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Corporate work has a lot more to do with the relationships than with the work itself. That's the most important take-away. It's not about how much math you know

Corporate work has a lot more to do with the relationships than with the work itself. That's the most important take-away. It's not about how much math you know or what data structures you use. It's how you get along with the guys (and gals) you're doing the work for. You want people who are smart enough to understand that what you're doing is important, but humble enough not to think of what you do as "grunt work" that they could do just as well, and decent enough not to try to "trap" you or to browbeat you into doing as much work for as little as possible. I'm also not a fan of the "hostage employer" situation. It's a way to get a steady paycheck, but also a toxic relationship that kills you slowly. Better to do the best work you can so that if your client wants to let you go, he can. If you're doing "boring" corporate work for people you like (and not all "business people" are assholes; it's about half IME) then it can be fun. You do great work for them in a small amount of time, and they pay you well and are happy to have you. I've met a lot of consultants who can make this work really well. When you choose your clients and don't have a manager-as-career-SPOF, you can develop positive relationships like what you described.

kamaal 15y ago
A more important thing is you won't really need much of those data structures and algorithms for nearly 99% of the tasks that your are likely to do in any large corporate/typical business driven software today. Most of the data structures that you will need are covered by the standard tool kit that comes with the language. Most of your common sorting and searching needs come covered with the libraries. But you sort of need to have other skills, like productivity , delivering extra value to business etc. Also I don't see why all that is wrong. After all software there is written to make money. And if something helps you do that with ease. It's perfectly OK. You don't have to always take the most difficult path to prove you are good. Doing what is required to 'get things done' is just good enough.

kamaal 15y ago

A more important thing is you won't really need much of those data structures and algorithms for nearly 99% of the tasks that your are likely to do in any large corporate/typical business driven software today. Most of the data structures that you will need are covered by the standard tool kit that comes with the language. Most of your common sorting and searching needs come covered with the libraries. But you sort of need to have other skills, like productivity , delivering extra value to business etc. Also I don't see why all that is wrong. After all software there is written to make money. And if something helps you do that with ease. It's perfectly OK. You don't have to always take the most difficult path to prove you are good. Doing what is required to 'get things done' is just good enough.