I am a CS PhD student set to graduate sometime mid-to-late next year (2026). I interned this summer in the ML research group of a major financial institution (Goldman/Morgan Stanley/JPM). The team was good and I generally enjoyed the work and they have opportunity to publish at regular intervals. They also gave me a verbal full-time offer to join them after PhD completion (sometime mid-late 2026). I should be expecting the official letter sometime soon and the salary would be comparable to L4 salaries at Google.

Now I also happen to apply to and receive an offer for a research scientist intern at Meta for summer 2026 (flexible start dates). This isn't super-intelligence or anything, but fairly mature team that works on research/scientific problems in their core business. The team lead reached out to be and mentioned that they do have headcount for full-time and are indeed looking to transition some of the interns to FT based on internship perf and an internal interview. The Meta team's work I think is closer to my research than the bank, but both are relatively in the same ball park fit wise.

I'm deciding how best to play this out. On one hand, the bank offer is solid (it's full-time) and the comp is decent. On the other hand, Meta name (and the team) is solid, even though I have doubts/fears about layoffs and instability there. These are some option I'm thinking through:

1. Reject Meta and just sign whatever offer Bank officially gives.

2. Accept Meta and when the Bank offer comes, sign it if good and reneg on Meta (worried about the reneg).

3. Accept Meta and when the Bank offer comes, ask the start to be later in the year. This way, I to do the meta internship in the summer, and then come back to uni, quickly defend and start the bank job. More exhausting and intense option, but I do get the connections/resume highlight of Meta which could be useful later on.