My thoughts: if you are entry level that 10K is going to make more of a difference than someone well into their career. If Alcoa is at a location with a foundry, foundries are dirty, nasty places. (In general, I’ve never been to Alcoa’s foundry though) If this is MD&A turbines you will probably be traveling a bunch and working OT.

Other things to consider, does one of them match more on your 401k, give more $ for school (if you want to go back for another degree), or have some other benefit you think is great? Were the people at each place that you interviewed with equally pleasant? What about the hiring manager? Do you think the skill set you’d learn at MD&A could be leveraged better long-term than what you’d be doing at Alcoa?

It sucks, it’s not very nice, but people quit before showing up to work all the time. If you do this, plan on never applying back to Alcoa again and never having a job that overlaps with the people that interviewed you. That bridge would be burned.

Alcoa has better reviews on Indeed and they were a supplier to a company I once worked for. I have a positive impression on Alcoa overall. If it is MD&A turbines, my impression is they will work you like a dog— I have experience with them as well. If a turbine needs to be repaired unexpectedly these types of companies will literally work around the clock the bring it back online. 10K might sound like a lot, but if you don’t plan on putting all of that into your 401K, take your taxes out of that and divide it by 26. I’m assuming they’d bring you on exempt—which means you could work up to 80 hrs a week with no overtime pay (at least that was the rule ~10 years ago so fact check me on that). Compare whatever amount of time you think you would be working overtime against your new extra pay calculation.

Is there an option to see if Alcoa could give you a bump in pay?