In the chaos of my first semester of junior year, I’ve found myself with a good problem to have. After some exhausting recruiting work and many hours spent brushing up my interviewing skills, I found myself with two very excellent job offers!
The first was an offer to return to Google as a software engineering intern confirmed for the New York office! I have never been to New York however I know from my time in LA and in Seattle that I absolutely adore big cities and wouldn’t want to find myself anywhere else. The offer was amazing with all the benefits of a Google intern with the opportunity to go to the Big Apple for the summer. The one gripe I did have, though, was that I would have to accept the offer first before I’d know what type of work I’d be doing. For someone like me who is finally starting to narrow in on the type of work I like doing, this detail was definitely something I’d have to consider carefully.
My second offer came from Microsoft, also for a position as a software engineering intern. This past month I flown out to Washington for my final round interviews and after spending a nerve wracking week or so waiting for a response, I received a formal offer to join Micorosft’s AI + Cognition Vision team (under which the hololens team works under), the team I had originally interviewed for on site. Though I had worked in Seattle before and was hoping to continue exploring other locations during my internship, the type of work I’d be doing was super enticing! I’d be able to work on a real-time system developing lower level AI frameworks (so cool!) on what I think is one of the most interesting teams at Microsoft.
With describing these two amazing offers, it becomes very obvious to see how one can become stumped on this decision. I knew that there was no wrong answer here; no matter where I chose to go, it’d be a great choice. I had two large variables to consider though: Did I want to explore (and perhaps move to permanently after graduation) to a new city with a company I know and love? Or did I want to try to get more exposure and experience in a more niche field that I might want to continue working in after graduation?
After spending a lot of time talking to mentors and getting as much advice as I could from them, I ultimately decided that I would join Microsoft this summer. As much as it hurts to say, at the very least, a temporary goodbye to a company I loved working for, I figured that I could really use this experience to leverage the positions I’d be qualified for after graduation. All in all, I think I made the right choice and I’ll be excited to give this blog a retrospective look after my internship this summer!
