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Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation. Previously I was all about startups or small companies and was very much against the mega-corp environmen

by DIVx0 8y ago

Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation. Previously I was all about startups or small companies and was very much against the mega-corp environment. Over several months a colleague "recruited" me to join their team and I don't regret it. I've been able to climb pretty high within this corp and it has been a wild ride. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd have any sort of influence over technology strategy that one of the largest US corporations would follow for the next decade. So, I've learned to keep an open mind and not let preconceived notions on how others do business until I see it for myself. If I had not done this I'd still be hopping from start-up to start-up.

btown 8y ago
Were you able to remain technical as your rank and responsibilities expanded? Or did you need to move into a management-only role to reach a turning point in the "influence" you mentioned?
- DIVx0 8y ago
  I started off in management with a small team but as I continued to deliver I kept on getting more and more teams. Turns out I am not cut out to lead from such an abstract level, directing other directors and barely knowing how stuff is being shipped. However this is where I was most surprised. My senior leadership recognizes where my skills are and have let me “manage myself” out of my role and move into a senior (think fellow/principal/staff) individual contributor role where I manage peers and work hands-on with whatever interests me (as long as i can align it to some product). I have influence in a couple major tech areas for this Corp. influence in a type that I develop strategy and report on a semi regular basis to the C suite and am actively brought into other silos to contribute or kickoff ideas. Long story short. I’ve spent years as “lead developer” at startups with no where to go except perhaps CTO. Here I am able to carve out an influential space that can maximize whatever talents I have while working closely with others who can augment skills I lack. I had such a negative view of this corporate world prior to joining that I am ashamed of myself now that I know what the reality is, at least for my own experience.
- bonniemuffin 8y ago
  I work at a megacorp and I'm familiar with lots of staff/principal-type ICs who lead big high-impact technical projects that are tremendously influential around the company. We really need the tech lead types to complement the people managers, so each side can focus on what they do best.
  - DIVx0 8y ago
    I totally agree! Large tech focused corps usually have a career path for individual contributors to rise up the ranks without becoming people managers. This career path is almost meaningless unless there is a corporate culture of collaboration between ICs and directors/VPs. A senior IC should not be navel gazing all the time and just building whatever or getting into peoples business while VPs should not be so protective of their thing to dismiss or wall off outside contributions. "Assume positive intent" and "It's all the same stock price" is heard around here a lot.
rufius 8y ago
Conversely, I took the opposite leap from a relatively successful corporate career to startup. I’ve learned a huge amount and appreciated the opportunities and flexibility I have. I think experiences in both worlds are valuable and wouldn’t trade either experience for anything else.
- TheArcane 8y ago
  I'd love to read a write-up on the trade offs between the two in 2018's context.
  - rufius 8y ago
    Some quick notes... Corporate Benefits: - While a lot of folks look at bureaucracy as a huge drawback, in retrospect, I learned a lot about how to influence people and trying to see all sides of an argument. - In some cases, it can be freeing to work for a big corporate environment if you manage to find yourself on a team with a green field project. It's got a lot of benefits that startups have with little to no risk of failure. - Structure can be good for some folks, especially early in your career if you haven't got the slightest clue what you're interested in doing long term. I view it sort of like bootcamp for the military - you get a routine, you learn to function as a group, without the stress of needing to survive. ======= Corporate Drawbacks: - Bureaucracy - it can be utterly draining. Some fights feel like such a slog for minute improvements. - It's easy to get lost in the mix - bosses can change frequently if an organization is unhealthy, team members bail, and product groups fall apart. The healthiest corporate groups can be incredibly freeing to work in and the worst corporate groups can really burn out your creativity because it turns into monotony. - Golden handcuffs - I walked away from a big chunk of money when I went to startup land. It wasn't easy but ultimately it was the right choice. ======= Startup Benefits: - More work than you have people to do it. There's always something to do, you never end up with busy work, and you're almost always learning something you didn't know the day before about the business or your technology. - Smaller groups that feel more like family and less like work. I get to work with my friends, people that I'd hang out with outside of work. That can be a double edged sword, but for me I enjoy it. - Closer connection to the customer. At a big corporate job, you're so far removed from your customers as an engineer that it can be very isolating. For startups, you often interact with a customer if something's broken or a customer wants a new feature. I enjoy that a lot. ======= Startup Drawbacks: - More work than you have people to do it. If you don't set good boundaries and have a good culture of identifying the most important thing to be done, everything can feel like a "tyranny" of the urgent. - Pay is lower, especially at earlier stages. I'm not terribly obsessed with money. I like to have money to travel and enough to get a few things I want but expensive cars or collecting guitars isn't my jam. - Unpredictability - Business needs change quickly as you fight for deals, you experiment or cut features to try and drive costs down. It can feel like you built something and then aggressively cut it prematurely. ======== These are just my notes on it - and really it's stream of consciousness. I'm sure if I sat down to write a real blog post, it'd probably be a little better reasoned.
badtuple 8y ago
Did you feel like you had agency when you first started? I'm talking to a Global 500 for a senior engineering role and I'm super torn. The role seems cool, but I like my agency and have alot of it currently. It's a hard thing to risk giving up.
- DIVx0 8y ago
  I had similar concerns before I joined up. I didn’t want to get swallowed up in some massive project or shuffled around in reorganization after reorganization. The guy who was recruiting me made all the assurances that would not happen. I respected this guy, it’s the only reason why I even entertained being “recruited” for this role. Even with that though his word was not good enough. What put me over the edge was meeting with his boss and then his bosses boss. I got the impression that these people had great skills in running an organization. They both were ex engineers who made the leap to senior management prior to joint the mega Corp (VP and Exec VP). I felt like I could trust them to a degree. It has proven out for me. So, I suggest trying to get information to gauge how much you can “trust” your senior leadership beyond whomever will be your supervisor since those are the people who will really have the most control over your agency and future at that company.
lewisjoe 8y ago
I did something similar. The HN community had been pretty much my virtual mentor ever since I stumbled upon here. Consequently, I had a subconsciously ingrained aversion for BigCorps and joined a (3 person)startup right out of college. On hindsight, I consider it a mistake. Micromanagement, lack of depth in terms of engineering & vision made me rethink my career path. Joined a BigCorp as a result and I regret not doing it early enough. Work-life balance, clear decision makings, freedom to experiment with new tech, time to work on personal projects, financial stability and most importantly ability to bring real impact to real users – I clearly see now things that I'd have missed if I continued with that startup. patio11 wrote a brilliant piece here regarding this, along with other awesome career advice - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
nosjwshere 8y ago
too many startups suffer from wannagetbiggeritis
apohn 8y ago
>Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation. I have two questions if you don't mind answering. How large is the company you are referring to? 10K people? 100K, 250K, 500K? What type of company is it? A company that builds and sells mostly software, or a company that uses software to sell something else (e.g. automobiles?). Amazon+AWS is a an example that is a hybrid of both.
- DIVx0 8y ago
  Its a mega corp in terms that it is comprised of several large enterprises. If the "arm" I worked in was spun off as its own corporation it would be Fortune 30 by revenue. Worldwide I think we have about 40k of the 270+k total employees in the corp group. The group as a whole is in the Fortune 10 and serves the health care industry. My part of the corp is all software. Product development both "commercial enterprise" grade to individual consumer facing. This involves plain old software development, data science, infrastructure as well as R&D (some basic, mostly emerging tech)
  - severine 8y ago
    That'd be United Health Group, McKesson or CVS Health.
    - cozuya 8y ago
      Optum.
  - apohn 8y ago
    Thanks for the info. Very helpful. >My part of the corp is all software. I was hoping you'd say this. Out of all the places I've worked, two of them were/are huge (250K+ people). For the first, I was in the business side of things as a data scientist/software person, and now I'm in the the software org as a data scientist. In theory I should have been doing the same job; using code to to address business problems using data science. Both companies were investing heavily into cloud and analytics, and were theoretically moving in the same direction. My experience in the non-software org was a nightmare because nobody understood what it meant to build or engineer anything. Now that I'm in software org of big company and I'm MUCH happier because people actually understand what it takes to solve a technical problem. Lesson: if you are a software person who likes to be technical (coding or not), work in a the software org of a big company!

by DIVx0 8y ago

btown 8y ago

Were you able to remain technical as your rank and responsibilities expanded? Or did you need to move into a management-only role to reach a turning point in the "influence" you mentioned?

DIVx0 8y ago
I started off in management with a small team but as I continued to deliver I kept on getting more and more teams. Turns out I am not cut out to lead from such an abstract level, directing other directors and barely knowing how stuff is being shipped. However this is where I was most surprised. My senior leadership recognizes where my skills are and have let me “manage myself” out of my role and move into a senior (think fellow/principal/staff) individual contributor role where I manage peers and work hands-on with whatever interests me (as long as i can align it to some product). I have influence in a couple major tech areas for this Corp. influence in a type that I develop strategy and report on a semi regular basis to the C suite and am actively brought into other silos to contribute or kickoff ideas. Long story short. I’ve spent years as “lead developer” at startups with no where to go except perhaps CTO. Here I am able to carve out an influential space that can maximize whatever talents I have while working closely with others who can augment skills I lack. I had such a negative view of this corporate world prior to joining that I am ashamed of myself now that I know what the reality is, at least for my own experience.
bonniemuffin 8y ago
I work at a megacorp and I'm familiar with lots of staff/principal-type ICs who lead big high-impact technical projects that are tremendously influential around the company. We really need the tech lead types to complement the people managers, so each side can focus on what they do best.
- DIVx0 8y ago
  I totally agree! Large tech focused corps usually have a career path for individual contributors to rise up the ranks without becoming people managers. This career path is almost meaningless unless there is a corporate culture of collaboration between ICs and directors/VPs. A senior IC should not be navel gazing all the time and just building whatever or getting into peoples business while VPs should not be so protective of their thing to dismiss or wall off outside contributions. "Assume positive intent" and "It's all the same stock price" is heard around here a lot.

rufius 8y ago

Conversely, I took the opposite leap from a relatively successful corporate career to startup. I’ve learned a huge amount and appreciated the opportunities and flexibility I have. I think experiences in both worlds are valuable and wouldn’t trade either experience for anything else.

TheArcane 8y ago
I'd love to read a write-up on the trade offs between the two in 2018's context.
- rufius 8y ago
  Some quick notes... Corporate Benefits: - While a lot of folks look at bureaucracy as a huge drawback, in retrospect, I learned a lot about how to influence people and trying to see all sides of an argument. - In some cases, it can be freeing to work for a big corporate environment if you manage to find yourself on a team with a green field project. It's got a lot of benefits that startups have with little to no risk of failure. - Structure can be good for some folks, especially early in your career if you haven't got the slightest clue what you're interested in doing long term. I view it sort of like bootcamp for the military - you get a routine, you learn to function as a group, without the stress of needing to survive. ======= Corporate Drawbacks: - Bureaucracy - it can be utterly draining. Some fights feel like such a slog for minute improvements. - It's easy to get lost in the mix - bosses can change frequently if an organization is unhealthy, team members bail, and product groups fall apart. The healthiest corporate groups can be incredibly freeing to work in and the worst corporate groups can really burn out your creativity because it turns into monotony. - Golden handcuffs - I walked away from a big chunk of money when I went to startup land. It wasn't easy but ultimately it was the right choice. ======= Startup Benefits: - More work than you have people to do it. There's always something to do, you never end up with busy work, and you're almost always learning something you didn't know the day before about the business or your technology. - Smaller groups that feel more like family and less like work. I get to work with my friends, people that I'd hang out with outside of work. That can be a double edged sword, but for me I enjoy it. - Closer connection to the customer. At a big corporate job, you're so far removed from your customers as an engineer that it can be very isolating. For startups, you often interact with a customer if something's broken or a customer wants a new feature. I enjoy that a lot. ======= Startup Drawbacks: - More work than you have people to do it. If you don't set good boundaries and have a good culture of identifying the most important thing to be done, everything can feel like a "tyranny" of the urgent. - Pay is lower, especially at earlier stages. I'm not terribly obsessed with money. I like to have money to travel and enough to get a few things I want but expensive cars or collecting guitars isn't my jam. - Unpredictability - Business needs change quickly as you fight for deals, you experiment or cut features to try and drive costs down. It can feel like you built something and then aggressively cut it prematurely. ======== These are just my notes on it - and really it's stream of consciousness. I'm sure if I sat down to write a real blog post, it'd probably be a little better reasoned.

badtuple 8y ago

Did you feel like you had agency when you first started? I'm talking to a Global 500 for a senior engineering role and I'm super torn. The role seems cool, but I like my agency and have alot of it currently. It's a hard thing to risk giving up.

DIVx0 8y ago
I had similar concerns before I joined up. I didn’t want to get swallowed up in some massive project or shuffled around in reorganization after reorganization. The guy who was recruiting me made all the assurances that would not happen. I respected this guy, it’s the only reason why I even entertained being “recruited” for this role. Even with that though his word was not good enough. What put me over the edge was meeting with his boss and then his bosses boss. I got the impression that these people had great skills in running an organization. They both were ex engineers who made the leap to senior management prior to joint the mega Corp (VP and Exec VP). I felt like I could trust them to a degree. It has proven out for me. So, I suggest trying to get information to gauge how much you can “trust” your senior leadership beyond whomever will be your supervisor since those are the people who will really have the most control over your agency and future at that company.

lewisjoe 8y ago

I did something similar. The HN community had been pretty much my virtual mentor ever since I stumbled upon here. Consequently, I had a subconsciously ingrained aversion for BigCorps and joined a (3 person)startup right out of college. On hindsight, I consider it a mistake. Micromanagement, lack of depth in terms of engineering & vision made me rethink my career path. Joined a BigCorp as a result and I regret not doing it early enough. Work-life balance, clear decision makings, freedom to experiment with new tech, time to work on personal projects, financial stability and most importantly ability to bring real impact to real users – I clearly see now things that I'd have missed if I continued with that startup. patio11 wrote a brilliant piece here regarding this, along with other awesome career advice - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

nosjwshere 8y ago

too many startups suffer from wannagetbiggeritis

apohn 8y ago

>Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation. I have two questions if you don't mind answering. How large is the company you are referring to? 10K people? 100K, 250K, 500K? What type of company is it? A company that builds and sells mostly software, or a company that uses software to sell something else (e.g. automobiles?). Amazon+AWS is a an example that is a hybrid of both.

DIVx0 8y ago
Its a mega corp in terms that it is comprised of several large enterprises. If the "arm" I worked in was spun off as its own corporation it would be Fortune 30 by revenue. Worldwide I think we have about 40k of the 270+k total employees in the corp group. The group as a whole is in the Fortune 10 and serves the health care industry. My part of the corp is all software. Product development both "commercial enterprise" grade to individual consumer facing. This involves plain old software development, data science, infrastructure as well as R&D (some basic, mostly emerging tech)
- severine 8y ago
  That'd be United Health Group, McKesson or CVS Health.
  - cozuya 8y ago
    Optum.
- apohn 8y ago
  Thanks for the info. Very helpful. >My part of the corp is all software. I was hoping you'd say this. Out of all the places I've worked, two of them were/are huge (250K+ people). For the first, I was in the business side of things as a data scientist/software person, and now I'm in the the software org as a data scientist. In theory I should have been doing the same job; using code to to address business problems using data science. Both companies were investing heavily into cloud and analytics, and were theoretically moving in the same direction. My experience in the non-software org was a nightmare because nobody understood what it meant to build or engineer anything. Now that I'm in software org of big company and I'm MUCH happier because people actually understand what it takes to solve a technical problem. Lesson: if you are a software person who likes to be technical (coding or not), work in a the software org of a big company!