Which one should I choose, a Workforce Strategy Consultant at Big 4 or Data Engineer at a Mid-Tier?
My very humble background... After messed up my A-Levels and only got A*AA due to bully and sexual abuse, I ended up in a Russell group university doing a useless degree in psychology as an international student. I felt worthless and was very lost and it wasn't until in my final year, I decided to go for a job in tech. My preference would have been start-ups but because I needed a visa and only very few big corporates in the UK sponsor visa for graduates, I landed a graduate role in one of the Big 4s as a Technology & Data Consultant after frantically applying for all visa-sponsoring graduate schemes so that I don't have to go back to the dark place where I came from.
Fast forward to now, I've been working in the role for 2.5 years. I am doing okay... ish. My team went through 2 restructures in the short period since I joined and the operational model is a bit of a mess and most people are quite unhappy, including myself. I applied to transfer to another team which focuses on workforce strategy and got the offer. However, as HR and Legal were sorting out my visa, I was approached by a recruiter on LinkedIn for a Data Engineer role at a Mid-Tier organisation. I first I thought they wouldn't sponsor my visa but surprisingly they said yes. I went through the recruitment process and got the job. Now I have to decide which one to go for between those 2 drastically different options.
Workforce Strategy Consultant
Pros
- Big 4
- Variety of work
- Amazing people
- Good career progression
- International opportunities
Cons
- Low salary (as of now £38,000 outside of London)
- Less technical
- Feel unvalued sometimes
Data Engineer
Pros
- Exciting job
- Technical upskilling
- Better benefits
- Better salary (as of now £50,000 outside of London)
Cons
- Smaller company (national and 600+ employees)
- Not sure about exit
- A step down from a reputation perspective
I am not a very technical person, at best technical within Big 4 as they are not tech companies but in the grand scheme of things, I really don't stand out. In comparison, my consulting experience give me a good foundation in business. As you can see, I am quite a generalist but I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not to specialise now. Job security is the most important factor because the last thing I want is to lose my visa but it seems that both organisations are very stable.
Currently, I am also going through the application process with one of the Big 5 tech companies as a Solution Architect and is waiting for my interview so still very much up in the air but I think if I get this one, I'll go for it. I do have a love for tech for I'm just not sure how good and how competitive I would be in the pure tech world and consulting is pretty tech-enabled these days like the Workforce Strategy team does NLP type of cool stuff, too. I've been debating over this for days and people I've consulted have given me mixed opinions hence why I'm here to seek more advice. Any comments are welcome but it would be great to hear from a long-term and exit options prospective.
My strengths and works I like include:
- Public speaking
- Problem solving
- Communication
- Management
- Organisation
- Design
- Planning
- Data
- Languages
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Critical thinking
- Thought leadership
My weaknesses and works I hate include:
- Document review
- Repetitive work
- Report writing
- Direct sales
- Politics
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