So I recently got a 1 year contract reliability engineer offer at a large medical device company through a recruiting firm and also a permanent full-time offer for a test lab technician position at a middle sized medical device company. I’m not sure which one to choose.
I graduated last year with a bachelor of biomedical engineering. I’ve done biomedical research projects during college and have worked on a medical device internship (3 months) and another contract engineer position (3 months) so far. That contract engineer position ended and wasn’t extended so I’ve been job hunting since and now I’m in this situation.
I’m obviously leaning towards more permanent roles than temp roles but it is a technician position and I will probably have to remain in that position at least a year before I can transfer to an engineer role. The temp role is just that, a temp role with high pay no benefits and an uncertain future.
It all depends on your personal risk tolerance and your financial discipline. Presumably the compensation package you will be getting from the contract will be roughly 1.5x (or more) the salary of the FT offer (if not, then the first thing to do is negotiate the contract up to 1.5x or more or else you are losing money in the deal).
With that assumption in mind, a year contract is substantially different from a three month contract because you can start to make longer term decisions - you don’t get a 401(k) with a contract, but you can offset that by contributing to an IRA; you don’t get health insurance, so you will need to buy some on your own; your company will not pay their share of FICA, so you will need to be prepared to pay that (and you will also need to take on the responsibility of filing quarterly estimated tax payments since you won’t have anything withheld from your pay. All of these financial factors must be considered, or else you may wind up in a precarious position come tax time next year. If you are not comfortable with these things, then a contract is probably not right for you, no matter how interesting the work is.
If you are willing to accept the additional responsibilities associated with a contract job, then you need to think about job security. The contract role is a little interesting since it actually gives you security for a year, whereas most FT roles are at-will; in addition, the contract makes it obvious that you will be going through recruitment starting 9 months after you start (absolutely do NOT wait until later than that to start looking for a new job and/or contract extension), which may allow you to make a jump to a better job more quickly than if you wait the more typical two years.
The next thing to think about is the role itself and where you think it would put you in five years. If you are interested in engineering work, do you see yourself doing that in five years with one job more so than the other? Is it possible that doing non-engineering work may wind up appealing to you as well, or are you relatively certain about what you want to do?
If you are willing to stick with the technician job as a career, then go for it.
If you aspire to work as an engineer with your undergrad degree, then having a technician job on your resume may “pigeon hole” you in the eyes of future prospective employers. It’s one thing to have a tech job on your resume as a summer intern; it’s another to have it on your resume as a fulltime “real” job.