Ask HN: What non-software companies hire software engineers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What non-software companies hire software engineers?

11 pointsthrowaway__211 comments

Hello,

I'm a software entrepreneur and developer with 10 years of experience.

While I like tech and the problem-solving that comes with it, I am tired of the silicon valley type products.

I wonder what other companies I can look for. I thought of CGI/VFX, but I'm sure there are much more. Logistics, maybe?

Will appreciate your input

Almost every company has a some hidden need to hire software developers in some capacity. Maybe not full time, and it will be doing random things, but the need for some level of process automation, better analysis, custom reporting, integrating systems together. There are things that a developer mind set is really well suited to - analysing a problem and finding a solution.

Here’s a subset of industries quoted or worked for, and thus is coming from a small regional town in Australia.

- high end design and manufacture of transfer chutes

- charter bus operator

- ferry tour operator

- mining material processor

- jewellery online store

- rag import wholesaler company (yes, those bags of treated cloths you buy at the hardware store)

- anaesthetist

- equipment finance

- gas hose fitting parts supplier - business coach

- childhood movement teacher

- and so many others

There’s lots of hidden demand out there if you can find a way to reach it and help people solve problems

This is what I see as the fat tail of Software. Not every business can't be shoehorned into a SaaS ERP/CRM etc, but they can have huge gains in effectiveness and efficiency through a well suited Information System (CRUD).

A few questions if you don't mind:

- Are you doing this as your primary income?

- How do you deal with different requirements and deployments?

- Do you use an Open Source ERP (Odoo etc) or do you stick with a web framework and create the functionalities yourself?

I'm guessing probably most companies of at least couple thousand employees have software engs. The reason is that, with that scale there's a lot of business processes to automate and the company is probably unique enough to not have its needs fully served by available off-the-shelf software only. Hence, they need to write their own software too. Sometimes, they contract outside companies to write it for them, in which case the in-house SEs write specs, oversee the work, check the deliveries, run production etc.

I’ve worked across consumer goods (clothing/fashion), retail and law mostly and have seen various industries and to be honest most large companies need software engineers.

You may get a lot of legacy in house custom code to manage, or integrations between systems. It won’t probably be at impactful ad working on big tech but it can definitely be fulfilling. It might not be cutting edge tools and languages.

E.g. you could write code that contributes to ensuring stock ships efficiently around the world from factory to retail stores

In the UK I saw a robotics company (as in robots for factories I think), a company called OCADO that does food delivery, so does all the logistics behind it too. Also insurance companies, banks etc. I have seen job ads for F1 racing too. Plenty of stuff out there. A lot of it on job boards but you often need to talk to a recruiter to find out what the job is.

There are lots of them! Ikea (furniture), H&M (fashion), Scania (trucks), Volvo Cars, AB Volvo (trucks etc) are some.

In the US: Maybe Walmart, The New York Times, The Washington Post. And countless others, of course.

A friend of mine is a soil scientist working at regional to site scale, they have a more or less full time programmer, works is pretty diverse tho', anything from scripting to networks.

Insurance

Health care

Financial Services

Telecoms

Police

Education

Every Government agency and department

Consultancy companies

Every sector has its own software requirements, and most use a combination of home made and off-the-shelf. Also, most of the above have deeper pockets than start-ups.

Any company that has enterprise software is a start.

Insurance & banking. I currently work in logistics.

Thank you all for replying

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