Hesitant to Accept First Offer
Excitingly I've received my first offer, for a implementation consultant position. I'm on the fence about accepting for two main reasons.
1) I'm afraid that configuring proprietary software is not transferable to more modern software engineering positions that I'm more interested in. Would accepting this offer make it more difficult to transition to development oriented software roles later on in my career? Would accepting this offer be a good stepping stone towards software engineering roles?
2) The company's work life balance and relocation policy (must relocate every 1-2 years) is not sustainable for me. If I took this role I'd be looking to find another job before I'm forced to relocate again. How would it look to employers in software if I left after 1-2 years? Would this negatively affect future opportunities?
Wisdom, advice, two-cents are all valuable to me! Thanks!
I asked the IC what his day-to-day looks like and I pretty much asked him the same question you’re asking here. He said that the role isn’t very technical and it could be difficult to transfer the skills you learn at Fast to Software Engineering roles. Both of the representatives said that the Software Engineer duties are handled by employees at their main office in Colorado.
My understanding is that the Software Engineers at the main office build software, and the IC’s around the country use that software. There is a lot of button clicking and little code writing. But when you do write code it’ll be in VB.NET, although they did say they’re transitioning to C#.
After I had that discussion with them, I thanked them for their honesty and decided not to apply. I went with a local company for significantly less pay, but it’s a SWE role in a non-tech hub so the sacrifice in pay is worth it to me. If you want good money and you want it quickly and easily without dealing with LeetCode style interviews, Fast is a good place for that. But while I was talking to them, I got the impression that it’s not the place to go if you want to be a Software Engineer.
Also, that stuff about not stationing you within your home state isn’t entirely true either. One of my friends was placed in his home state even though they said that wouldn’t happen. That’s the only reason he didn’t list it as one of his no-go locations. He wanted to be placed somewhere near the main office so he’d have a better shot at getting one of the SWE roles. He started applying elsewhere after that. I hope this helps. Good luck.