Should I take the money and run?

[AlienCraft]

Rules of Life...right here, get your free Rules of Life....

Your first mistake is thinking you can't be replaced.

Get everything he's promised you in a written contracted form.

But man, don't let your degree slip too much. Yeah it's just a slip of paper. But yes, a Bachelors is the new diploma.

bad things can happen, always stay diversified

School will be there in two years, a good job on the ground floor of a promising company might not. Take the money and run.

 

[Bignate603]

Mechanical engineer chiming in here...

If you can get him to pay you well, the product is good and you can get him to pay for you to take enough classes to go in 2 years I think you should take him up on the offer. However, you're making a sacrifice and you're currently the lead engineer on this so there should be a nice amount of stock involved for you.

If he wants you to completely delay getting your degree for a year or two, that's a bad sign. Coming back will be harder. One thing that could affect you is the loss of your financial aid. If you get paid a decent wage it will show up on your FAFSA and make you uneligible for aid the following year (for a single guy, it doesn't take much earnings to do that). You could work there a year, realize its not panning out, then try and go back only to realize that now you've got to pay thousands more in tuition.

Just a FYI though, in the past some companies had enticed 3rd year engineering students to take a job instead of finishing their last year. They paid them well for new engineers, but didn't really give much raises. They didn't have to give raises though, after a few years the engineers didn't have as much freedom to go back to school (financial and family constraints) and they couldn't get another job as an engineer because they didn't have their degree. They effectively became trapped. Whatever you do, make sure you finish that degree so you don't get stuck somewhere without a way out.

Could be a very good opportunity. While it has some risks I think you can hedge your bets pretty well by staying in school part time to finish in 2 years.

 

[JEDI]

Your first mistake is thinking you can't be replaced.

Get everything he's promised you in a written contracted form.

But man, don't let your degree slip too much. Yeah it's just a slip of paper. But yes, a Bachelors is the new diploma.

truth! get it in writing.

also, it seems like you are the sole reason the company is doing well. ask for a parnership.

ie: 15 percent of the conmpany

 

[lokiju]

Stay there man. You're go and get a college degree so you can get a good and high paying job. You have a good and high paying job now AND can also still finish school, just at a slower pace than you'd otherwise do if you weren't working.

Staying there and finishing school gains you pay for that whole duration as well as real world experience.

The ONLY danger to doing this is not following through with the schooling and actually finishing it. Don't let yourself get so comfortable with that job that you do that as it *might* hurt you in the long run.

 

[soulcougher73]

Yeah i dont think 1 year vs. 2 years is a dilemma. Take the job. This is an easy question. Got anything tougher?

 

[Pliablemoose]

You need to ask Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg about how much their degree helped them

Seriously though, ask for a % of the company or the profits or something... Just a little bit, nothing greedy.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

no decision to make here....fuck school.

 

[yottabit]

Interesting developments everyone. The most helpful comment so far I think is Bignate603 and thank you. I had considered the lack of raises, the possibility of being stuck, and also the financial aid situation.

We talked today. He sat me down and said that from now on I should be submitting my time sheets for 50% more than I was currently receiving (to omit specific numbers here), and wanted to figure out a way for me to stay here. He reiterated he could do that, he's looking at getting me a % of the company (he has to deal with the board now- I found out today one of the board members is now a CFO and active board member) and also that he would pay for ANY fees I incurred by extending my degree. I asked for an even higher hourly rate and he agreed instantly.

Just so everyone knows, I'm planning on extending my degree over 2 years rather than 1, taking ~2 courses a semester + summer and working ~30 hrs a week.

I talked it over with my family and my dad thinks it is a good opportunity but working like this means he will stop supporting me (currently he gives me some money weekly, and I don't have to pay a couple of the bills). This combined with the self employment tax I'll face, and most likely bumping up a couple tax brackets, means I need to look harder at the hourly rate. I have a new number in my head and I just need to do a little more financial planning to see if it makes sense. With this number if I worked full time I'd be making on the very high end of the range for a starting mech. e, but since I'll likely be working less than 40 hrs a week because of my course load I'll come in around the middle (salary).

The company is now likely valued in the tens of millions of dollars, so I don't think I'll be getting a very large percentage of it, but it will be substantial compared to my salary

I think I will find an attorney to help me figure out the terms for our agreement

 

[Scarpozzi]

I don't make a ton of money, but worked my way through school and ended up with no debt and solid work experience. I've been unaffected by the job market collapse in the past few years... I say stick with the job but don't lose focus on school. Tell your parents to keep on you about finishing up. If something with the company fizzles out, you may need that degree to go with the great experience you're getting.

 

[Eli]

Stay at the job. Experience > All

 

[consolibyte]

work + spread out finishing school

relevant experience > *

This ^^^.

Taking the job doesn't mean that you don't finish school. It just means that you finish it a little later, and with *a ton* more real-world work experience.

 

[brianmanahan]

i'd say demand 250$k a year, and tell him its what you need to get respect on ATOT

 

[yottabit]

i'd say demand 250$k a year, and tell him its what you need to get respect on ATOT

LOL

I feel like there's a conversion ratio between ATOT money and real money, somewhat similar to the peso to USD

I did some work in excel, factoring in my additional taxes (moving up two brackets), losing the support my dad gives me, having to pay for additional bills, and then subtracted my net pay from last year to figure out what the increase of the net money in my pocket would be

Needless to say I'm going to have to ask for even more money to be comfortable with this situation, we will see if he can make it happen. I will propose options with and without stock, depending on how talks with the CFO go. The main thing I need to figure out now is the legal verbage to guarantee payment for any extra charges I may incur to my schooling

 

[Mxylplyx]

What are you going to school for?....to get a good job. Sounds like you already got one. Keep the job, and stretch school out. This is a no brainer, but make sure the keep up their end of the bargain regarding school. You need to finish that.

 

[Corporate Thug]

I would stay with the company and delay the degree

 

[yottabit]

Update everyone... finally negotiated the terms, and now I'm just planning out my course sequence and figuring out how much it will cost over the next two years. I should still be able to take ~2 classes at once (and 2 over the summer) and finish my degree in 2 years.

My rate and stock options now are what I consider to be very good, enough that I'm making more than a lot of starting engineers at the other company, even after self employment tax. I'll probably need to get someone to help me with my taxes as I'm bumping up several tax brackets and I've never had to deal with this before. I think I'll start a self-employed 401k or something like that to dump money into to hopefully prevent me from jumping up yet an other tax bracket.

School starts in a week, so I don't have much time left to figure everything out, but so far everything seems to be a go.

 

[Gibson486]

nice. awesome place to be in. I did a coop at a start up, but I refused to move to texas when they upgraded management. Months later, Intel bought them. Oh well.

 

[Imp]

Good luck with 2 courses plus work. Doing my MEng while working full-time 40 hours a week. I had/have a LOT of downtime at work (i.e. I do shit at work for school), and even then 2 courses per week were killing me. Starting this Fall semester, I may be pushing it down to 1 course; or I may keep it at 2 because I only need 2 more courses to work. Your "~30 hours"/week may not include "OMFG, we have a deadline, drop everything and service your company!!!" emergencies. Do finish your degree so you have long-term insurance.

Nice job on the negotiations. Hope you took full advantage of the fact that you had a lot of company specific knowledge. Yes, mechanical engineers may be a dime a dozen, but none of them no the company processes, the product, etc. as well as you. At the same time, don't be a prick and milk them dry.

 

[yottabit]

Good luck with 2 courses plus work. Doing my MEng while working full-time 40 hours a week. I had/have a LOT of downtime at work (i.e. I do shit at work for school), and even then 2 courses per week were killing me. Starting this Fall semester, I may be pushing it down to 1 course; or I may keep it at 2 because I only need 2 more courses to work. Your "~30 hours"/week may not include "OMFG, we have a deadline, drop everything and service your company!!!" emergencies. Do finish your degree so you have long-term insurance.

Nice job on the negotiations. Hope you took full advantage of the fact that you had a lot of company specific knowledge. Yes, mechanical engineers may be a dime a dozen, but none of them no the company processes, the product, etc. as well as you. At the same time, don't be a prick and milk them dry.

Thanks Imp! I realize even 2 courses can be very cumbersome, but thankfully a few of the courses I have left are humanities. I'm planning on grouping one easy and hard course together to ease the burden (i.e. Heat Transfer and Senior Seminar)

 

[nick1985]

 

[yottabit]

Dolla-Dolla-Bills

LOL, although I'll be making a good amount of money, I don't think it will show much over the next two years... I'm going to focus on paying down my debt and saving!

 

[911paramedic]

I couldn't read all of that but I think I got the jist of it.

Solid (let me emphasize the solid part) start ups can be very lucrative if you get in early and stay with them, given you are granted stock options. I know quite a few people that have become very well off from being with the right companies at the right time, and many of them are companies you've never heard of.

 

[TheNinja]

Whichever you decide make sure and get the degree as soon as you can. I would think it would be hard to go back to school

I'm going to throw something else at you (and others) that should be taken into account.

The social/fun aspect of life. I would never have given up my senior year for a full time job. I knew some of these guys for 7 years and some of them for 3 and we all went through college together. They were awesome friends. We lived in the dorms and in apartments together. Went to classes, gym, ate, etc. But mostly hung out, partied, did stupid things, just had a great time.

You will NEVER, EVER be able to replace that time in your life. If you have a great group of friends and everyone is going to be living the college life and you are stuck at work, that would suck. Your buddies are done with class at 3pm on a Thursday and decide to go have fun early and stay out until 3am....you say "sorry, gotta finish work then be home by 11pm so I can work in the morning". Then you go back to school in 2-3 years and you are by yourself in boring ass classes.

Probably not worth it for me to be honest. There will always be jobs, and time for work, and time for worrying about money and career, but you can never replace time and experiences. You got your whole life to grind the worklife, enjoy your college life and youth IMO.

 

[Ns1]

Probably not worth it for me to be honest. There will always be jobs, but never can replace time and experiences.

he's still in school, except now he's got the money to play.

 

[Gibson486]

Whichever you decide make sure and get the degree as soon as you can. I would think it would be hard to go back to school

I'm going to throw something else at you (and others) that should be taken into account.

The social aspect of it? I would never have given up my senior year for a full time job. I knew some of these guys for 7 years and some of them for 3 and we all went through college together. They were awesome friends. We lived in the dorms and in apartments together. Went to classes, gym, ate, etc. But mostly hung out, partied, did stupid things, just had a great time.
You will NEVER, EVER be able to replace that time in your life. If you have a great group of friends and everyone is going to be living the college life and you are stuck at work, that would. Your buddies are done with class at 3pm on a Thursday and decide to go have fun....you say "sorry, gotta finish work then be home by 11pm so I can work in the morning". Then you go back to school in 2-3 years and you are by yourself in boring ass classes.

Probably not worth it for me to be honest. There will always be jobs, but never can replace time and experiences.

Not so fast dude. I had killer coops and it took me 9 months to find a full time job in a field I that I hated. Now I am looking for work again and I am in my 4th month. Sometimes fun needs to take a back seat. During this economy, that is the time.