I have multiple offers. Which one should I join?

Here’s how I see this.

Company Policy remains quite open in your offer letter or on social media (if it is a big company). I don’t think that should be your worry.

Company Culture — I have realized one thing in my career, there is NO such thing as company culture. It is the team culture. You can have the best MD/founder/CxO, yet a boss/lead can ruin your time in the company.

That bhaiyya/ma’am you’re seeking help from (including myself) hardly knows about anything beyond their team. Their advice is going to depend on how their week is going so far. Best case? How last quarter went for them. For example, you ping a random guy on LinkedIn who is having a difficult time in the team (for whatever reason), do you think he’ll be able to praise the company with an open heart?

There is no perfect organization. When it is hard to meet an ideal individual, an organization being flawless is unimaginable. Any company you join is going to have its pros and cons. The bad news is — there is no way to know those before joining.

A lot of things depend on your expectations too. Have you ever seen everyone happy in a team? All five fingers are not the same.

So what to do?

• Stop looking for answers from others. Choose one and own your decision. If you’re wrong, at least you’ll put your heart into correcting things. On the other hand, if someone else is deciding for you, you can only blame them.
• Expect cons. No matter how well your interviews went. How cool your hiring manager seemed in the managerial round. There are going to be “not so perfect” things in the team.
• Take six months at a time. Don’t think your life depends on this decision. You can change your team or leave the company. It happens all the time.
• Give time to the new team. You can’t possibly know how the team is in less than six months. Give time to your leaders to understand you and plan things for you. Not everyone is evil or playing politics with you.
• Focus first six months on learning team stack. No matter how bad your product/team is, it’ll have at least six months of learning. DO NOT overlook those learnings.