4 ms·
The thing is, you don't have to be party to any of this as an engineer if you don't want to. There are still many interesting companies working on hard problem
by iamleppert 11y ago
The thing is, you don't have to be party to any of this as an engineer if you don't want to.
There are still many interesting companies working on hard problems, real science, and real engineering. Don't get caught up in working for one of the startup darlings just for the name recognition. Go for what interests you and motivates you, and if given the choice between real technology and some kind of rudimentary "app", go for the real tech. You'll learn a lot more and spend a lot less time dealing with product managers, business people and fighting with incompetent co-workers. You became interested in tech because of your love for solving problems and for making things work, so find a place where you can do that.
When evaluating companies I often ask myself what the business would look like before the age of computers -- if we didn't have smart phones and the Internet, what would the business look like? Would I still want to be working there? What is the actual business? In many cases you'll find it's driving people around, cleaning people's houses, or serving as a glorified bulletin board for services. Would you still want to work there if you removed all the tech? Or is the only reason tech is involved is to serve some ancillary purpose to the business?
- richardbatty 11y agoHow do you find companies working on important problems? When I look at the London software scene, I mostly find trivial (or dull corporate) web and mobile apps. Which kinds of industries have software engineers working on real technology problems?
- craigyk 11y agoBig, old, "boring" companies. Academia.
- noname123 11y agoJust in UK, I can think of Sanger Institute (genomics research), Malaria Consortium (GIS involved in real-time malaria drug resistance monitoring), Oxford Nanopore Technologies (USB stick genome sequencing for clinical diagnosis); The Children's Investment Hedge Fund (used to be the hedge fund arm of the Children's Fund). AstroZeneca and Glaxo also have wet and dry lab spaces with lots of informatics needs. I am positive there are tons more but I am only mostly familiar with the biotech space.
- sokoloff 11y agoI'm not sure how useful that line of inquiry is. Surely, working for 2001 Amazon isn't just like working for a bookstore nor 2015 Amazon just like working for a catalog retailer. At some point, the tech is actually the thing. I wouldn't be falling all over myself to work at my company in the 1890's incarnation of it (~printing industry), but I love the 2015 version.
- seiji 11y agoDon't get caught up in working for one of the startup darlings just for the name recognition. I've avoided working for trendy startups, but I know a dozen people in my same age cohort who did go for the trendy startups. Now they are out buying teslas and giving away $10 million to charity just for fun. Can't be successful from the sidelines.
- iamleppert 11y agoI guess that depends on your definition of "success" and "fulfillment".