I’m 28, graduating in one week from U. of Illinois at Chicago with my undergraduate CS degree with a few years of experience (startups, my own stuff, etc). I know that where I work after graduating will have a big impact on my future and there’s things that I “don’t know that I don’t know” about how to make these types of decisions, so that’s why I’m asking for advice. For instance, if I could go back in time and tell myself 1 year ago “Don’t waste your summer at that jenky startup, swallow your pride, get into an internship program and use that as leverage to work for a great company.” Hindsight is 20/20..

Once I graduate, I still want to spend a lot of time learning books, blogs, research papers and taking online courses to stay sharp. I want to be an architect, or otherwise a very sr. level developer in 5-10 years. To accomplish this, I also know that I must work at a place that pushes me forward. I feel like what happens at most places I’ve worked is that is I quickly absorb all there is to know about their tech stack, and spend the rest of my time just doing miscellaneous tickets and hardly ever get a chance to explore new technologies. I’ve also had the misfortune of working with toxic personalities and I’m really looking to work in a mature, positive environment. My friends have assured me that more mature (non-startup) companies don’t have this problem as much.

In order of priority, I’m looking for * Work with good, positive people. Not being happy = not productive Work with diverse technology stacks, many opportunities to learn * Compensation (>= 80k, spousal healthcare coverage (married)) * No crazy overtime expectations (I want to focus on making my 40 hour week as productive as possible so I can go home and have a life)

I decided to leave the startup I’ve been at for reasons #1 and #2. I’ve also have a few friends that work at companies that would strongly recommend me. One friend works at a large online clothing retailer -- meets all my criteria, I’m just a little concerned about #3 (but they have great coding standards, testing, SOA, cloud-based infrastructure, etc, it’s not like some jenky PHP project). I may hit a learning cap after 1-2 years. But they have an absolutely great environment. I’ve got another friend who’s on a hiring team at Accenture (company is big enough that I can mention I think). I feel like it might be a good way to move from project to project, learning different tech, but I’m also very weary about consulting firms because of possible work/life balance issues. And I’ve got another friend who works for a different, smaller consulting firm, but they’re heavy into web-based development (e.g., Spring) and I also question whether that moves me in the direction I want to go.

So right now, I can either go with one of the companies above. Otherwise, I can start looking around at other companies. But that’s a big unknown for me. You can’t just ask during an interview “So, do you guys have toxic personalities here, and do you actually have high coding standards?” I feel like avoiding major non-tech corporations (e.g., big banks) might be good, because I hear a lot of them aren’t hip to cutting-edge tech (compared to purely tech companies). I heard avoiding defense is good, for the same reasons (they’re behind the times). Avoiding startups may also be good, because of job security and they often have low coding standards and very jr. level developers. I feel like a good strategy might be to find the top 50 (or so) mediums-sized tech companies that may not be as well-known but that may offer promising learning opportunities, without the a large corporate structure or being super competitive (like the Big 4) and see if any of them will take me.

I know there’s a lot of soon-to-be-graduates and people looking to leave their first job (1-2 years into industry) who are concerned about their first/next career move and its impact. Is there something big that I’m missing here? Or have I thought of all the major aspects of this decision and just need to execute? Should I tame my expectations a bit, work for one of my friend’s companies (where there’s still a lot I can learn for at least 1-2 years, these aren’t jenky startups), and then take that experience and use it to do greater things after a few years? Or should I continue to be highly selective with this decision?

tl;dr Graduating soon, also have a few years experience, how anal retentive should I be about what company for (I want to work with good people, great learning opportunities, good compensation etc) because of how it will impact my career?