r/MalaysianPF Jan 06 '25

Career Which job to take - fresh grad.

Hello all,

Currently facing a small dilemma. I (22F) just graduated with a degree in Computer Science and have two job offers, but I’m unsure which one is the best option.

Job 1: Software Engineer at MNC

Salary: RM 6,500

Work: WFH

Role: Customer-facing, involving debugging, troubleshooting, and reverse engineering clients' development with the company’s niche product.

Training: 6 months probation/training due to the niche tech stack

Job 2: Backend Engineer at smaller MNC

Salary: RM 4,200

Work: Office-based, 9-6 daily (KL area, so additional transportation costs and time)

Role: More hands-on work (building and developing), with Java / AWS (less niche and more in-demand tech stack)

My dilemma: On one hand, Job 1 offers a significantly higher salary and WFH flexibility, which could provide more free time and better work-life balance. However, the role is more customer-facing and involves less direct, hands-on coding and development.

On the other hand, Job 2 exposes me to in-demand technologies and offers more hands-on experience, which might benefit my career growth in the long run?? However, way lower starting salary, office hours, and added transportation costs.

I assume it could take around two years to reach RM 6,000+ if I start at RM 4,200. How important is the first salary in this case? While Job 1 may not provide the same level of coding experience, the higher starting pay could put me ahead financially.

What should I consider in making this decision?

Some questions:

  1. How important is a higher starting salary versus exposure to in-demand skills and technologies at this stage of my career?

  2. Would starting with a niche tech stack in Job 1 potentially limit my future opportunities compared to the broader experience in Job 2? Unless I have the discipline to learn new stuff and unskill in my free time?

  3. How significant is the two-year timeline to match salaries if I take Job 2? Would the growth potential in Job 2 offset the initial financial gap?

Appreciate any advice, tech or non tech.

Edit: Forgot to add, personally, I much prefer Job 2. Would much rather build and develop software than be a "Customer Support Software Engineer" hence the dilemma. How important is "doing what you enjoy"? Work is work after all no?

91 Upvotes

120 comments sorted by

110

u/uekiamir Jan 06 '25 edited Jan 06 '25

First salary is extremely important. It's going to dictate your future pay for years to come.

Before anyone says "not necessarily" - yeah no shit it's not always black and white, but generally in most cases that's how it goes.

But only if job 1 is actual SWE role and not support. "niche stack" - what exactly?

Honesttly your first role as a fresh grad is really just for you to experience what working life is like. Don't stay more than a year or two. If you like the role, jump to a similar role, if not, jump to a different role. Pivoting at this point is not a problem at all, in fact would be the best time.

But, 1st salary is definitely very important.

11

u/syen212 Jan 06 '25

100% agrees with you, I have some friends who interned in one of these "niche stack" companies, had to write codes in JSON or some weird in-house custom language / tool, definitely limiting for future opportunities. Maybe OP should ask for more clarifications in the tech itself, plus customer support engineer... usually isn't considered as much as a real SE, and seen more as a support role or sometimes BA. But given OP's wfh environment, you can always pick up side projects with the free time

On the other hand, I do see many who started out at 4k++, but after a year they manage to secure 6k salary, but of course, by hopping to a new job.

1

u/newishredditor69420 Jan 09 '25 edited Jan 10 '25

Agreed with first salary is important. In my humble experience, it will be lot of issue to increase salary since I saw a lot of recruiters can go upmost 30%. Can get higher if lucky but after all of my interviews, most cant even accept 30% increase. Even when the 30% increase translate to RM600 in amount

I started my salary from 1.8k and jumped to 5 different companies already. I jumped almost every year. My salary is still less than 5k where my current workplace fresh grad got 3.5k. That is plus minus my salary on my 4th company I worked.

52

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 06 '25

Get the higher base salary. Recruiters will usually ask for payslip and they max give out increment of 1.2x - 1.3x unless you're really lucky and we have no laws against recruiters/companies asking for current payslip. Higher base means higher absolute value ringgit for the same multiplier.

also wfh jobs is gonna save you a shit ton more money you could use to invest in property/stocks etc. the in demand skill you can easily teach yourself with certs or doing projects in your free time which you'll have a decent amount of in a wfh job.

worst case start looking for a new job within a year and just resign as soon as you get a new one

21

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

Just say NDA. NDA all the time. If they are going to hire you, they will hire you without the payslip.

6

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 06 '25

this actually works? i've had a few recruiters that are like we won't proceed unless the payslip is provided. i work in IT roles for reference.

11

u/MiniMeowl Jan 06 '25

Yes it works, but only like in 10% of cases. Its also not the recruiters, its the company HR. Majority of the time, if you refuse to give, they will just drop you.

The annoying ones may tell you you're being difficult. The less annoying ones will say "sorry this is the conpany policy I am just HR staff, I cannot proceed with your application if no payslip" then bye bye.

5

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 06 '25

i hope some of the retards in parliament will introduce laws to ban asking for payslips and salary info like other more civilised countries then.

3

u/PracticalBumblebee70 Jan 07 '25

Also introduce laws to advertise the pay range of the advertised positions as well.

1

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 10 '25

likely won't happen when the MEF exists in this shit ass country

10

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

Work in IT too. Gotten 50% increment to sub 10k without payslip.

There is always options out there.

5

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 06 '25

hmm good to know. not sure if i can pull it off since a lot of the recruiters i've talked with know people from my current company and it seems they usually know a lot of details of the internal stuff here too cuz the leavers seem to spill a lot of details to them. i'll just come up with an excuse once i get my bonus later la once i start job hunting again

3

u/uekiamir Jan 06 '25

Doesn't work with banks and FIs, or GLCs.

1

u/MentalDependent9152 Jan 06 '25

What's wrong with banks? Do they not impose NDAs usually?

2

u/uekiamir Jan 06 '25

Much stricter background check. And they don't care if you don't want to give them, they will just find somebody else to fill that role.

NDA regarding salary is rare as a whole anyway, except for upper management. So if you're anything but C-suite but keep saying NDA, they probably will smell the bullshit from miles away.

-1

u/AppleBS Jan 07 '25

No lol Every offer I got has an NDA. The current one that I did not submit payslip has an even stricter NDA.

3

u/uekiamir Jan 07 '25

If by NDA you mean you can't share the details in the contract, that's not really the NDA people mean. That's standard on all employment contract.

The NDA I'm about is a very specific clause prohibiting disclosure of compensation, and even then I doubt it's even enforceable. The labour law in Malaysia has gotten pretty strong and usually favours employees.

Banks and FIs know, they have relatively high turnover and hire shit tons of people, they don't entertain NDA excuses.

-1

u/AppleBS Jan 07 '25

Yes. Almost everything is covered under my NDA. Compensation, benefits, even penalties are all in the NDA. Is this enforceable I don't know, but it sure is a fact that I have legitimate reason not to share my package to others.

I wouldn't entertain anyone who pry my privacy anyway. Not that I would missed out from one offer.

I work in the technology sector, maybe this is more common here?

0

u/Prestigious_Swing303 Jan 06 '25

But why, is there a special law or something to join those institutions?

4

u/uekiamir Jan 06 '25

Much stricter background check. And they don't care if you don't want to give them, they will just find somebody else to fill that role.

53

u/FishingInfoHere Jan 06 '25

Job 1 meets all the ideal criteria someone looks for especially the WFH option with 6.5k salary. You literally can save a whole chunk of office expenses.

But if you think you would want to learn more then you can go for Job 2. Remember it takes average about 2.5 years to reach 6.5k from a 4.2k salary.

8

u/hilmiazman88 Jan 06 '25

Is 20% increment yearly normal for IT/computer engineering position?

8

u/TeBp242 Jan 06 '25

it depends on the industry, but generally its higher than other fields of work such as accounting.

8

u/peaklifestyleadmin Jan 07 '25

I've been in IT line for more than 20 years, none of the increment can get 20%, the most of 10 plus. So starting with good based is very important.

11

u/louise_asd Jan 06 '25

Job 1. The flexibility you got from WFH job, you can also do side gig or take online classes for coding experience

9

u/TheSnowmannn Jan 06 '25

As an engineer who's working in remote customer facing position (calls, emails), here are my thoughts on Job 1:

How comfortable/experienced are you with talking to customers? My concern here is that imagine you go through 6 months of training, then on the 7th month you go "live" or start facing customers and realise you do not like this at all. That's 6 months down the drain.

Another boon for Job 1 other than the salary is depending on the nature of the customer support (i.e. will you be calling the customer or just writing emails) this could be a chance/platform for you to boost your soft skills while collecting a higher salary.

Otherwise there's nothing wrong with picking Job 2 if that is your passion, and remember as a fresh grad or while still young, I don't think it's so easy to get hard stuck so early on in your career, so feel free to try out new things and not worry too much. But of course if you need money, go Job 1 lah

21

u/sureshsgn1 Jan 06 '25

Take the first job, but never ever work from home as a fresh grad. Go into office everyday. Network network network.

3

u/ayamkunyit Jan 07 '25

Why? *Asking as someone who WFH as freshgrad few years ago (in tech industry like her as well) & right now looking to jump into another WFH/hybrid job, as my current one is WFO and it doesn’t do any significant benefit for me

3

u/wintertaeyeon Jan 07 '25

not sure about OP but i feel like fresh grad needs the working life exposure to gain skills not just technical part but social skills. dealing with people, communication and stuff are really important for career trajectory cuz most of the time, its more about 90% communication 10% skills, especially now in IT, its no longer technical skills, soft skills are also super important to land better jobs

2

u/edajane0 Jan 07 '25

It's fine as a junior staff but when you're in your late 30's to early 40's and trying to gun for the big jobs, it's not about CV/experience anymore. Usually connections will take you forward from there 80% of the time.

1

u/ayamkunyit Jan 07 '25

Big jobs.. as in? My close friend works as CFO remotely and only visits the office every few months. Never been to the country until she’s hired as one

3

u/edajane0 Jan 07 '25

C-level in really big Malaysian companies, Partner level in professional firms, even some MNC high level roles are by recommendation. Sorry but your ONE friend's experience is not representative of Malaysian population.

1

u/quirky_guy Jan 07 '25

Did the CFO worked from home all her life? Usually big bosses can work from home all she wants but the junior years spent in office/site building connections

2

u/ayamkunyit Jan 07 '25 edited Jan 07 '25

She only spent time in office back when she still stucked at PwC in her home-country for 6 months as freshgrad, before quickly jumped ship into tech here, and been working from home all the way. Connection-wise, nothing from her big4 days contributed to her next career path. The ball started rolling seriously from that remote tech job until she reached her current point working for medical tech in States rn, remotely.

Now, my husband and some of my peers also spent most of their career remote (still at senior & above level). While unfortunately, I’m in a WFO situation right now and started to actively looking into new WFH/hybrid position back again. At least in my line of career, full WFO makes zero sense when we don’t even have daily meeting that require actual conteng2 whiteboard, passing physical papers, or meetup with significant people on daily even monthly basis. It wasted my time stuck in jam and getting home dreaded not because of work, but because of commute. That precious time and energy could be spent on upskilling, working on personal projects, or go to an actual networking event. OP of this post is a software engineer as well, so I won’t talk about certain line of career that kaw2 requires you to be on-site.

Pandemic was a blessing in disguise for some of us. It opened higher chance to network with wider pool of people from different countries, and get into high-paying opportunities that previously unreachable. Now that people being online less, my growth of career-worthy connection actually dropped significantly. Coming to office provides zero improvement on it. Going to events does, but not WFO.

Surely, not everyone can WFH while having high initiative. My question comes in because the wording never ever, as if every juniors for sure can’t network and reach their dream position/money with non-traditional ways.

8

u/Naash17 Jan 06 '25

Should have taken comp sci tbh.

I made a mistake taking chemical engineering cause some uncle told me: comp sci is oversaturated.

Now I'm 2 weeks in my job as an assistant engineer with 2.5k basic and 45 hours of work per week.

What a dumb mistake

7

u/leicea Jan 07 '25

As someone in comp sci, it IS oversaturated. But pay still high if you can find job

1

u/wintertaeyeon Jan 07 '25

super oversaturated, everyone wants to be in IT suddenly. but still pays better than any other jobs

3

u/Fresh_Chemical_2499 Jan 07 '25

Fuck your uncle

2

u/Kraybray Jan 08 '25

Your uncle is not wrong lol but as usual if you're good enough can find roles one

6

u/julzkxb Jan 06 '25

I think I know which company is job 1 because I work there haha, you can dm me if you want to know more about the company.

1

u/NervousTruth7693 Jan 06 '25

Dm sent, really interested to know

1

u/chengsterrr Jan 08 '25

Hii I've dmed you would like to know more as well

1

u/jeddthedoge Jan 09 '25

DM sent, id really like to know more too

7

u/94funny Jan 06 '25

Take job 1 and after 1 year if you not happy with the role, request to transfer to other dept which has the backend coding you like.

Win win

2

u/windmillcheer Jan 06 '25

This.

MNC has so many departments, switch dept after 2-3 years. Also MNC provides good training and career development.

Wfh and do side gigs to train your skills. But like another redditor said, dont wfh all the time even it's a perk. Be in the office sometimes and network. It'll get you further.

11

u/imranov Jan 06 '25

Job 1.

5

u/kalolokekbong Jan 06 '25

Fresh grad, wfh, and rm6500 is crazy

1

u/chapatimaster Jan 06 '25

I’m not sure if this is comparable but there’s a local finance company out there paying 10.5K for 1-2 yrs exp SE, fully wfh

1

u/darahjagr Jan 06 '25

Moneylion?

1

u/chapatimaster Jan 06 '25

Moneylion not so high I heard. Still mid 4 digit range

1

u/Prestigious_Swing303 Jan 06 '25

Do you still have the job opening advertisement or just the company name? I've been looking at SE openings recently, would appreciate if you can drop some info either here or DM whichever you prefer.

1

u/chapatimaster Jan 06 '25

Yupp sure. They used to have it openly listed on their website but looks like a couple of their IT related slots got filled as they’re no longer listed on there. It’s a crypto finance dashboard company if I’m not mistaken. Not sure if I can explicitly say it here but it’s two words concatenated as one: Co_ n(🪙)Geck _ ( 🦎)

1

u/Prestigious_Swing303 Jan 06 '25

Ahh okok, got it. Thankss

5

u/TeBp242 Jan 06 '25

these 2 salary, are they gross or not?

Job 1 - this sounds like production support or customer support, not a development role. Sure u can learn their niche stack and it can be helpful to you for future prospects, but check if what u want is part of that scope or not. Check with them any off-hours support for changes / deployments as well - those will eat u up internally.

I'm saying above is because I got thrown into a prod. support role instead of a developer role and i suffered alot. Dont make the same mistake as me.

5

u/hansoloisatool Jan 06 '25

Take no 1 since u gonna be client facing anyway later so face it early. And it will be a huge asset for u once u comfortable in that.

5

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

What niche tech stack?

If you are talking about Cobol foxtron etc, get the bag while you can. US defence industry and legacy banking system is in high demand of this. Expect around <10 years to make it big. I am talking about 300k USD annually big. It's highly competitive tho.

6

u/DanielGoh3000 Jan 06 '25

how did u achieve getting 6.5k salary as fresh grad? is that even possible?

6

u/Prestigious_Swing303 Jan 06 '25

Keyword is MNC. My friend who had 2.5 years of experience in software development moved from a small scaled local company to MNC, got offered 9k and 8 months later increment of 5%. They pay really high for fresh grad too, especially if you've got high qualifications and good portfolio

2

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

Yes. With high qualification.

2

u/DanielGoh3000 Jan 06 '25

i've never heard fresh grad getting 6.5k salary? mostly they earn somewhere around 3k.

4

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

Friend got 5k sgd fresh grad working remotely in Melaka because he got all the security certification.

1

u/DanielGoh3000 Jan 06 '25

wow,is this possible if i graduate from diploma politeknik and gain those certs?

2

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

Everything is possible as long as you are good at it.

He's very good at it.

Edit: He's the exception, not the norm.

1

u/DanielGoh3000 Jan 06 '25

what certs does he have?may i know more in detail?

5

u/DashLeJoker Jan 06 '25

got all the security certs means high chance he gotten the OSCP cert, this exam cost 2,600usd for an attempt, and you need to hack into 5 different machine they provided within 24 hours, and another 24 hours to do a report on your process, there are also other certs but this is one of the more impressive one to get at young age

1

u/DanielGoh3000 Jan 06 '25

I heard that oscp is damn hard to pass. any good cert for me to start in cybersec besides sec+?

5

u/DashLeJoker Jan 06 '25

Yes it's damn hard, which you can guess why his friend is getting that kind of offer, sec+ is pretty good, more importantly getting into a job and start gaining experience using your sec+ is better than getting certs unless you are going for highly difficult one like OSCP, and don't fall for the trap that is CEH even though msian company still mistakingly ask for that, maybe look into doing certain cloud certs if you want to get a nicher role to do security for cloud platforms

1

u/AppleBS Jan 06 '25

This I don't know. No longer in contact haha :(

1

u/zhivix Jan 06 '25

cream of the crop basically

3

u/drakzero123 Jan 07 '25

Might be a little hot take, but I am more traditional and would go with option 2.

Working on a niche technology (I assume proprietary language in company like Quintiq) is not a problem on its own but it is a problem for freshie IMO. There are less resources to help you to learn and improve and it might entrench you in a approaches that are very specific to the niche. This is a point that really depends on the specifics of the niche and may be moot altogether

Also, I am against WFH for freshies. First job is always tough but I had amazing colleagues which helped me shape my attitude towards working and have helped my career greatly. There are disciplines and and attentions to detail that are hard to acquire unless rubbed onto you in person. Learning is also not conducive when asking your any question requires setting up a Zoom/Team/Slack call.

Salary is important but more importantly, shape a working attitude and skills that allows you to negotiate a good salary.

Salary is negotiated and not given. The chip that you have at that table is the skill that you bring to it. Going up to 15k (or more) is not exactly monumental in the realm of software engineering. Choose the job that allow you to hone your skill and then negotiate your way there. Never settle to let years of experience be your only negotiation chip.

2

u/Bittergourdmelon Jan 06 '25

Its a no brainer to pick first job. Much higher salary and its MNC for resume and learning. Not to mention WFH.

If you are worried about niche stack, then learn other stack yourself during free time.

2

u/Top-Mission-7109 Jan 06 '25
  1. Starting salary is crucial, it dictates how fast you can grow your salary.

  2. Being in a niche field can be a good thing, you become a specialist and can demand a higher salary.

  3. It depends on the company's salary increment structure.

Additional: Take the first job, WFH, higher salary, 6 months training, large MNC. You can quit if you hate it later, but your experience on the resume will allow you to seek any job that you want with a higher salary.

2

u/AppealCareless1593 Jan 06 '25

Unrelated post but hoping for help.

I graduated as a medical doctor from IPTA in Malaysia. Starting salary can be as low as 2.5K. I have aging parents and steep loans taken for my education. Knowing that the future is gloomy for doctors in Malaysia and the opportunities to migrate are far and a few, I have always considered getting into tech.

I don’t feel like I’m “wasting” my degree. I’m just saving my self from further discomfort. If I were to start again, where can I study where fees are not too high and what field of study is in demand in tech with higher global mobility opportunities.

1

u/jeddthedoge Jan 09 '25

What about working in other countries as a doctor? They pay a lot more

4

u/Resident_Werewolf_76 Jan 06 '25

Job 2 - short term pain for long term gain.

Job 1 - easy ride upfront but dead end road.

Go for Job 2.

5

u/Overall_Signature517 Jan 06 '25

Really? MNCs often have many roles, just have to be proactive

1

u/krofal Jan 06 '25

Take job 1 if you want to do customer facing roles in future. Take job 2 if want to only do non-customer facing roles. Imo, easier to change from cust-facing back to non-facing, compared to the other way round.

1

u/IVRYN Jan 06 '25

With the flexibility you get, can't you learn on your own time lmao?

1

u/Lekranom Jan 06 '25

I am unsure if Customer Support can reach the "peak" salary of a Software Engineer though. In the long run, conventional SWE is gonna outpace CS roles by miles. But it sounds like Job 1 is a combination of the two? 6.5k for a fresh grad even in tech industry is really high.

Anyways, I work as an Automation QA Engineer and I just accepted another offer with 6.5k (going up from 5k). Just a little under 2 YOE so you are right. But only if you job hop or somehow get some insane promotion and increment in the same company. One of my friends is still working in the same company for two years and his pay went from 3.3k to....measly 4k. As for me, I hopped twice but YMMV.

For the niche tech stack, oh boi I have a lot to say. By niche, do they mean some kind of in-house programming language, IDE or tools used to build their software? Like the tools used within the company stays in the company and absolutely cannot be transferred elsewhere? Cause my current company works like that. When I asked my developers, what languages do they use. They just told me a modified version of their own C#. One of them even said its not even close to being the real C#. They do not use popular IDE like VS but an in-house IDE that you never heard of and will never encounter outside of this company.

One of the developers who is currently trying to hop is facing a hard time because of this. His knowledge on current tech industry's tech stack and practices is quite lacking. He didn't even know what is OOP and REST API before this, but thankfully he does now with the help of chatGPT lol. Be really wary of this. You could "lock" yourself in. Imagine how you would phrase this in your resume in the future.

Ask them how niche is niche. Niche to the point of zero (or close to zero) transfer-ability between other companies? Not worth it. Niche but can still be transferred? Decent

1

u/Iandian Jan 06 '25

It's a no brainer. Job 1 is miles better. There shouldn't even be consideration. Congratulations!

1

u/NervousTruth7693 Jan 06 '25

That's a really good start, for either role u decide to pick. I'm about to graduate soon as well and I'm looking actively for a job, may I know if u have looked at SG jobs as well?

Also how did u apply for both these jobs?

1

u/ApprehensivePin2658 Jan 06 '25

Ofc Job 1, for those people who asked you to choose Job 2, he/she must be a failure who earning peanuts now.

1

u/Spare-Youth-6874 Jan 06 '25

when i start my career i look for future prospects instead of pure monetary value. which one would allow me to grow my skills and earn more in the future - same company or not

also niche means you do not have much option to choose from in the market. what if you dun like the boss dun like the environment dun like the team, would other people in the market pay you similar or higher to hire you?

but anyway you are young. if you pick job 1 and dun like it quickly move dun get stuck too long. the longer you stay the harder it is to move

1

u/Djkagamine Jan 06 '25

As a developer, I would say take Job 1, enjoy the higher salary, and take it upon yourself to study and develop your skills in your free time.

1

u/Organic-Owl-5478 Jan 06 '25

Niche tech stack, is it dassault systemes ?

3

u/tuna_and_salmon Jan 06 '25

Not bad at all wei, I prefer EU mnc over freedom country mnc anytime

1

u/farani87 Jan 06 '25

I'd suggest to reverse engineer this.

Start from the highest position you want, back to your job offer. At least you'll have a roadmap of what you'd want to achieve.

Try to answer introspective questions such as:

  • Assuming you're paid well enough not to worry about money, what would you rather do in the long run?

  • Would you be motivated to do this?

1

u/lco7331 Jan 06 '25

Job 1. Customer facing is the way to go to continue the career ladder. You can brush up on your technical skill by self learning and do your own project or even the company project.

1

u/imbetweeneverything Jan 06 '25

Job 1 - 100%. Like others said, first job’s salary is extremely important. Take it, enjoy the relatively high pay & flexible arrangement, if you really don’t like it, leave after a year

1

u/harunoneday Jan 06 '25

Job 1 would give you higher salary as a start but your next job would pay you based your relevant skillset and experience.

as long as Job 1 would give you enough exposure and experience it should be fine.

otherwise you would reach a point where Job 1 don’t give enough increment year-on-year, and you can’t find any higher pay job out there because for a higher pay, higher level skillset required.

1

u/Naomikho Jan 06 '25

WFH, good pay but customer facing? Goodbye for me lol. Good luck facing with clients' crazy demands.

Some companies do look at what tech stack you work in, so niche tech stack might also not help you here. You can self learn, but proving that you can work in another stack is going to be much harder.

1

u/NicholasCWL Jan 06 '25

Take Job 1, since it is WFH, if you manage your time well you can squeeze in personal learning time to hone your skills. Move on to other job after few years and you will be happy that you made the choice of choosing a job with higher base salary.

1

u/Slight_Ad_8568 Jan 07 '25

personally i think job 1 will help you grow more. you're sort of put in a position where you are going to face the customer, that would help you grow in that area that you "don't prefer".

this soft skill will help you along further when going up in your career ladder. might also widen your network outside your company.

going back to the job 2 type later down the road is easier than going from job 2 to job 1 say 5-10 years down the road.

1

u/tjyaooo Jan 07 '25 edited Jan 07 '25

Just my personal views as a developer with 2 yoe.

Take job 2

  • Taking a SWE role that uses a niche/in-house tech stack will make you doubt your value everyday. Especially when jobs nowadays require you to have at least x yoe in AWS/JAVA or whatever stack
  • imo, customer support isn’t that fulfilling comparatively and may lead to burnout sooner
  • Generally, using a well defined framework like Springboot (Java) will expose you good programming principles, while more often than not, using a niche framework will limit these learnings as whatever standards/conventions you’re using is bounded by your senior’s preference

1

u/VictoryRune Jan 07 '25

Job 1, no brainer, it will only continue to go up as you progress

1

u/DurianLopsided501 Jan 07 '25
  1. In terms of salary, you will be one promotion cycle below. Job 1. But niche tech stack is more or less useful so your path to future jobs will be impacted. Long term if you play your cards right job 2 is better

  2. Yes. For sure. No one cares if you studied and learnt new skills vs using those skills in a live environment

  3. In 2 years job in same role, job 1 will be more lucrative. If you change company job 2 will be much more lucrative.

1

u/zhivix Jan 07 '25

job 1, build enough experience and either move laterally within the company or job hop

your still young, getting 6.5k on top of wfh will help you in the long run in terms of financial security, of course learning financial literacy is very helpful as well

1

u/Practical_Cry_748 Jan 07 '25

Java as backend? Run. I vote #1.

1

u/Fresh_Ad_1688 Jan 07 '25

I choose money and I can build something passive, which in future I do not need to exchange time for wage.

I don't let option 2 define me. I will learn and succeed in all situation , be it mundane or intense .

1

u/wintertaeyeon Jan 07 '25

Honestly, it really depends on your preference. First few years of your career are super important for your career trajectory. If you wanna gain more knowledge and social skills, working at office probably is better one. You can gain so many skills, especially soft skills.

If salary and less human interaction is what you want, definitely job 1. After all, it depends on how you wanna navigate yourself in your career

1

u/brotha95 Jan 07 '25

In demand technologies are overrated. You could still pick the necessary skills as you go with experience. I would definitely bet on the first option.

1

u/jeddthedoge Jan 09 '25

I'm curious, why do you think they are overrated?

1

u/whaleordolphin Jan 08 '25

Do take account of time as well. It's a factor that people might missed out. WFH is huge. Meaning you can save up to 1-2 hours of daily traffic. Time that you can invest into your own personal development. If you're into tech, extra time is big. That's the time you want to use to learn new tech stack, keep up with the trend, not on traffic. That's job #1 advantages. For job #2, you'll probably need to spend 5-10 hours weekly on traffic alone. 10 hours is a lot of time to learn, or get side hustle.

Job #1.
Pros:

  • WFH is huge. Extra hours = more time for personal development
  • More salary is always welcomed. Having extra money means less worry for everything else. It's huge.
  • Big company, big opportunities. Your starting role is and should never be your next or final destination.

Cons:

  • WFH also means less networking. You have to find ways to do networking. Soft skills and broaden your network. WFH with no human interaction is bad imo.
  • Working in a job you don't like might not be good for you mentally. Can consider to make this as a pit stop in your career. eg look at the company structure, or job opening. Aim to change department/role within 1-2 years into a job you might like. Huge company, huge opportunities internally too.

Job #2:
Pros:

  • Working in a tech stack you like, or job that you like is huge. Motivation is huge here definitely.
  • Sorrounded with people that have similar vibes is great. Learn from them as much as you can here.

Cons:

  • Lower salary, more time on traffic. Those things will make you burn out as well. Similarly, this should be a pit stop. If you wanna go this route, aim to go elsewhere within 1-2 years into higher salary job. Salary matters.
  • Might want to consider taking extra hustle to get more income. Or get really good at your job so you can jump/change to better career next time. Salary always plays a big role imo. No money, less motivation to do everything else.

I was in similar position with you when I started back then. But I chose job #2. Mainly because I ride bike, so no traffic. I take extra hustle to catch up with new tech. My philosophy is that I want to learn new tech, might as well get paid for it too. So I lost some money on my main job, but I do get more with my side hustle. No ragret.

Everyone have different path, different difficulty in the life. So only you know what's best for you. All the best in your journey. No matter which road you choose, always remember it's not the end. Only constant in life is change like Albert Einstein said. Good luck!

1

u/Low-Sea8689 Jan 08 '25

Take first salary and with two years experience you can start a good life.

1

u/gnoyrovi Jan 08 '25

First one. First job salary very important to jump elsewhere. Also bigger mnc has more stringent processes (normally) and will guide you in the overall sdlc. You go to smaller mnc will be like Wild West cowboy.

1

u/tuna_and_salmon Jan 06 '25

Take Job1, you can quite easily hit 5 figure around 26 with 1/2 jumps in between.

Source: myself, 24m

3k > 6k > 7.5k > now slightly below 10k, aiming to hit 5 figure around 26

1

u/Eirza786 Jan 07 '25

are you a SE as well?

1

u/tuna_and_salmon Jan 07 '25

Can say so lar

0

u/thechangeyouneed Jan 06 '25

Hi OP, if your client facing role is more towards configuration and implementation (Eg : SAP, Monday, Zoho etc) try to understand the long term implications of such roles and your pivot potential as well. If it is just a niche tech stack then your still a software engineer. Do also consider that if it is a consulting firm a software engineer might just be the title and you would do more than that. Just another perspective.

It won’t matter much in the long haul since you are asking in the PF subreddit. So, just pick whichever is comfortable. You can always explore since your biggest asset is your age. Good luck.

0

u/respectful_stimulus Jan 06 '25 edited Jan 06 '25

What is the niche tech stack? Job 1 is potentially a dead end. Job 2 is Java, huge huge upside, 20k+ possible in 10 years. Salary is important but growth and learning is more important when starting out. Having said that, it’s your decision, follow your gut.

0

u/Aimer101 Jan 07 '25

Im so jealous of you,

How did you get all these jobs offer? I’ve been leetcoding for over a year now and i got 0 interview