What factors should I consider between becoming a police officer or a sheriff?

When you think of law enforcement, think jurisdiction. The essential difference between the job of a police officer and a sheriff deputy is that the former works in a city and the latter works in a county. The sheriff could also work custody at a jail facility, though some larger jurisdictions have police officers working jails too. A peace officer works in a variety of settings. For example, there are college, Native American/reservation, railroad, and other police jurisdictions.

Just matters on what type of policing you want to do and where you want to do it. I'll use San Jose and the Santa Clara Co. S/O as examples. First, you have to consider whether or not you would prefer working in an urban or rural area. While the S/O has contract cities, it is mostly charged with policing in areas that are well populated and you could end up in a situation where backup is far away. In addition, the S/O is charged with court security, so you could end up working in one of the courthouses as a bailiff, or you could be assigned to the civil division where you would be working on evictions, serving subpoenas or court orders. Both have specialized assignments such as K9, Auto Theft, SWAT/MERGE, etc. Both have excellent benefits, however, they differ on retirement systems. As you may have heard, the City of San Jose is having some issues with its stand-alone retirement system while the S/O is part of the PERS system.

I would suggest you go on a ride-along with the agencies you are considering to see what they do and how they do it. While most of the things we do are similar, some things can be agency specific. Hope this helps.

Good luck!