Slight Turn of Events

Today was a day I've been dreaming about for the last 6 months, though it didn't turn out quite like I envisioned. I've been working incredibly hard in hopes of securing a better future for my family and I since May 26th of this year. My goal was to land a job in the development industry, and I've officially succeeded in doing so. I received an official offer from a local company today and locked a job down. However, I haven't yet accepted the offer. In my second interview with this company, I started to notice some of the rhetoric of this company underplaying my accomplishments and experience. I recognized this right away as a ploy to be able to offer me less than what I might be expecting. After all, this would be my first job in the field, and of course I'm desperate to get my feet wet. I had pitched a figure close to the average in my area, but after the end of this interview, I expected it to come in well below this. Unfortunately, they went way below this number. The amount they offered is actually less than what I make now by nearly $10,000. So, instead of this being an easy decision and celebrating a great achievement, I'm left to contemplate the pros and cons. Maybe writing it down will help, so here goes.

It took me 6 months to get one job offer, so if I pass this up, I may not see another one for quite some time, possibly. Since I rewrote my portfolio and doubled-down on my applications, I've seen a serious uptick in interviews, having 4 alone this week. I may be able to land another job next week, or it may be another couple months. If it were 2 months before getting another offer, I think I would be kicking myself for not taking this offer. If I take this job, I would start the clock on gaining experience, which seems to me the most important variable in the job hunt equation. Most recruiters, at least, only care about that one piece of information: how much experience you have. If I take this job, though, I'm setting a baseline of pay that would take a while to get up to the industry average, and I would be setting myself up to get low-balled for years to come. It may take me a few years longer to reach 6 figures. At the end of the day, though, I should be making 6 figures within 5 years anyways, so maybe in the long-run, it doesn't matter as much as it seems like it does right now. Last point, I really like the team at this company and feel like I will learn an absolute ton from these people, growing my skills in ways I can't even imagine at this point.

In the meantime, it's back to business as usual. I'm working hard on Colt Steele and Stephen Grider's The New JavaScript Bootcamp. Right now, I'm in the middle of a critical portion of information on promises and asynchronous programming in JavaScript. These topics tend to be some of the most difficult to grasp in all of JavaScript, and are used constantly when building websites, especially ones that involve interaction with APIs or other external sources. Colt is doing a great job of explaining these topics, but he doesn't hold a candle to Will Sentance. I've found every course I take is now subconsciously compared to Will Sentance's courses, as I see his style of teaching as the Gold Standard. Speaking of which, while I've been writing this, I finally received an email from Codesmith welcoming to the CSPrep cohort starting on Monday. I'm getting really excited about this 2-week course, and I think I'm about to learn a lot and advance my JavaScript skills well beyond where they are right now.

Until tomorrow!