short version: as a student taking a summer internship, whats more useful for later in my career, taking a job as a solutions Architect, or a software engineer? Long version: I'm a CS major in my 3rd year, I've interviewed with some of the big companies and did not get job offers year (Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, FacebooK) but did receive offers from a startup. I actually got two offers from the same start up. I really like the startup and despite the (much) lower wage at it compared to a bigger company, I could do solutions architecture. Solutions architects (I think) work more on figuring out high level solutions directly for clients, so I'd be working often with a sales team and developers. Everyone knows what (generally) a software engineer does. And so my question is this: for my career, what would be more beneficial to a) know how to do, and b) have on my resume.