51–60 of 65 posts
If both offers seem equal to you, why not choose on the location? EDIT: I just read it would be in the same city, but what about distance to home? District, etc...
Flip a coin. Seriously. If you don't like the decision the coin made for you then ignore it and do the opposite.
Bingo. I've also heard this sentiment expressed as "Flip a coin. While it's in the air, your brain will be wishing for one of the sides. Pick that choice and forget about the coin."
Surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: be careful about that non-promise of a "possibility of getting a bit more into actual software development later." It's very easy for a company to make vague non-promises like this. Consider how you would feel if it took 1 year or 2 years or infinite years for that "getting a bit more into actual software development" thing to happen. Would you quit after a year of waiting? Wo…
I spent 3 years at my last company waiting for the "possibility" I was promised in the interview. Admittedly it was great job that I did enjoy the stuff I actually was doing, but the constant waiting and hoping for that elusive 'possibility' did gnaw at me, and heavily contributed to me quitting. So basically my advice is to heavily discount any promises of future possibilities and judge the job mainly by what you kn…
Just quit as I received another job offer, and when I asked to have "something definite in writing" this time, then the wonderful promises vanished.
My 2 cents: - The security job is more hardcore. It's a branch of software that you probably will find hard to learn about on your own, with lots of little juicy details. Airline software, I'll bet most devs could figure out how to write if they understood the domain, and there are probably fewer pitfalls. But I'm no expert on either. - Your subjective experience will depend a lot on the individual people you meet an…
Oh come on, he's be using javascript and kendo UI to make graphs. That's not hardcore security programming. That's the very antithesis of hardcore programming. Apart from tearing your hair out at the shitty kendo API designs. The security job sounds like a boring job to me from his description, sounds like they'd be using him to animate a bunch of graphs on their website or something. OP, there's almost nothing worse…
Reports? I was offered a significant pay raise to work exclusively on reports. I declined.
You might find this TED talk enlightening. How to make hard choices - Ruth Chang https://youtu.be/8GQZuzIdeQQ Sorry for the terrible formatting, I'm on mobile (and lazy at this time of the morning.)
Assuming that we possess some degree of free will I think it is best to prevent hard choices to turn up in the first place. That probably doesn't always work out but maybe you can shift the odds in your favor. For example, if you start programming very early and become really good at it by the time you have to decide for a career then your choice is (rather likely) to be easy. You already have a marketable skill and motivation to do more (otherwise you would have given up earlier). No vague "Let's do an MBA and see where that leads me" feelings that ultimately lead to hard choices: Should I do Marketing? Accounting? Something not related to my degree? The point is not to bash MBAs here but the problem that this is one of the many paths where you can get far without any "real" motivation. But eventually you reach a point where motivation is key (the choice) and if you lack it the choice is going to be hard. From a practical point of view your decision doesn't really matter (so I sort of agree with her) but again I think that preventing hard choices leads to better outcomes ( a happier life) than any option you may decide for when making a hard choice (most of the time)
Anyhow, the wisest universal advice is "Don't panic!", though. In a way, everything is ok the way it is.
Surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: be careful about that non-promise of a "possibility of getting a bit more into actual software development later." It's very easy for a company to make vague non-promises like this. Consider how you would feel if it took 1 year or 2 years or infinite years for that "getting a bit more into actual software development" thing to happen. Would you quit after a year of waiting? Wo…
Yeah, this would be a red flag for me, if you want to be a coder, take the job where you'll be coding from day one.
There will be other IT security jobs. If you really want one, you should just turn down both offers and wait for one you really want. Good programmers are rare and you can probably wait around for something you like better.
Edit: Also, don't believe promises regarding payrises after 6 months, shares in the company, healthcare, etc. If it's not on the table when you negotiate the contract, be sure you'll be happy when the promises fail to materialise.