The technology stack you gain experience in will tend to drive you towards jobs with that.

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My background: staff level eng at a moderately large company with experience in both tiny scale (12 man) and massive @Google (that January layoff was so great 🫠), 7YOE in Android + 2 in iOS dev

1. Getting your first 2-3 years of experience under your belt makes finding jobs much easier in the future: no companies want to hire juniors and train them but most companies are looking for seniors.

2. Whichever software stack you start on will tend to improve your chances of getting better jobs in that sector and it’s hard to leave golden handcuffs as you get more and more experience in a field.

Were I in your shoes: I’d take the job at (shot in the dark here) Chase Bank over the job through Insight any day. I’ve loved every contractor I’ve worked with but the companies see you as an expendable resource to cut as soon as possible.

What matters most for you is years in the field. Job experience. Skills and technical experience comes from time working on projects more than anything else.

When it comes time to exit Chase Bank be sure you’ve got your algos down and your soft skills on point. Being charming in an interview is as important as your algorithmic knowledge, for better or worse. If you’re charming, have 2-3 YOE and ace your technical questions you’ll be in good shape to move into realms you find more interesting.

I’m only 3.5 years post college, my advice might not be the most sage. I’d take whichever you think you’ll enjoy most in the moment, and it sounds like the contract. You should ask them about possibilities for “contract to hire”, though. A lot of places like to do that anyway. From my experience, the contract work will look better on a resume and help a lot more for finding a new job in 1-5 years, and your skills won’t stagnate. I took some more stable jobs in my own career, but that’s mostly because I think of coding strictly as a job and less of a hobby, and I’m happier with a stable paycheck, but a less challenging, engaging, and exciting job.

But if you’re in a position where it is very important for you to have 100% of your income and a guarantee of work in 7 months, maybe take the more stable one. Like if you have kids or family that you’re supporting. But if you’re thrifty and good at interviewing (which it sounds like you are), sometimes contracts can actually be better financially in the long run, just more work. It really depends on the jobs and your attitudes towards them. But nothing is ever set in stone for your career path, as long as you can learn new things and show them off. If you decide on the financial group but are still worried, I’d recommend just having a side project your working on in a personal, non-work-affiliated github and just keep up on trends with that.

It sounds like you’re leaning towards the contract role.

The first one seems more stable, and may be a better option if you have some debt to pay off or a mortgage.

However, working full remote has some additional perks that you’d have to factor in.

The important thing is getting some experience.

Is the second one just a 6 month contract, or potentially contract to hire or maybe another contract? If you have to job hunt again in 6 months, you need to factor that in to your decision as well.

Tell the tech company about the offer from the finance company. Ask them if they can match it (knowing full well they probably won’t, but ask anyway). If they say no, ask if they can go any higher than the stated offer. Whatever they tell you, tell them you’ll think on it and get back to them this week.

Then do whatever you want. I’d go for the one with the more relaxed dress code, personally.

First job? Go with the financial firm, get 1-2 years of experience then leave. If you already had experience, I would say neither job is good. But getting your foot in the door is difficult. Most of your technical skills you pick up might not be transferable since it’s old tech like you mentioned but you should still get very valuable experience that you don’t have from school like working with version control strategies, release cycles, test/staging/production builds, writing tickets, prioritization, etc.

Some old tech is not as irrelevant as you may think too. If they have anything on Java, try to do that. It’s still widely used. But cobol, fortran, ada, php, that sort of thing… Those are dead or dying. You may not get the choice but you can at least state your preference and hope for the best.

Insight global is an alright company if you go the contracting route. They were one of the few that would actually get involved when there were issues with the client.

Contracting is tough right now with the limited options and the very volatile market, at least in the US. I’m about to be unemployed at the end of November unless I can find something.

Financial institutions are very regulated and it is usually a pretty solid job to have - I did 5 years at JPMC and 2 at Huntington. But beware they’ll fuck you over if you ever refuse to toe the line or want an actual work life balance.

Don’t go for the conservative position. I chose the same path a year ago and - as others said - hate every second of work there. The higher salary is not worth the bad time you’ll likely have. This is only my personal experience but maybe it helps you avoid the same mistake I did.

For software devs, I haven’t found sector to chain you nearly as much as the stack. I’ve been in Microsoft since the beginning of my career (.NET and more recently with Angular) but I’ve switched sectors from publishing, to insurance, healthcare, supply chain, education… All of those were in .NET. It probably would’ve been harder to get a job in the same sector but a different stack (Java or whatever). So… I’m glad I didn’t start in COBOL is what I’m saying. :)

Take whatever job will pay the most while demanding the least amount of time spent on the job. It doesn’t matter of a job pays a quarter million and lets you work on trendy tech if you’re on the job 80 hours a week; that’s just you getting fucked in the ass. If you’re working 40 hours a week or less (ideally much less) you can do passion projects on your own time.

Don’t look for friendship, community, or emotional fulfillment on the job. If you find it anyway, it’s a trap. Do the job, get paid, and GTFO. Be a mercenary, not a company man.

I’m going to buck the trend here and advise the more conservative position. I took a developer job in the insurance industry right out of college, and I have no regrets. The work is rarely exciting, but it’s stable and not very demanding. I have great work life balance. And developer jobs in non tech related industries seem to be largely immune to the upheavals and layoffs currently affecting the tech world.

You do you man.

I’ll tell you my experience. I onboardeed to a new job 2 months ago.

It’s not a permanent position, it’s contractor for 6 months with the possibility of renewing at the end.

It’s 52$/hour, fully remote, amazing work life balance.

It was down to this job vs an 100% in-person role that would be more development focused. But the pay was a little less.

I’m so happy with the decision I made, but only you can know what’s right for you.

I would go for the small startup, quit after 3 years and work for the finicial group for a lot more money.