Which job offer would you take?
Before accepting a new job offer, decide what matters most
This morning while eating breakfast, a friend that I’ve known for ages texted me looking for advice. We had a quick chat on the phone to go over choosing between two job offers.
I asked some clarifying questions:
What is the difference in pay?
They are about the same.
How big is each company?
They are similar in size.
What is the industry?
Both the same - and that industry is big in their city.
What is the commute like if you must go to the office?
Not an issue.
What are the differences in the roles?
Company A: similar leadership position that I have now but into a larger company.
Company B: I would be going back to being an individual contributor.
Do you prefer being a leader or an individual contributor?
I like them both.
What are the tech stacks like?
Company A: this is a traditional database role in a BI team using all the tools I’m familiar with – including Microsoft SQL Server. Tech is hosted on prem but they are considering using the cloud.
Company B: they are using Snowflake and other modern tech.
The result is that both companies are very similar. The main choice is to stay in a comfortable position where they are already an expert in the technology with the same job title as before or to step down a level to get to use more modern tech.
What would you do?
Would you take the role you were more comfortable with in order to keep at the same career level? Or risk it all in order to use new tech?
I knew before we got to the end what decision my friend wanted to make. We’ve known each other for a long time. He just needed me to agree with it to be comfortable. It’s good to get a second opinion. We both agreed that the new tech was more important than that the job title.
But Shane, that’s crazy! My career path is more important!
Some of you may protest and say the title and career path are more important. That is 100% true for many types of jobs. But in tech, you can easily kill your career by focusing on soon-to-be obsolete tech. I have interviewed many people who left it too late and were laid off into a job market that was hard to break back into. If your company isn’t helping you keep current they are actively hurting you and your career. You alone must take control of your career and not wait around for someone else to do it for you.
The flip side of this is if you are a company that isn’t keeping current with tech then you won’t be able to attract the talented and motivated people you need. The stink of technical decay and technical debt does not wash off easily in our highly competitive field.
Making a decision like this isn’t actually hard unless you overthink it. By identifying the core reason you’d want to move to a new company (modern tech) the decision is made much easier.
As for my friend, I know they are going to love the challenge of learning new tech and not just because it makes them more valuable in the market. They are someone who loves to learn, a very valuable skill for any worker.