In my summer internship search, I accepted an offer with a tech company (non-FANG) back in November as a Data Analyst Intern. I have never had an internship before, so this will actually be my very first position with my degree.

Since accpeting that offer, I have declined 5 other SWE offers that I received due to prioritizing this offer overall. I'm happy with the fact that it's a tech company, and the compensation package was the second highest of the offers. But I'm mostly happy with it because they were quick to recruit me, there were no speed bumps or uncertainties in the recruiting process, and I feel I would be a best cultural fit at this company relative to my other offers.

Last week, I received what will probably be my final offer for the summer recruiting season from a finance company (non-FinTech one) as a Full Stack SWE Intern. I was the very first candidate my recruiter interviewed, so the timeline for their recruitment was only beginning for them, and I received my offer after on phone interview and one coding interview. I'm a graduate student and I didn't really discover CS until junior year, so I'm sure I was not the most competitive applicant apart from actually maintaining involvement and having prior non-tech job experience. However, the pros of this offer are that new grad would likely be in a state I prefer to move to and of course it is a SWE/SDE role (assuming I perform well enough to return). The cons of this offer are that the company still hasn't made a decision yet with being remote or in-person (which I feel is kind of perplexing because most internships offers I received and that I spoke to friends about all are going to be remote and those decisions were made at the end of last year) and my recruiter says they wouldn't be making the decision until March while the internship starts in June (which I feel isn't being fair and planning well for a temporary resident).

I'm a bit on the edge of what to do because I ultimately want to go into a full-time/new grad SWE/SDE position rather than one exclusively in data. I like data, but I don't really want to be a data scientist or a full-time data analyst. I really don't want to renege the Data Analyst Offer either because my recruiter is from my university and I know that will really make me look bad given this would be my first internship. At the same time, this is my only summer to intern and I really want to end up with a SWE/SDE new grad role. My strategy moving foward was to land a Fall 2021 and/or Spring 2022 internship to leverage my potential for new grad roles. Ultimately, I want to land a SDE/SWE new grad role at a non-startup tech company. I've applied for Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 SWE internships (within the last 2 weeks), but I have not heard back. I know most of those Fall/Spring roles are typically more competitive because only the tech companies really offer that and I would have to be working remotely. I don't know how well I would fare in the new grad job market next Fall when I apply.

I've been told that the tech company for my data analyst internship tries to maintain their interns as they do not prioritize external new grad hires. So with that in mind, I was feeling I would have some chance at landing a SWE/SDE I role with them (assuming I perform well in the internship and would get a chance to interview for those roles).

I have until Friday to make a decision and I'm leaning towards just declining the latest offer and sticking with my data role right now.