Choosing best internship offer

Question

I am a 2nd year at a T20~ US engineering school and I have multiple SWE offers but am unsure of which to choose.

Carrier: working on application layer commercial HVAC software, mostly c++.

Salary: $5600/month (Appx $32.50/hr) + $2000 one-time relocation
Although I am interested in breaking into big tech, the work at Carrier seems much more interesting and more SWE related than Northrop. The net salary is about equal to or potentially even less considering I have to relocate + need a car.

Northrop Grumman: mostly low-code VR work and some javascript

a. Salary: $26.25/hr, primarily remote, local to my area if I need to go in person a few times.

b. The work seems quite boring to me, and I don't think I'll learn many relevant skills, although not having to relocate is nice.

Neither company carries much brand value, but I'd appreciate advice on which to choose.

Ritvik Chebolu · Accepted Answer

Having worked at Carrier as an intern, I can say that the work would def be pretty interesting. They pay well, have good corporate benefits (the best one is work-life balance), and a friendly work culture.
But I should also mention that there is some scope for you to negotiate in terms of salary (they usually pay a little higher, about $35-40/hour). And congratulations for your offers!!!

gatsby · Answer

If you’re looking to become a Software Engineer the Carrier job sounds better as it will give you better experience.  Real C++ development experience will generally be better than low code experience.  This will position you to get a better more dev heavy job later.  With that said given the low pay of both offers use that job as an experience builder and look to move on to a better company after you get a year or two under your belt.

wittywaters · Answer

Northrop Grumman being a big defense company did they happen to bring up anything about security clearance? The dod space has a lot of demand for devs with clearance right now.

garciamilord · Answer

First internship doesn’t usually matter unless it’s a big tech company. I would go with Northrop Grumman because well known company. But if you don’t like the tech stack or project go with Carrier.

mercsilent · Answer

yo! i was same position as you and went with NG. idk if it’s applicable to your job but they paid for my security clearance and i was able to get secret clearance. it’s a sought after classification and makes you much more valuable going forward both in defense and big tech. i’m also planning to transition into big tech. however i think in this scenario i’d recommend Carrier prolly. less recognition overall but the skills seem to heavily outweigh. my ng position this summer is more machine learning and computer vision so it was easier to choose. the position you’re looking at doesn’t look as helpful so i wouldn’t go with ng

Choosing best internship offer

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