Internal job change, while interviewing with another company. Thoughts?
Here's the story. I've been in infosec for about 2 years now (September). Mostly what I do is first level analysis--security incidents are generated for various customer devices and I'm part of the 5 person team that evaluates them and decides what needs to be escalated. We do suspicious traffic, authentication, and availability (device up/down) monitoring.
I plateaued on my learning after about 8 months. The depth of knowledge at this company is not very deep--there are a few long-timers who know a lot, and then there's our team. The "analysts". In quotes because we don't analyze much. We have a knowledgebase for various attacks and some general guidelines on what needs to be escalated and when, but for the most part, it's monkey work.
The real work is done by the people who carry the security engineer title. They are the ones with the Check Point/Juniper/BlueCoat/F5/Cisco ASA knowledge. The sad fact is that we're so busy and understaffed that they have no time to collaborate or mentor the lower-level analysts on how to do their jobs better/learn more about infosec. So all the knowledge lies with their team and the only real way to gain access to any of it is to move to that side of the house.
I have an opportunity to move to that side of the house. My efforts in certification/self-study have paid off (I'm the only person on our team with a CCNA/Net+/Sec+ and until two people recently got their Sec+ I was the only certified member of our team) and I've gotten noticed.
I interview on Thursday for the job. The VP of our entire service division is going to be in town (not for me but because of a company meeting) and wants to talk to me about it. The switch is almost guaranteed and the interview is all but a formality. The job change will likely not come with a pay raise, as the last person who was shifted to the other side of the house (over a year ago) hasn't gotten one.
But now, after being contacted by a recruiter, I'm interviewing this week for a contract job with another company doing similar work. And I'm apparently a front-runner due to the fact that the supervisor at the new job used to work for my current employer (albeit in a completely separate department). I am not SURE I will be getting the job, but I'm feeling confident. And it's a big change--I'd be on contract/1099 and would lose my current benefits (health/dental/PTO) but would gain a 50% pay increase and extra long commute (65 miles--with traffic, 1.5 hours in the mornings and 2-2.5 at night). And the experience sounds like it will be much better than what I'm doing here--actual analysis and understanding of attacks rather than just copy/pasting evaluations from an in-house wiki, with a chance for some engineering work and the intent for there to be a full time offer after 1 year.
I am doing a phone interview tomorrow, with a physical interview to follow at a later date. But I won't have time for both before Thursday, when I'm interviewing for the engineer job at my current office.
Normally I'd just, I dunno, wait it out. But things are coming to a head. If I take the job with my current employer and then leave shortly thereafter, I will put my supervisor in hot water--he's convinced our VP to let me do the job here rather than Virginia and has lobbied hard for me to get the offer--and I don't want to burn bridges with him if I do go to another company. On the other hand, I am feeling very confident that I'll get and take the contract job.
Too long, didn't read version:
1.) Company I'm with now is "ok" but I am interviewing for a change in responsibilities which will increase my opportunities to learn but not my paycheck.
2.) Other company I'm interviewing with is a great opportunity with a major pay increase and strong chance of putting me neck deep in real infosec work.
Problem: Interview for company in (2) will not come before interview with company in (1), so I don't know how to respond to job offer in (1), because boss at (1) has pulled some strings to open the opportunity up for me and I don't want to burn bridges by taking the (1) offer and then jumping ship to (2). I don't want to straight up turn down the offer from (1) in case I botch the interview with (2).
I'm not sure what to do. The wife suggested I be honest--tell them that I was contacted directly about an open position and would like some time to consider both options. I don't think that's a good idea; they might rescind the offer and then the contract job might not work out; or it will make my current environment hostile/weird if the other position falls through and I'm still given the offer from my current job. Everything I've read on TE about similar situations suggested not trying to play the offer-counteroffer game, which I don't plan to do, but the way the timing is working out with the two interviews, things are muddled.
Am I counting my chickens before they hatch? Maybe, but I think it's best that I consider what would happen if I got the offer from (2) and it's really wracking my brain. My instinct is to ask whether I can think about the offer from (1) while I wait to see if I get an offer from (2), without mentioning that I'm doing so.
All things considered it's just a weird situation and I thought I would ask TE, what would you do?
