Been a developer for over 15 years in the Vancouver area. Various bits of advice: 1) Pay attention to the severance package when you sign your contract. When

Been a developer for over 15 years in the Vancouver area. Various bits of advice: 1) Pay attention to the severance package when you sign your contract. When you join a company, you probably aren't thinking about what happens if things don't work out. But let's say you end up working there for 10 years, bad times hit, and you get laid off. You don't want to be surprised to find that you only get the minimal statutory limit. Some companies, I conjecture the larger ones, will have more generous severance packages. 2) Be cautious about choosing to work in "branch offices" which aren't involved in key decisions in products/features. You may find yourself limited in how you can grow, both in terms of scope of technical projects and scope of career path. This is probably a bigger issue if the region that you live in is not a tech hub like silicon valley. 3) When I was younger, I was completely focused on programming and "software craftsmanship". In fact, many of the problems in commercial software development are people problems -- team co-ordination, process improvement, empowerment, motivation, etc.