The details:
I have been in my current position at a consulting company for 8 mo. Offer is with a Java consulting shop named Ippon USA. They are a french Java company that is building their US headquarters in Richmond, VA. They want me to come on as their distributed computing guy, and day one develop a partnership with Databricks (the minds behind Spark), go to them and become a certified Spark trainer. The pay is very nice, about 30% past my old salary.

>>http://www.ipponusa.com

Originally I decided to accept their offer and not ask mu current employer for a counter because I thought this work would be really exciting. However, Ippon hit me with a complicated non-compete, and so I did ask my employer to counter. Simultaneously I asked Ippon to revise their NC agreement and they accepted all of my changes (I didn’t expect this). My employer came back with a counter that was good (proposed by me - meeting me halfway salary-wise) and offering for me to define my career however I want. If I want to go to conferences, pursue data bricks, business development, whatever, do it. They’ll support it.

However, my current employer hasn’t done a good job selling the types of ‘true’ production big data engagements that I’m looking for. Ippon is different; they are exclusively software people, and they are positioned to service Java and open source exclusively. So that puts the big data technologies in a spotlight there and they are in a good position to deliver in them because they understand very well how Java, Scala, and some of the underlying goodies operate.

IN addition, there is some opportunity and risk based on their success in the United States. If something political happens in France or the US, that could affect the financial backing of the parent company. However, I will maintain a good relationship with my current employer and they said I can come back if I decide to leave. The thing I’m unsure about is the risk, whether or not they can land the ‘real’ big data work that I want to be in on, the impact to my personal life (incl. additional travel), and I am feeling some emotional attachment to my current employer. I feel like the cultures are very different, and I think I might fit better into Ippon’s culture. They host hackathons, encourage committing to open source projects, and want to focus on big data as their first practice area in the USA.

Although, I have felt very happy and stable while at my current employer. If I travel for more exciting engagement with them, my situation could change and I could become more stressed (something comparable to Ippon).

Last night, I decided to stay with my current employer (after they exerted some pressure and asked me to decide last night). Even though I find Ippon very interesting, my main concern is their ability to create interesting big data projects. I think my current employer is positioning itself to meet better and more interesting projects in the next 6 months.

My main concern is that Ippon does look intriguing but I'm not sure its going to give me the right type of exposure/experience right away. By negotiating this with my current employer I can keep pursuing my interests with people you know and people who now know I mean business about defining me future.