Would you personally rather take a job at a giant corporate consulting firm where you get trained to program in Java and become a software engineer, or take a much lower paying position at a mature startup (over 300 employees) with awesome culture doing product tech support with a possibility of growing with the company?
With the corporate job, you'll have the tile software engineer and you get as good as you want. Once you move on you'll have a lot more jobs to move on to.
It's a sad reality that if you stay small company for a lot of your early career you tend to stay small company for the rest. That's a generalization but it's not far from the truth.
With the corporate job, lets say you are talking about IBM Global Services or Accenture, you'll have the opportunity to apply to interesting roles across Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies without them blinking since you come from a known and reputable place. If you want to go work small company after that, then no harm done, you still can.
It's not like this is a life or death decision. If you don't enjoy the job down the road you can quit and go do tech support for thousands of other companies. Thousands of other companies will not hire you and teach you to become a Software Engineer. When I hire developers, unless they're interns, I hire them because they already are Software Engineers.
Adam Gopnik about Albert Bregman, professor at McGill University, on http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/28/130128fa_fact_...
If you want to be a software developer, taking a job as tech support is a bad career move. Our industry will type cast you as a tech support guy and you will be fighting an uphill battle for your first programming job.
Better to take the programming gig for a few years, then go try to find a great startup to work for....especially if you want to be a developer.
It's also obviously a question of culture. Which would you thrive in?
Me personally? I'm not sure what you mean by product support, but if you mean something like help desk/tech support for a product they make then I can't go that route. I've done it before and I was absolutely miserable.
Between the two choices you gave I'd have to choose the corporate firm and learn java even though I'd probably be more interested at the startup in a different position.
P.S. I worked at a consultant software firm and it was the worst. I pretty much worked by myself going to clients then coming back. No team atmosphere to spread knowledge and challenges with.
Since then, I've started learning Django (as I feel that's probably the easiest route toward getting a job), and made some progress, but the state of Django tutorials being what it is, I'm starting to hit a wall with it. To that end, I've registered ReadySetDjango.com (no content there yet, so no need to bother visiting) and am working on changing that situation.
And I wonder if the situation is significantly different with larger startups, of, say 100-ish employees. At that level, it seems like they can afford to hire for demonstrated ability in related areas rather than expecting one to be able to ramp up in 2 days.
Anyone who has some advice or input on my situation, I welcome you to email me (contact info in profile). I'm wondering if the results I'm getting are because I'm just not what they want and I'm wasting my breath, or if I'm not presenting myself correctly.
PS I live in the Bay Area and would love to meet up with any of you who are also.
If you went to a big university try Google, Facebook, etc. They don't care what you code in, they just want to see if you understand programming fundamentals and problem solving capabilities. The bay area is flooded with Junior and Entry level developers so it is hard to land a spot. You have to go to networking places. The best way to find a job is by meeting someone who is hiring.
come listen to Jeff Atwood speak (created Stackoverflow.com) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jeff-atwood-founder-of-stack-ov...
If you really want a dev job at a junior level working at a startup, maybe you should try switching your stack and including Rails.
Fortunately, they have a decent and welcoming community, so landing a gig won't be as hard as with Django (where most job posts require: Senior Developer with 5+ years exp.)