Should I Take This In-House Position? Forum

[throwaway56745]

I am a midlevel tech trans associate in NorCal. I have one more round of interviews left for a fairly specialized in-house position at a large tech company in SV. The company is known to have comparable hours to biglaw. Compensation is actually a bit higher than my current biglaw salary. The expected base salary is mid $200K, which doesn't include equity, bonus, and 401K matching. Type of work is interesting and probably good for my career since I don't intend on making partner. I was already planning on looking for an in-house position after bonuses were paid out when this opportunity came up. My main reservation is that I want to live in SF and don't want to deal with the commute. I would also be missing out on my firm bonus. Obviously it's a little premature, but would it be stupid to pass this up and hope I could find something similar later on? My colleagues have all had a fairly easy time finding solid in-house exits...although the compensation here is a bit higher than normal.

[Vincent Adultman]

I cant possibly think of a reason why you shouldn't take this job.

[jhett]

The job sounds like a gem. Take it if you get the offer. Try to negotiate a higher salary by saying you are forgoing your bonus at the firm to make the move. As for the commute, it sucks but the job is probably worth the pain.

[foregetaboutdre]

I'd take it and I'd personally move, but I am SUPER adverse to commutes. Also moving a lot as a child made me realize you can really live anywhere without being miserable.

[v5junior]

Are the hours actually comparable to biglaw? I think that would undermine a lot of the benefit for me.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

I have the same reservations as the poster above. If hours are really at all close to BL, I'd personally also rather wait it out. That's especially given the fact that I also am in SV and want to GTFO and hate commutes. The commutes out here suck, as I'm sure you're already aware. Add on top of that foregoing a bonus and I'd definitely do an internal reassessment.

I'm at a big SV corp firm and exits have generally been very good around here lately. While I don't know how frequently jobs offer comp like that, I would think you could get a decent package, with less hours, and a better location down the road. But obviously there's risk there and this is a very personal decision.

[SmokeytheBear]

I'd take it, but that commute is going to SUCCCCCCK. Especially if you have big law hours. Getting on a train for an hour at 10pm to get home after 11 then to get back on that train at 7:30am will BLLOWWWW.