# Yesterday, a friend who has worked at Pinduoduo for many years reached out to chat with me.

He is currently facing a career path choice:

One option is to stay in his current peripheral department, where he can be promoted to team lead soon. This would represent entering management, no longer being a regular contributor, gaining team leadership experience, and being able to advance to the next level when job-hopping later.

The other option is to transfer to the AI department to work on large language model-related business, but still as an individual contributor. This means joining the core department directly, working on the hottest large model business, catching the AI wave of these few years, and potentially having more options for future career moves.

If you were in his position, how would you choose?

Can everyone offer some advice? 🙏