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>> Work in a non-software company. A company whose business doesn't take its software seriously invariably treats its software and IT resources as cost centers

>> Work in a non-software company. A company whose business doesn't take its software seriously invariably treats its software and IT resources as cost centers meant to get maximum cost savings for as little money as possible via opex reduction and will, ironically, likely fail to make bigger expenditures required to keep costs (and really, wasting time) lower. To expand on this, there are some companies that seem like non-software companies, yet still treat software as a competitive advantage rather than a cost center. I worked for a big bank that did their best to stay six months to a year ahead of other banks on technology. The marketing folks were constantly coming to us and saying, "Give us cool features that we can sell." It was a fun place to work. I also worked for an insurance company that viewed technology as a necessary evil that should be as cheap as possible. The marketing folks there were constantly complaining about how much time and money the company was wasting on technology. (Curiously, they also complained that the company's technology offerings were hopelessly far behind its competitors.) It was a miserable experience. If you're looking for a job, ask questions about management support and budget priorities. If they're evasive or they say things like, "we're proud of how far we stretch our investment," it's not a good place to work. You can also ask how the company compares technically to its competitors. If they're evasive or talk about how they're trying to catch up, that's a bad sign, too.

devonkim 11y ago
The more correct rule is that you should try to find companies that have closely aligned business and technology objectives (which I haven't found outside of finance and the usual SV companies in the F500), but I have my doubts even that is the case because I'm working for a large organization that meets this criteria and I'd never think of advising a young, ambitious recent graduate to even reply to a recruiter for this place given the horrifically bad budget situation. Just because business leaders want something and try in earnest to plan for it doesn't mean much if they don't have the resources and momentum to execute. A good example of what I mean are large, innovation-less companies with "start-up in a large company" efforts to bring themselves some relevance that almost always become the worst of large company inertia / legacy with the fiscal and market position disadvantages of start-ups. I've been through at least 4 of these efforts with varying degrees of "success." And while they're a large part of my career and I want to believe it can happen, I have no evidence of this working out well and am convinced it's a rather high risk to take with disproportionate upside.
- mailshanx 11y ago
  I have an offer to do data science work for a large, public insurer. I will work inside an "innovation lab", and was promised lots of freedom and authority during the interview process. They say they want the "innovation labs" to run like startups, trying out new products and ideas at a fast clip. Do you have any thoughts about what the general environment will be like, and is there any chance the place will be mired in bureaucracy? I'm relatively early in my career as well, and have never worked for a Big Co before. I'd love to get in touch with you, but you don't have contact info in your profile. I'll be grateful if you can drop me a line - mailshanx at yahoo dot co dot in
  - devonkim 11y ago
    It's hard to tell without context but I don't recommend most big company jobs that are not working on things that are high risk and high reward for recent graduates normally. There's a lot of questions to be asked about what the objectives of the project are, executive backing, and (most importantly) how strong the funding is to demonstrate the worth. As an example, my customer has made huge investments in attempts to hire developers while skimping tremendously on dependent efforts that would remove barriers for those developers to the extent that most developers are doing 9-5 jobs and unable to accomplish a lot while a lot of the infrastructure teams are working 12+ hour days working on very much solved problems from decades ago that only exist due to lack of respect and understanding of basic automation principles required to scale software companies of any sort. Everyone wants to work on modern, relevant problems - make sure that people are specific about their current barriers as being technical rather than organizational as a prospective employee. Look for a deep culture of respected and accomplished leaders in software up and down the hierarchy. If nobody in a position of authority has delivered software successfully before that you can recognize as an engineer, pass because culture and experience among executives is massively important and their priorities should focus on long term growth (Amazon was ridiculed by enterprise vendors while I screamed that they will eat their business in a decade - they don't care because they'll go somewhere else while I have to deal with the very expensive consequences of bad software). There are too many great companies around today to waste time on mediocre companies - it is better to be jobless for months or years waiting for a great company to accept you for your talents than to waste some of the best years on companies where your best efforts will result in second rate winnings. It's a huge risk to work for mediocre companies that will not put the work you will have to put in themselves. My e-mail is djk29a on Google's e-mail service. Not sure how the first part of your e-mail works out and I'm several days late so hopefully this is relevant advice.

devonkim 11y ago

The more correct rule is that you should try to find companies that have closely aligned business and technology objectives (which I haven't found outside of finance and the usual SV companies in the F500), but I have my doubts even that is the case because I'm working for a large organization that meets this criteria and I'd never think of advising a young, ambitious recent graduate to even reply to a recruiter for this place given the horrifically bad budget situation. Just because business leaders want something and try in earnest to plan for it doesn't mean much if they don't have the resources and momentum to execute. A good example of what I mean are large, innovation-less companies with "start-up in a large company" efforts to bring themselves some relevance that almost always become the worst of large company inertia / legacy with the fiscal and market position disadvantages of start-ups. I've been through at least 4 of these efforts with varying degrees of "success." And while they're a large part of my career and I want to believe it can happen, I have no evidence of this working out well and am convinced it's a rather high risk to take with disproportionate upside.

mailshanx 11y ago
I have an offer to do data science work for a large, public insurer. I will work inside an "innovation lab", and was promised lots of freedom and authority during the interview process. They say they want the "innovation labs" to run like startups, trying out new products and ideas at a fast clip. Do you have any thoughts about what the general environment will be like, and is there any chance the place will be mired in bureaucracy? I'm relatively early in my career as well, and have never worked for a Big Co before. I'd love to get in touch with you, but you don't have contact info in your profile. I'll be grateful if you can drop me a line - mailshanx at yahoo dot co dot in
- devonkim 11y ago
  It's hard to tell without context but I don't recommend most big company jobs that are not working on things that are high risk and high reward for recent graduates normally. There's a lot of questions to be asked about what the objectives of the project are, executive backing, and (most importantly) how strong the funding is to demonstrate the worth. As an example, my customer has made huge investments in attempts to hire developers while skimping tremendously on dependent efforts that would remove barriers for those developers to the extent that most developers are doing 9-5 jobs and unable to accomplish a lot while a lot of the infrastructure teams are working 12+ hour days working on very much solved problems from decades ago that only exist due to lack of respect and understanding of basic automation principles required to scale software companies of any sort. Everyone wants to work on modern, relevant problems - make sure that people are specific about their current barriers as being technical rather than organizational as a prospective employee. Look for a deep culture of respected and accomplished leaders in software up and down the hierarchy. If nobody in a position of authority has delivered software successfully before that you can recognize as an engineer, pass because culture and experience among executives is massively important and their priorities should focus on long term growth (Amazon was ridiculed by enterprise vendors while I screamed that they will eat their business in a decade - they don't care because they'll go somewhere else while I have to deal with the very expensive consequences of bad software). There are too many great companies around today to waste time on mediocre companies - it is better to be jobless for months or years waiting for a great company to accept you for your talents than to waste some of the best years on companies where your best efforts will result in second rate winnings. It's a huge risk to work for mediocre companies that will not put the work you will have to put in themselves. My e-mail is djk29a on Google's e-mail service. Not sure how the first part of your e-mail works out and I'm several days late so hopefully this is relevant advice.