I work for a small to mid-sized family business that existed for more than 30 years now, we have several stores and since 10 years ago have been manufacturing a

I work for a small to mid-sized family business that existed for more than 30 years now, we have several stores and since 10 years ago have been manufacturing a physical product with mostly national recognition, but also some international interest. In terms of size I'm talking about ca. 50 employees. Our "IT-department" is me and another employee, that is currently finishing his apprenticeship (the german model) and likely to stay with us. When I started 10 years ago I got in via an apprenticeship too. We usually look to train our people and keep them for a long time, if possible. Since I haven't been working for anyone else yet, I can't compare, but it's really satisfying working for a smaller, familiar and non-tech company. As you already mentioned technology and programming is needed everywhere, not just start ups. We develope our own internal CRM, POS system, websites and experimenting with lots of new stuff - sure, you could outsource these jobs, but our company is aware of the fact unless you spent a lot, you might and up with some lackluster solution that barely managed to tick off the bullet points. Doing this in-house offers a lot of freedom - we can choose our own technology, which is Rails for us, and if an employee/user comes up with an idea that would make his life easier, we are able to make it happen fast. Plus, we feel valued, know the internal processes and requirements by heart and therefore are able to work on long-term goals, not just the current job's specs. The company is also located in a rather rural area - this might not be to everyone's taste, but rents and life in general is cheap around here, while the salary doesn't differ that much from city-figures - while the rent certainly does. Overtime is a very rare thing, I work 7 am - 4 pm. I can get to work by bike in 10 minutes, rarely seeing a car along the way. The bottom line is a very comfortable situation for me - financially and in terms of quality of life. tldr: If you look outside the usual tech-world, you might realize that your talent is needed almost everywhere and it can be very satisfying to work in your natural domain, but for non-tech companies.