I am a lawyer currently working in a short-term position clerking for a federal judge that's up this summer. Next year I'll be making $97k/yr before taxes/benefits and I owe $83k in federal student loans. What I thought was a casual networking thing turned into an offer to start at a small firm in January with a salary between 120-140k and possible annual bonus of 10% of that. So just shy of $160k max. They also pay 3% of salary into 401k. It's a small labor and employment firm that relies primarily on 2 clients, 1 in auto parts, which makes me nervous for stability. Also I want to make $180k, so I can pay off my loan in 1 yr, and be at a larger firm, so I have more exit opportunities when I leave. I don't want to be a partner at a firm doing this kind of work. I've run the numbers through my spreadsheet and, my current expenses remaining modest and stable (which they will, except maybe property taxes and HOA will go up), I won't be able to pay off the student loan in 1 yr with that salary.
In raw, economic terms this is obviously more money than my current job and taking it will help me pay off my loans faster in the short-term. But I'm not excited about this job and just (as in the last few weeks) started looking elsewhere (at bigger places that pay more). I'm told I can get more at other firms but I'm worried if I don't jump on this now and wait for other offers, I'll end up with nothing when my term is up in 5-8 months. But I also worry that I have this tendency to take the first job, or apartment or whatever that I get offered and it's been an unrewarding life trend for me. I don't want to start this job, and then hate it and have it be another short term job on my resume. But I'm also worried about the economic outlook for job in 2019 and beyond and that is gonna be a bigger and badder recession.
So, given the things I can know (i.e. this job will give me x amount of money and I have x amount of debt and expenses), should I just take the money and leave my current job and keep looking for other jobs with the hope of landing something better? I am worried the additional money might not outweigh the difficult to quantify potential damage to my resume and goodwill (if I leave my current job early).