Joint Venture Questions

Hi all—

So I have an offer as an acquisitions analyst at a huge pension fund (think CalPERS). It would be my second job in real estate as I’m currently in AM at a smaller REPE shop ($1B AUM). My end goal is acquisitions at a large REPE firm (hoping to move into NYC within a few years as I’m currently not in a metro area).

I have some questions about JV deals as I think at a pension fund the deals are sourced through other private equity funds basically requesting financing and we would underwrite to validate their assumptions, right? Could I lateral into a better REPE acquisitions with this experience? Or would I be better off staying in private equity because the pension fund is only tweaking models rather than constructing them? I’m less than a year out of college.

Thanks for any help