews posted by the marketing team. I would highly recommend your friend to read through Glassdoor reviews before making a decision. IMHO, don’t do it especially since he has another offer. Assuming that he’s not a citizen going by your description that he worked outside the US prior to his Master’s degree, it’s an even bigger NO GO. Job security is paramount for folks on a VISA. I have seen a lot of colleagues getting kicked off recently. The office culture used to be quite energetic but in the recent few months, the office has become extremely dull due to an impending threat to job security and toxicity from the management. Final piece of advice: Your friend can continue interviewing in the Bay Area. It is certainly worth working here as compared to Maryland due to tons of job opportunities especially when the job market improves. Higher coat of living is 100% justified for someone early in their career (even if not for older folks). However, not Verkada. Don’t trust the recruiter. Their job is to sell and Verkada recruiters are among the worst (not personally but due to torture from management)
Hey Thankyou for the helpful reply. That was really insightful!
To play devils advocate here (as someone actively on their way out) your career trajectory taking the Verkada support role will be 10x than at Hughes. While the TC / cost of living ratio isn’t as good as the MD job, after a year or two of doing the role you’ll have way more transition opportunities being a part of a startup (they abuse that term these days). I know people on product that did a year or two on tech support and moved and are role players on product now. Some leave to bigger Bay Area roles for notably more TC. You won’t get that opportunity in Germantown. Is the culture incredibly toxic at times, yes. Is it so bad id tell nobody to ever join, no. I think it’s overstated but a big part of it can be lying about things. Get promises made from the recruiter (they’re not bad people but they’re there to sell you it’s their job) in writing. Take the company with a grain of salt. All in all I’d say Bay Area role > Verkada > Hughes if ur serious about your career.
Verkada gets worse and worse and so does cost of living here. Stay far away unless toxicity is what he enjoys. Tech support here gets beat up a lot and they work crazy hours
Should be an easy decision based on cost of living. I bet California is way more expensive thn Maryland so the 20k extra TC isnt enough
Thankyou!!