Choosing to take an offer
I'm a recent college graduate who started my first job a couple of months ago. Recently, Amazon reached out to me for an interview, and I decided to go through the process to explore my options. I'm fortunate to have received an offer from Amazon, but now I find myself in a predicament.
Work at my current company (paypal) has been going well so far, there are parts that definitely could be better but overall the project I got has a high scope (working with more cross-functional teams and leaders) and allows me to sometimes present to people at a much higher level than I am at.
The offer from Amazon comes with a slightly higher salary. However, compensation isn't the primary factor for me in making this decision. My main goal is to become a better engineer by gaining access to strong mentorship, engaging in challenging projects, and building a strong portfolio early in my career.
Eventually, I do see myself leaving my current position for a reputable, faster paced startup or a large company that is known for excellent mentorship and the development of young engineers. While I'm uncertain if Amazon itself meets these specific criteria based on conversations I've had with recent graduates working there, Amazon's strong brand name and its engineering opportunities could potentially lead to more opportunities aligned with my goals.
Would love feedback on this decision and let me know if some parts need more info.
Discussion
(3 comments)- 1
a month agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroCongrats on the offer! I'm also glad PayPal is currently going well for you - That certainly wasn't the case for me back when I was there 🤣
First off, I consider Amazon far higher than PayPal on the totem pole. It's a FAANG company at the end of the day, and having the name on your resume will help you quite a lot for future job searching, especially when compared to PayPal.
The thing is that Amazon, similar to PayPal, is a huge tech company. There will be great teams, average teams, and terrible teams. The same goes for PayPal. It is very possible to go from a great team at PayPal to a terrible team at Amazon and be in a worse position. For you right now as a junior engineer, the most important thing to optimize for is learning.
In a vacuum, I recommend going to Amazon and trying to stay there for 2+ years to "cancel out" the short PayPal stint. You also generally need to stay at Amazon for a little more than 2 years anyways to get the backloaded RSU grants. But you still need to make the judgment call on how good your team is and how excited you are about the new team at Amazon. Happy to give more thoughts if you can share details there.
- 0a month agoEntry-Level Software Engineer [OP]PayPal
Thanks for the response, it was definitely helpful. Amazon released the division (AWS) but did not mention the specific team I would be working on yet. One thing is I am located in the Bay Area now and have a place there. I would have to give that up and move to Seattle- I would much rather be in the Bay Area. In addition, the 5 days in-person a week thing at Amazon seems a bit annoying too, but I'm not too against it (not a dealbreaker). I'm thinking of asking the recruiter to see if I can change the location of the offer but I'm skeptical that they will.
Right now I would say team @PayPal is good (working on an ML project) and manager is ok. Its good to know from your response where Amazon holds relative to PayPal in terms of brand and reputation. Would you think its possible to try to recruit at a place like Meta or another great company after ~1 year at PayPal or would that lean towards quite unlikely? If recruiting from PayPal is weak I think I would favor the Amazon position in that case, even if I would not want to stay there for an extended period.
- 1a month agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Amazon is a much stronger brand than PayPal, and will likely put you in a high-functioning team with smart people. This means the "exit opportunities" -- your next job after your current one -- will be much better at Amazon.
Since you get paid more at Amazon anyway (a minor consideration for you at this point), I'd jump to Amazon.
The nuance here is what exactly you're working on: if there's a specific tech domain that you have access to at PayPal, or an exceptional manager, that may be a reason to stick around.
You don't have to be too concerned with job hopping since you're early in your career, as I explain here: When To Properly Leave Jobs So Your Career Doesn't Get Punished
