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Large organizations are hard for startup people but easy for people who want a straightforward job. In a sense sitting in meetings and making decks is an easy w

by alfl 5y ago

Large organizations are hard for startup people but easy for people who want a straightforward job. In a sense sitting in meetings and making decks is an easy way to make a decent amount of money. If you are self-driven and seeking to improve things and do cool work these jobs are psychologically quite difficult. I was always frustrated, first as an enterprise guy, then as a consultant. Eventually I started a company and quit my job, and then it clicked.

datavirtue 5y ago
My job is anything but straight-forward in a large org. I have witnessed entire departments or "orgs" sit idle for almost a year while management did a huge dance to figure out the budget. This involved a lot of reliance on various lower lever employees. Once that was done, finally, we then began the process of figuring out how to spend the money fast enough in the time we had left until the next budget-dance--fast approaching. I was an engineer (high level but still) and spent most of my time helping management not look like complete idiots to their managers. When it came to actual engineering I had to beg the help of so many shared services that I rarely knew how to proceed. It usually came down to finding someone who had been there their whole career to find out which one of their friends knew how to initiate some process...to get an EC2 instance in AWS. High degree of chaos and stress and nothing of real value got done. To top it all off, when you find out who your customer is you realize they are guilty of war crimes. I went there to build data pipelines for high volume telemetry. I sort of worked on that, but not really. I met numerous people who lamented that they would look back on their career and be able to say they went to some meetings. It is not healthy, on many levels. "Psychologically difficult" is a very diplomatic take.
- alfl 5y ago
  Ha! Thanks, in my journey through enterprise (that was very similar to yours) I learned a lot about diplomacy :)
Ocerge 5y ago
It me, straightforward-job-haver at a FAANG. I bounced around from startups to small companies, and eventually ended up at big tech due to the anxiety/uncertainty small orgs were giving me. A lot of (maybe privileged) people like that drive as it motivates them, but to me it was more concern about what I would do if the paychecks stopped. I'm much more happy working on boring shit at a big tech company. Not here to change the world, just to work with competent people and plan for my future.
asdfman123 5y ago
Another thought is that it might actually get easier as you get older. I worked at a large org in my early twenties. It sucked. Now I work for a large tech company (FAANG) in my thirties. It is not nearly so bad. The org might just be a better fit, but also I think people just listen to me more now that I'm older. I'm not just some kid who doesn't know anything. I can talk to people and get things done without fighting uphill so much. Also, I'm more realistic. In my twenties I just wanted things to be simple and logical. Now I've accepted people aren't simple and that's just how things are, so I'm more tolerant of dealing with politics.

by alfl 5y ago

datavirtue 5y ago

My job is anything but straight-forward in a large org. I have witnessed entire departments or "orgs" sit idle for almost a year while management did a huge dance to figure out the budget. This involved a lot of reliance on various lower lever employees. Once that was done, finally, we then began the process of figuring out how to spend the money fast enough in the time we had left until the next budget-dance--fast approaching. I was an engineer (high level but still) and spent most of my time helping management not look like complete idiots to their managers. When it came to actual engineering I had to beg the help of so many shared services that I rarely knew how to proceed. It usually came down to finding someone who had been there their whole career to find out which one of their friends knew how to initiate some process...to get an EC2 instance in AWS. High degree of chaos and stress and nothing of real value got done. To top it all off, when you find out who your customer is you realize they are guilty of war crimes. I went there to build data pipelines for high volume telemetry. I sort of worked on that, but not really. I met numerous people who lamented that they would look back on their career and be able to say they went to some meetings. It is not healthy, on many levels. "Psychologically difficult" is a very diplomatic take.

alfl 5y ago
Ha! Thanks, in my journey through enterprise (that was very similar to yours) I learned a lot about diplomacy :)

Ocerge 5y ago

It me, straightforward-job-haver at a FAANG. I bounced around from startups to small companies, and eventually ended up at big tech due to the anxiety/uncertainty small orgs were giving me. A lot of (maybe privileged) people like that drive as it motivates them, but to me it was more concern about what I would do if the paychecks stopped. I'm much more happy working on boring shit at a big tech company. Not here to change the world, just to work with competent people and plan for my future.

asdfman123 5y ago

Another thought is that it might actually get easier as you get older. I worked at a large org in my early twenties. It sucked. Now I work for a large tech company (FAANG) in my thirties. It is not nearly so bad. The org might just be a better fit, but also I think people just listen to me more now that I'm older. I'm not just some kid who doesn't know anything. I can talk to people and get things done without fighting uphill so much. Also, I'm more realistic. In my twenties I just wanted things to be simple and logical. Now I've accepted people aren't simple and that's just how things are, so I'm more tolerant of dealing with politics.