This is an essay of catharsis. Did a series of panel interviews. (Three separate days). This took a few weeks. Process may have been faster had we not been in the COVID pandemic. After the 2nd interview, I had to do a practical assignment where I was asked to produce a summary on some data they gave me. The data was very light on substance. (I.e. many of the features were co-linear with one another). It was unclear if they actually knew how shallow their data was. It took multiple attempts to get anyone to (sort of) articulate what their vision for the position was. A data science position of this scale can be (and should be) rather technical; I do not expect a detailed outlay of every germane machine learning technique for tracking viewership data, etc. However, if you are going to make me be the one to define the details of your entire data science ecosystem, we have to make sure central HR values the job appropriately. Ultimately, the salary did not really factor into my final decision. After three weeks of haggling, they brought the salary up enough that I was satisfied. (Although, the position could still pay $20k more a year than they offered). *However*, here is the ultimate thing: it should not have taken so much effort to get to the final salary offer. Central HR acted like I was asking them to untie the Gordian Knot with their toes. Hello! You have easily 50+ employees on your campus with my same background! They are called assistant professors in the STEM fields! If you are paying them X amount of salary for a 9-10 month contract...don't offer me $20k less than that. I have several contacts who are professors at BYU. We talk about our jobs. I know how much they make in terms of base salary. If you were expecting me to work a 12 month contract for less than a STEM assistant professor earns for a 10 month contract, you were very sadly mistaken. Central HR was inept on this. I had a bunch of time to stew and think about the job. Sometimes when you boil a soup for three weeks, it just turns into a grey mush. The benefits were pretty decent. A comment on fringe benefits: Tuition: I already have a terminal degree in my field. I went to college for 10 years. I don't want to go to more school. And it's not like if I also got an MBA that suddenly BYU would pay me more. (In true BYU fashion, they'd probably try to find a way to pay me less). My kid won't start college for 17 years. I'd rather just have market value salary than get 50% off BYU tuition 20 years from now. Discounts on BYU events: That way I can save $20 when I go to see BYU football get whooped by NIU. So much fun! Some general advice on hiring a job like this: 1. When I ask for a week to decide, don't call me less than 72 hours later to ask for my decision. I told you a week. As it was, you forced my hand and made me make a snap decision that I was not comfortable with. Yes, you gave me more time to rethink the decision, *but my decision had already been made when you called me the first time.* By calling me so soon, you showed that you did not respect my process as a potential employee. If you couldn't respect my decisions then, you very likely also would not respect my decisions if I was employed by you. 2. When a candidate says that a looser timeline to find a house would factor heavily into the decision, don't make that the one thing you refuse to budge on. I could have worked for BYU for the next 30 years and you were too caught up in the first 8 weeks of my employment. (During a pandemic in which everything is unpredictable to begin with). It sort of felt like they did not know how to hire anything other than a semester long student position. You have a diabetic and a guy with a liver transplant on your team, and getting back into the office in August during COVID-19 is the one thing you refuse to budge on? That was so odd to me. So what if I have to mentor students remotely for a month or two. They will survive and so will you. In the end, I just didn't feel good about the position. It didn't feel right. That's why I turned it down. It's very complicated. It's a million things. I mean, BYU is so insular that they are still stuck on disallowing beards (but mustaches are of course fine because they look really professional. Right). If BYU can't even get past the beard thing, can I really trust them to open the checkbook to invest in development of new and novel data science systems? Probably not. I'd still be open to talking to them again about the job. Maybe I could find a way to make it work. Turning down this job was the most agonizing decision I ever have had to make. I am being serious about that. You have my contact info. Maybe we can talk again and work something out.