Multiple job offers. What do you choose?

Over the past 2 days I received 4 job offers for engineer positions and am currently losing a bit of sleep thinking about it. Salary/benefits and travel time are pretty much equal. Here's a brief description of the 4 positions:

1. Newer software startup that has tripled to almost 500 in the past 18 months. Looking to go public and international next year. Great culture, everyone appears to enjoy working there, break room is basically a large man cave, flexible schedules, telecommuting opportunities, not much structure. AWS, Linux and looking at AI, I'd be the second infrastructure engineer/architect with desktop support at the 3 locations. Seems like an executive team that has a good business vision but current infrastructure seems flawed. It looks like they might be looking for good ideas and I could provide them. AWS migration is just starting. Seems like no advancement opportunity currently but that could change.

2. Healthcare enterprise, typical cubicle environment where 9 hour days are expected, very little telecommuting, strict rules, very structured, managers were really happy by office workers didn't appear to be. VMware and mainly windows, big project next year is remote office refreshes. Advancement opportunities.

3. Established local software company, recently removed a division of their company, had a CEO change and trying to get back to profits. VMware, Linux, DevOps. Comfortable, social environment but some strict rules and procedures, no telecommuting. Many advancement opportunities but I've heard it takes years to advance. Dealing with large test environments.

4. Financial enterprise, cubicle environment, strict rules, very structured, not many looked happy, limited telecommuting. VMware, Linux, Windows, starting to migrate to Azure. Many advancement opportunities but need to relocate.

As a VCAP VMware is a priority for me but it looks like many companies are moving away from it. Job 1 wins hands down on culture and potential but I'm having trouble with the lack of VMware and flawed infrastructure. Advancement isn't a big deal for me because I've learned to not have loyalty in companies these days. I've always been the top infrastructure role at SMB's and job 1 fits that while the others don't. I'm looking for a challenge first and foremost, job 1 could potentially be the most challenging but getting into an enterprise may be more challenging. My goal is to move up to architect or management within 3 years.

If you had to choose, which would you pick? Why?

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Comments

Phalanx

I would take the first. It looks like a solid place to bring your own ideas and show better ways of doing things.

Mitechniq

It sounds like you are hung up a little that your training and certification goals do not meet the job you would like to take. I would venture in saying that if you can find yourself enjoying AWS/Linux/AI, then let the market dictate where you go next. Some people get caught in immovable paths and find themselves left behind in technology - then wonder why they are not progressing as quickly as they would like. I was a big VMWare guy several years ago and my goal was to be VCAP and CCNP DC, that changed with my company ditching their VBlocks and migrating to AWS. So I changed my path and I am very happy with that decision.

volfkhat

what do you want to do?
How about that?
:]

I agree that VMware's influence is shrinking daily; but they remain strong in the Private cloud; aka 'Enterprise' environments.
I don't care about culture, profits, advancements, nor structure.

I just care about me.

What can this job do for me?
WHat do i want to learn, and will this job help get me there.
Period.

I'm not gonna retire there... so it's not really worth losing sleep over.

"My goal is to move up to architect or management within 3 years."
I always thought of architects as technical; managers... not so much.

Personally.. i would stay closer to technical :]

dave330i

Working at a startup is an interesting experience and it's worth doing at least once in your life.

kiki162

Option 1 seems to be a better choice overall. Anytime you go into a new job, you need to think about their environment and areas that could help boost your skills set. Many companies are moving to the cloud, whether that be AWS or Azure, cloud exposure is ALWAYS a good thing. I started with Hyper-V then moved over to VMWare. I dipped into the AWS realm just a few months back, I love it, and I think you will too.

If you want to do VCAP, go for it. But consider the fact that you probably won't use it much in the new job. I wouldn't worry too much about advancement opportunities here. Instead look at what skills you can obtain via AWS.

soccarplayer29

If you're not learning you're dying.

Job offer #1. Your experience should help bring some structure with them as they grow and you'll get to stretch your knowledge into AWS. While you say there are no immediate advancement opportunities I think that's rarely the case for a company growing as rapidly as it sounds that this company is. If they continue with that grow and double in size in a couple of years I think you'll have so many upward (architect/management) options available.

Job #2 sounds like it should be eliminated from contention IMO.

You're clearly doing something right with this much interest and the number of offers you have received. Be confident in yourself and your skills--employers already are. If you have reservations/hesitations about any specific role/company reach out to the recruiter/hiring manager and ask for clarification, research the heck out of these positions online and see if other current/former employees have written that either validate/invalidate your own reservations.

Best of luck!

scaredoftests

Choose what your 'gut' is more comfortable with and how YOU felt during the hiring process.

Nisseki

Congrats on the multiple job offers!

Number 1 sounds amazing but it's your choice. The rest of them sounds like there's a lot of micro managing and office politics.

NetworkingStudent

I have an interview today, so I need to make this quick.

Go with job number one!!

I see a reoccurring theme with the other jobs“people don’t seem happy”

Sorry, you can’t pay me enough to work in a bad culture. I have been in environments where no one is happy, and it is not fun!

Also, as everyone else has said “trust your gut”

Please be aware I’m looking at this from a mental health perspective, and not a technology one.

Another red flag is job number 3:

had a CEO change and trying to get back to profits.

Sounds like they're losing money.

Congrats on the job offers!!

gespenstern

No pay info attached to any of these, can't decide.

techfiend

Thanks all for the replies. With your help I've decided to pursue job 1 and just reached out to them on the final touches of the offer and then I should be on my way!

The flawed infrastructure I mentioned is 50+ physical servers and no virtualization. They mentioned continuing migration to AWS and a refresh next year. I look forward to learning more about AWS and when the refresh starts being discussed I'll bring up VMware in the office to save money and improve the infrastructure in multiple ways. Win, win for me. I passed the VCAP a day before I was let go of my last position, which was a week after I completed a vSphere design, upgrade and migration project. I was hungry for more but my interest has faded a bit so I'd like to do another project like that again!

The salary and benefits are mostly equal, all within $5000.

NetworkingStudent: Good luck on your interview! I really bombed a few of my first ones this time but then realized what I was doing wrong, stay positive, focused and show interest in the company and culture. I thought the market wasn't great in the area, I was applying for everything I saw as a challenge. Just so happens that they all first contacted me within the past 3 weeks along with a dozen or so other companies, some I applied for over 6 weeks ago. I had over a dozen in person interviews over the past 2 weeks, probably a dozen more phone interviews. This week I've been on the phone for at least 3 hours each day. When the rush started I stopped applying for jobs that weren't extremely interesting, which I found few of.

NetworkNewb

Congrats techfiend! Best of luck on the new position!

dave330i

@techfiend,

If you're familiar with vSphere, NSX, and vRA, AWS isn't that much different.

TechGromit

I guess my answer would depend on what my family situation was. I agree with others that a startup is great experience, and great potential for career, finanical and personal growth. On the other had, staticially 60% of startups fail, the 90% that is often quoted is not based on facts. So the question is can you afford to get laid-off if the start-up does belly up, especially if it fails during the next recession, where it's more difficult to get another job.

boxerboy1168

since I'm a newbie I pick the one I don't get fired from to build my resume

techfiend

Thanks networknewb! I think there's a third network username on this forum in the area as well, among 3 networkers I'm tempted to change to a systems name.

I have a lot of vSphere experience, a little NSX and AWS but no vRA. I think vSphere has a much better usability UI and AWS isn't very intuitive, or maybe I'm just used to it.

Good point about the startup risk TechGromit. I feel I'm safe to take on the risk, they're 3 years old and recently got over the new business hurdle to rapidly expand. Given the job offers I feel I'm very marketable but it took 7 weeks. I have years of savings invested in a tax only gains situation, vanguard ETF's.

TheFORCE

Go for job 1. Asl for stock options if they told you they are going public. Stay there and become rich!

techfiend

Yup stock options were mentioned. I will definitely take advantage of them. Being kind of unfamiliar with them I wonder if it's better than 401k matches. Thoughts?

Blucodex

#1, the rest will always be options.

TheFORCE

techfiend wrote: »

Yup stock options were mentioned. I will definitely take advantage of them. Being kind of unfamiliar with them I wonder if it's better than 401k matches. Thoughts?

I believe stock options are better. Lets say your 401k match is 10% of your salary and lets say that equals to 10k at the end of the year the company would have contributed 10k. Now lets say you had the option to get 5% is 401k match and 5k in stock options. With the company share lets say worth $5. That means you just got 1000 shares of the company. Now lets say the company goes public and the share price shoots up to $15. Your 1000 shares that you paid 5k as an employee are now worth $15k! Etc etc as the share price grows so does your profit

victor.s.andrei

scaredoftests wrote: »

Choose what your 'gut' is more comfortable with and how YOU felt during the hiring process.

THIS.

People don't leave companies. People leave managers.

For each opportunity, think about the people you will report to. Then, think about their managers - would you be comfortable reporting to them, too?

If your gut says "no" at any point during this thought exercise, RUN.

Like you, I once had multiple offers, and I picked the one that I thought would turbo-charge my experience. Then, my future manager quit right before my first day, and the senior engineer who would also have supervised me got a better offer and quit three weeks after my first day. This, of course, left me reporting to a guy who gave me a VERY BAD gut feeling from the moment I met him - and you can imagine how the job went downhill and sent my life into a downward plunge for over a year.

Also, now that you have multiple offers, you have multiple relationships with different employers. Make sure that whatever you do, you keep the door open for the three (or more) employers that you will turn down (by accepting the fourth offer, or another offer that has yet to come in). This will help in case your new opportunity goes downhill for whatever reason.

Good luck - and congrats!

TechGromit

I want to change my vote, I vote for the offer that has the most attractive co-workers of the opposite gender. Given that 17% of people meet there spouse at work, chances are if you go work for an employer that has super attractive staff, you'll meet and marry one of them. Yes, I'm shallow.

ivyvald

TechGromit wrote: »

I want to change my vote, I vote for the offer that has the most attractive co-workers of the opposite gender. Given that 17% of people meet there spouse at work, chances are if you go work for an employer that has super attractive staff, you'll meet and marry one of them. Yes, I'm shallow.

As a millennial, this is just lollz

DPG

TechGromit wrote: »

I want to change my vote, I vote for the offer that has the most attractive co-workers of the opposite gender. Given that 17% of people meet there spouse at work, chances are if you go work for an employer that has super attractive staff, you'll meet and marry one of them. Yes, I'm shallow.

But what if you aren't attractive yourself?