One of my coworkers is leaving to go to amazon. The person said base salary is 15k lower but with RSU and 1st and 2nd year sign on bonuses the average 4 year pay is 15k higher. No changes in cost of living but also no pension and no employer 401k match (2%) until year 3.
Did that person make a good decision to leave?
the "far less work life balance" piece is dependent on what your job is at Shell. If you work at Woodcreek or STCH where you are just in a typical office job and can maintain 9/80 without getting called in the middle of the night because of a unit upset, then yes you work life balance will worsen. But if you work at a site like Norco, Deer Park, or Geismar, I would strongly argue your work life balance will improve. I doubt FAANG companies have turnaround events that require engineering support to work 13 and 1 for a few months not to mention the unit upsets and trips that pull on resources.
FAANG = boring work (cog-type), with no growth on the horizon. No prof. devel. All you'll learn will be a ton of "woke" phrases you will have to mechanically add to everything you say, or else. Scaled to CA/NY living costs, and adding in the bew tax structure, a very bad deal. For softw eng, I mean
Shell will most likely have better package than FAANG for most engineers except software engineers but who knows how long shell will keep having pension or any other benefits.
Oil and gas in general has become a game of cost cutting and trying to squeeze every last bit or margin because growth is not there anymore. I doubt Penn Chem will make much impact coming online this late in the game.
If you like the FAANG role I would say take it.
All depends on what you want. My impression is that these companies have far less work-life balance. I had the opportunity to jump for an engineering role a few years back. Pay was more (but in CA) and with six-figure RSU package. But Shell benefits package is much better, especially if you’ve been around for a few years. I missed out on some pretty good stock growth, but have been pretty content otherwise. I’m sticking around for as long as I enjoy my role. The FAANG guys will always be around and they’ll always be hiring.
If I had a FAANG offer in hand I’d be outta here in a heartbeat. Shell (and oil in general) is not the future.
Would you rather persevere in a survival environment or thrive in a growth environment? You gotta figure out your priorities and make the best move for you.
Did you receive the same job offer? Why are you putting your coworker's business on here like that? Smh. That's why they say don't tell anyone anything you don't want repeated.
depends if tech or nontech role. if nontech, they'd risk pigeonholing themselves into a generalist role with limited compensation trajectory
Hell yes. Working at Shell is a dead end.