4 ms·

Now that I've experienced the start-up world twice I have to say: What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? Not all of them have cubicles and ask

by erikb 10y ago

Now that I've experienced the start-up world twice I have to say: What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? Not all of them have cubicles and ask their devs to wear suits. T-Shirt, free coffee, huge desk, free hardware, other smart people who are just like me, reliable income, some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life. Honestly I don't know why I didn't do that from the start and worked on my projects in my spare time.

zzzcpan 10y ago
I don't think it's possible to work as a software engineer full time and have enough mental energy to do meaningful work on your own projects in your spare time.
- quickben 10y ago
  Sadly, you are right.
- Mikushi 10y ago
  Agreed, I just moved to Product Management as I want to have the mental energy to work on my own stuff. While I was a full time Software Engineer I'd get some done but would be way to fried to get any real progress going.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    How did you transition from dev to product management? I'm keen to stay in this industry, but I am thinking seriously about getting away from the coding side of things. I'm part BA at the moment.
    - Mikushi 10y ago
      Managed to find a company where the product fitted my technical knowledge, took a bit of a pay cut as well but well worth it. It's been a few months and I do not miss coding full time one bit, hell even no longer being involved deeply in tech is a breath of fresh air. I've had previous management experience (CTO in small start up, Lead Dev ...) so I managed to leverage that during my interview process, then it was mostly showing I was really interested in growing a product and see it succeed.
- wiz21c 10y ago
  I switched 4/5th schedule. Less money, more spare time. But you're right. Actual regular work can be exhausting (I'm project manager and, that eats energy)
- erikb 10y ago
  I also thought so. But I have yet to experience one start-up project that doesn't demand so much of your time that you worry you won't get to take the 10 minute walk to the super market today. If you can do that, you can easily with the same amount of energy work a side project.
  - derefr 10y ago
    Physical energy/time, and mental/emotional energy, are different things. Software development, for whatever reason, directly spends "spoons" (in the sense of https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine...) at a high rate. Because of this, it's hard to do much else that requires willpower after putting in a day's work as a programmer. You can do habitual things just fine; or procrastinative things. But, outside of those two activity-classes, it's hard to even do the most enjoyable of things—like, for example, watching a serious, dramatic movie—because you won't get anything out of such activities if you don't invest some emotional energy into them, and you've just plum run out. --- In a more technical sense, it's my understanding that the activity of programming somehow "uses up" a lot of dopamine, and so gradually depletes one's available store of dopamine over the course of the day in much the same way that stress, cold environments, and surprising loud noises are known to. Thus, a neurotypical person who spends eight hours programming in a day, will end up effectively equivalent in behavior/mentality to a person with ADHD for the rest of the day, until they can sleep it off and recover. (This means you could probably restore your "spoons" by taking ADHD medication just after leaving work... but that seems ill-advised, for multiple reasons.)
    - jtfairbank 10y ago
      Can you link a news article or study about the similarities between programmers at the end of the day and adults with ADHD? Just curious... for a friend... ;)
    - erikb 10y ago
      Yes, after 6 hours of hard software engineering work your capacity for the day is pretty much exhausted and you start doing bad work, but if you put these bad additional hours into your day job or your hobby doesn't make much difference energy wise.
- leesalminen 10y ago
  I've done it successfully. It was not easy. One of the hardest things I've ever done.
  - pharrlax 10y ago
    In my experience it requires sacrificing "some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life" by investing an enormous amount of your free time.
artifaxx 10y ago
It really depends on the person, thats great you recognize that you do well in the corporate world. Unfortunately in many places the company would own your spare projects due to the intellectual property assignment rules in their employment contracts. Beyond that some of us strongly dislike conformity and being a replaceable cog in the corporate machine. Connecting with one's customers and seeing directly how what you build helps them instead of dealing with corporate politics is a huge improvement to me.
- erikb 10y ago
  I feel much less replaceable, since I have rights. You can say "nope" to your boss. You can't do that to your customer if he's the only one paying your rent this month. And the smaller you are the more others will push you around, not because they are mean but because they don't have to think about you, and just like you they are tired and barely get done more than 80% of what they want to do. And in some cases people are really parasites and will suck dry everything that's too weak to fight back.
  - artifaxx 10y ago
    This definitely depends on a lot of factors. If you do work where you are easily replaceable sure. Most software developers don't have anything special rights wise as so few unionize. As an independent developer if you choose work in niches where the demand is greater than supply you can fire your painful customers anytime and move on to other ones. Different solutions work for different people.
DamnInteresting 10y ago
> What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? I think it depends upon what you want in life from your current situation. Having worked extensively in both startups and big corps, I've enjoyed working for startups where my work and ideas can make a huge impact on the business, far more than in the corporate world. And both have asked me for extra hours at crunch times, but at a startup they know they are asking a lot, and there's a chance for abstract future rewards as a result. When I've had mandatory unpaid extra hours at a big corp, I got a couple of slices of "free" pizza (and I got to not be fired). In recent years I've worked for small established businesses/non-profits, and I enjoy the happy medium.
Clubber 10y ago
There are several reasons that come to mind: 1. IP ownership - many companies include total IP ownership during your time of employment. 2. If it's a soul sucking place, you'll burn out quickly and won't want to touch a computer, even if you love coding. 3. Making some company 10-20x your salary is disheartening. 4. You are at the whim of your bosses. 5. Many companies make getting anything done a huge pain in the ass. Over zealous security policies, over tight virus scanners choking your development box, requiring shitty company hardware to develop on, some DBA rejecting your SQL because he decided everyone should do it this way this week, network guys not fixing a horribly slow network, etc. There are advantages, of course. The problem is you probably will never be able to get a business up and running while working at another job, it just takes too much attention.
derefr 10y ago
I've got to believe that—besides what reasons people are consciously aware of—it's at least a little bit that startups, due to volatility and risk, are far more addictive environments than stable salaried bigcorp jobs are. People will find themselves preferring "startup life", going from startup to startup, never staying past acquisition, without really knowing why; and then they'll invent all sorts of clever justifications for that. But really, they just enjoy the fact that their job is a gamble and could disappear at any moment, and will miss that and "feel bored" whenever they don't have it. Just like some people who are "natural soldiers" find it hard to find jobs they enjoy after coming back from a war (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/68v9dv/photograph_of_us_marines_dragging_the_body_of_2nd/dh2fk4y/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/68v9dv/photo...), some people who are "natural startup people" find it hard to find jobs they enjoy that aren't in startups. Because the risk/stress isn't there, and that's what they really want out of a job.
Torwald 10y ago
> some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life. Are you proposing that every freelancer / solo-dev is unattractive to potential mates per se?

by erikb 10y ago

zzzcpan 10y ago

I don't think it's possible to work as a software engineer full time and have enough mental energy to do meaningful work on your own projects in your spare time.

quickben 10y ago
Sadly, you are right.
Mikushi 10y ago
Agreed, I just moved to Product Management as I want to have the mental energy to work on my own stuff. While I was a full time Software Engineer I'd get some done but would be way to fried to get any real progress going.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  How did you transition from dev to product management? I'm keen to stay in this industry, but I am thinking seriously about getting away from the coding side of things. I'm part BA at the moment.
  - Mikushi 10y ago
    Managed to find a company where the product fitted my technical knowledge, took a bit of a pay cut as well but well worth it. It's been a few months and I do not miss coding full time one bit, hell even no longer being involved deeply in tech is a breath of fresh air. I've had previous management experience (CTO in small start up, Lead Dev ...) so I managed to leverage that during my interview process, then it was mostly showing I was really interested in growing a product and see it succeed.
wiz21c 10y ago
I switched 4/5th schedule. Less money, more spare time. But you're right. Actual regular work can be exhausting (I'm project manager and, that eats energy)
erikb 10y ago
I also thought so. But I have yet to experience one start-up project that doesn't demand so much of your time that you worry you won't get to take the 10 minute walk to the super market today. If you can do that, you can easily with the same amount of energy work a side project.
- derefr 10y ago
  Physical energy/time, and mental/emotional energy, are different things. Software development, for whatever reason, directly spends "spoons" (in the sense of https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine...) at a high rate. Because of this, it's hard to do much else that requires willpower after putting in a day's work as a programmer. You can do habitual things just fine; or procrastinative things. But, outside of those two activity-classes, it's hard to even do the most enjoyable of things—like, for example, watching a serious, dramatic movie—because you won't get anything out of such activities if you don't invest some emotional energy into them, and you've just plum run out. --- In a more technical sense, it's my understanding that the activity of programming somehow "uses up" a lot of dopamine, and so gradually depletes one's available store of dopamine over the course of the day in much the same way that stress, cold environments, and surprising loud noises are known to. Thus, a neurotypical person who spends eight hours programming in a day, will end up effectively equivalent in behavior/mentality to a person with ADHD for the rest of the day, until they can sleep it off and recover. (This means you could probably restore your "spoons" by taking ADHD medication just after leaving work... but that seems ill-advised, for multiple reasons.)
  - jtfairbank 10y ago
    Can you link a news article or study about the similarities between programmers at the end of the day and adults with ADHD? Just curious... for a friend... ;)
  - erikb 10y ago
    Yes, after 6 hours of hard software engineering work your capacity for the day is pretty much exhausted and you start doing bad work, but if you put these bad additional hours into your day job or your hobby doesn't make much difference energy wise.
leesalminen 10y ago
I've done it successfully. It was not easy. One of the hardest things I've ever done.
- pharrlax 10y ago
  In my experience it requires sacrificing "some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life" by investing an enormous amount of your free time.

artifaxx 10y ago

It really depends on the person, thats great you recognize that you do well in the corporate world. Unfortunately in many places the company would own your spare projects due to the intellectual property assignment rules in their employment contracts. Beyond that some of us strongly dislike conformity and being a replaceable cog in the corporate machine. Connecting with one's customers and seeing directly how what you build helps them instead of dealing with corporate politics is a huge improvement to me.

erikb 10y ago
I feel much less replaceable, since I have rights. You can say "nope" to your boss. You can't do that to your customer if he's the only one paying your rent this month. And the smaller you are the more others will push you around, not because they are mean but because they don't have to think about you, and just like you they are tired and barely get done more than 80% of what they want to do. And in some cases people are really parasites and will suck dry everything that's too weak to fight back.
- artifaxx 10y ago
  This definitely depends on a lot of factors. If you do work where you are easily replaceable sure. Most software developers don't have anything special rights wise as so few unionize. As an independent developer if you choose work in niches where the demand is greater than supply you can fire your painful customers anytime and move on to other ones. Different solutions work for different people.

DamnInteresting 10y ago

> What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? I think it depends upon what you want in life from your current situation. Having worked extensively in both startups and big corps, I've enjoyed working for startups where my work and ideas can make a huge impact on the business, far more than in the corporate world. And both have asked me for extra hours at crunch times, but at a startup they know they are asking a lot, and there's a chance for abstract future rewards as a result. When I've had mandatory unpaid extra hours at a big corp, I got a couple of slices of "free" pizza (and I got to not be fired). In recent years I've worked for small established businesses/non-profits, and I enjoy the happy medium.

Clubber 10y ago

There are several reasons that come to mind: 1. IP ownership - many companies include total IP ownership during your time of employment. 2. If it's a soul sucking place, you'll burn out quickly and won't want to touch a computer, even if you love coding. 3. Making some company 10-20x your salary is disheartening. 4. You are at the whim of your bosses. 5. Many companies make getting anything done a huge pain in the ass. Over zealous security policies, over tight virus scanners choking your development box, requiring shitty company hardware to develop on, some DBA rejecting your SQL because he decided everyone should do it this way this week, network guys not fixing a horribly slow network, etc. There are advantages, of course. The problem is you probably will never be able to get a business up and running while working at another job, it just takes too much attention.

derefr 10y ago

I've got to believe that—besides what reasons people are consciously aware of—it's at least a little bit that startups, due to volatility and risk, are far more addictive environments than stable salaried bigcorp jobs are. People will find themselves preferring "startup life", going from startup to startup, never staying past acquisition, without really knowing why; and then they'll invent all sorts of clever justifications for that. But really, they just enjoy the fact that their job is a gamble and could disappear at any moment, and will miss that and "feel bored" whenever they don't have it. Just like some people who are "natural soldiers" find it hard to find jobs they enjoy after coming back from a war (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/68v9dv/photograph_of_us_marines_dragging_the_body_of_2nd/dh2fk4y/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/68v9dv/photo...), some people who are "natural startup people" find it hard to find jobs they enjoy that aren't in startups. Because the risk/stress isn't there, and that's what they really want out of a job.

Torwald 10y ago

> some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life. Are you proposing that every freelancer / solo-dev is unattractive to potential mates per se?