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Some counter experiences, just based on my own annecdata. > * You, the individual, are not important. The product is important, the department that delivers th

Some counter experiences, just based on my own annecdata. > * You, the individual, are not important. The product is important, the department that delivers the product is less important, the teams that comprise the department are less important than that, and so on. Again, accept the reality and just relax. Working at startups I have never felt less important as an individual. The product is #1 and I only exist as a cog in the machine to produce that product and make the founders money. In a big company I was encouraged to pursue professional development, my professional goals and dreams were catered for and I felt like I could make personal progression. > * Expect insufficient test automation, lots of regression, and plenty of repetition. Also expect everybody to be an expert that is in a hurry and things in a unique way. Just be patient, politely nod, and just relax. Again, opposite experience, startups don't have time for test automation whereas big companies generally do. > * If you don’t like being bored and are highly risk adverse you might find the big company life highly depressing. I'm often bored at my startup though never lacking for work. It's just that the work can often be monotonous work because the startup doesn't have time to automate it or hire someone to do it. At a startup, its rare that you're encouraged to explore something new that might not work out. There's just not the time or budget.

rv-de 6y ago
Maybe it's that employees are some sort of cog about everywhere and test automation is also bad almost everywhere.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 6y ago
  Truest comment here. I’m co-founder at tesults.com and the biggest reason we discovered for dropping off the product is because upon integrating they realize their test automation is in such a bad state there’s no need for the service :-) It’s a shame because regression is commonplace. I wrote about why I think it’s done badly on the blog (https://www.tesults.com/blog?id=why-automated-test-projects-fail https://www.tesults.com/blog?id=why-automated-test-projects-...) I’ve worked at companies with 100k workers down to 10 people companies and the employee is generally a cog everywhere unfortunately but you learn different things. I started out in big companies and learned nothing about the business side of things whatsoever in those years. I did learn solid technical skills and practices though. I think smaller companies are the way to go if you intend to do your own thing one day. Bigger is better earlier in the career to learn technical skills or later on if you need a comfortable/well paying job when raising kids for stability.
tarsinge 6y ago
I think what you are describing are startups past the early stage. It's the worst of both worlds IMO.
cancerSpreads 6y ago
>was encouraged to pursue professional development, my professional goals and dreams were catered for and I felt like I could make personal progression. I think this is because instead of giving a pay raise, they offer these benefits. It costs the company nothing.

rv-de 6y ago

Maybe it's that employees are some sort of cog about everywhere and test automation is also bad almost everywhere.

ajeet_dhaliwal 6y ago
Truest comment here. I’m co-founder at tesults.com and the biggest reason we discovered for dropping off the product is because upon integrating they realize their test automation is in such a bad state there’s no need for the service :-) It’s a shame because regression is commonplace. I wrote about why I think it’s done badly on the blog (https://www.tesults.com/blog?id=why-automated-test-projects-fail https://www.tesults.com/blog?id=why-automated-test-projects-...) I’ve worked at companies with 100k workers down to 10 people companies and the employee is generally a cog everywhere unfortunately but you learn different things. I started out in big companies and learned nothing about the business side of things whatsoever in those years. I did learn solid technical skills and practices though. I think smaller companies are the way to go if you intend to do your own thing one day. Bigger is better earlier in the career to learn technical skills or later on if you need a comfortable/well paying job when raising kids for stability.

tarsinge 6y ago

I think what you are describing are startups past the early stage. It's the worst of both worlds IMO.

cancerSpreads 6y ago

>was encouraged to pursue professional development, my professional goals and dreams were catered for and I felt like I could make personal progression. I think this is because instead of giving a pay raise, they offer these benefits. It costs the company nothing.