If I was an engineer deciding what company to go to, I would optimize on the following five things (in no particular order):
– how smart my coworkers are
– how enjoyable my coworkers are
– the potential of the company
– the opportunity to work on really hard and interesting problems
– having the responsibility to execute on solving these problems
Sometimes it has a much more painful choice of whether the Unemployment Insurance benefit will continue or will they penalize you. Seriously a lot of enginners are not taking jobs because their benefit with Unemployment will technically help them more out than waiting for a full time job.
One other problem a few enginneers are worried about the market all together i.e. “how long will this company last?” as we witness so many other companies on the brink of bankruptcy