Got two offers: a 12-person shop in Denver (2 WFH days, mostly wood-over-podium) vs a national AE in Aurora (4 days on-site, steel/composite frames with ETABS and RAM), both within 5% pay… For those who’ve made this call, did broader lateral system exposure and mentorship outweigh flexibility when you’re building a stamping portfolio and want stronger seismic design chops?
I only got real seismic reps after I asked the big AE to assign me one ‘lateral package’ in ETABS and let me author the calc narrative, and they wrote it into my onboarding… If Aurora can commit to that (name the mentor and project), go AE despite the ‘4 days on-site’; if they hedge, the Denver shop may get you stamps quicker. Who would be your checker in Aurora?