Location+Life or Experience?

Design Discussions design employment
24

Was in a similar situation (but not completely, cause both were good locations with friends):

  1. Full time industrial/interaction designer offer at startup with interesting work, ridiculous benefits and great location in the Bay. Would’ve been 1/3 (except one was more mech e/product development, and other was HCI), with no real mentors or ID experience in company (software startup pushing into physical world).

  2. 3 month internship at a big consultancy in NYC, low pay, tons of experienced ID, IxD, eng, to learn from, prototyping facilities.

I thought that I should learn more before pursuing a full time opportunity where the success or failure of a startup relied heavily on my experience (be honest: are you THAT good? I know I totally sucked at CAD/CMF and had no idea about manufacturing), so I took option 2. I’m learning a shit ton.