Comment by BadassFractal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BadassFractal | Hacker News Reader

After working for several years in a similar environment to the one the author is in right now, I had the exact opposite experience.

Wrote soulless boring enterprise software for a customer I never met, using some of the most ancient development techniques, while having the department boast about innovation and "spearheading engineering excellence" every other day.

Shared buildings with hundreds of other ninetofivers who couldn't care less about the quality of their work, all they wanted was the great health insurance, the chance to get a green card in a decade or two, and the option to buy a nice home in the area for their 2-3 kids. Clock in, clock out, occasionally play office politics for that sweet principal position in 10-15 years. Experienced every agile aberration known to man, including predicting down to the hour every single thing I would be working on, and then have the boss breathe down your neck when you're off. The best part is when he tells you that he cannot "trust you" anymore due to the latest estimate being off by several hours, and you should multi-task more to get things done quicker. How about keeping your reported work hours purposefully low, even if you're working weekends? Your boss will think that you were good enough to get it done in a couple of days, and will promote you over the guy who's honest with his hours. Happened ALL THE TIME.

When I left, the few good friends I had while there asked me what my best memories were after half a decade. Not a single one, everything I enjoyed (including software projects) was outside of work.

If I never have to hold a lowly corporate job again, I'll die a happy man. I'd rather make a third of what I was making there, but at least I'll be proud of the work I'm doing and I will look forward to doing more of that every time I wake up.

Randall, you're in your mid 20s, brother, what is this comfort you are talking about? What do you have to lose? Go fuck up a couple of businesses, give it your best shot, get a few battle scars, and then maybe we'll talk about wanting comfort. You're way too young to settle down, it's sad to see someone like you waste his talents.

This whole notion that working for a large corporation means you are an passionless drone really needs to go away. I work in a very large corporation and the people I work with are just as passionate about writing software (maybe more so) as the people I have worked with in startup environments. Its true that there are plenty of awful corporate jobs out there but there are plenty of good ones too. For me working at a large company has meant I get to focus solely on the thing I care most about, programming; plus I get a steady paycheck. It has also allowed me to learn a lot of new and interesting concepts (particularly dealing with scale) that one generally only finds in really large companies. For me all that matters is being able to work on things I am interested in and making a living, right now working at a corporation serves both these purposes.

jimmyjazz14, I too worked for a large Fortune 200 company until moving to SV and working for a successful startup.

"working at a large company has meant I get to focus solely on the thing I care most about, programming"

There is a difference in just programming and efficient programming. You might be surprised how much time you spend doing unneeded programming that could be done more efficiently.

"plus I get a steady paycheck"

There's almost no risk at a successful startup. I remember people worrying about restructuring or layoffs at the large company... here everyone is too busy solving problems to worry about layoffs.

"It has also allowed me to learn a lot of new and interesting concepts (particularly dealing with scale) that one generally only finds in really large companies."

There are few large corporations where individual programmers actually deal with scale and if they do it's usually using old patterns. The successful startup I work for now has me dealing with(as a team) more 'big data' scale problems than I ever did working at a large corporation. I am also able to use newer technology and design patterns to solve those scale problems where the large corporation already had a standard outdated solution.

Bottom line, you don't have to settle for a large corporation to get job security and challenging problems when many successful startups offer the same benefits. I was a passionless drone working at a large corporation and since moving to SV I have never looked back.

I'm going to graduate in a year. How do I prove my skills to get a great job at a stable startup?

I've worked for 15 years in a couple of large companies and this simply has not been my experience. I've worked on interesting stuff, met a huge variety of people, even got to live overseas for a few years. While a large company environment isn't a startup environment, that doesn't mean it has to be stifling or boring.

Every company is different. Broad generalizations that working for a small/large company will necessarily mean X, Y and Z are likely inaccurate. The key is the ability to be honest to yourself about what you want/need, what you have, and to have the guts to pull the trigger and make changes if necessary.

If you're in a position to be able to network on the job, learn continuously, work on exciting projects, advance up the ladder, and not have a PHB to make your life hell, then by all means you should hold onto that.

Yours is a fairly prestigious situation that many would love to be in, but they either got unlucky or simply haven't switched jobs enough times to find one.

There is definitely luck involved, but there have also been some specific choices I made. I've always sought jobs where my efforts directly contribute to a interesting physical product. Whether advanced HVAC, automotive, or now avionics, the stuff I helped make was always cool. These products, usually from big companies, tend to use older software technologies, but the entire product is often quite advanced which keeps the interest level high. Furthermore, you might work on things that end up teaching you all sorts of stuff well outside the pure software realm.

I think if my Big Co. jobs were purely corporate IT stuff and not core product development, I would have quickly bailed out.

I taught physics in an inner city school for five years and it almost broke me. Now I write boring workflow software for a large company and it is like a dream every day. No screaming, no fights, no impossible contradicting directives from the state, and no watching the system destroy once cheerful, innocent children. I have money and health care for my family. Plus free coffee.

I can do this for the rest of my life a happy man.

I'm sure that we can all come up with examples of worse jobs. If that's your point of reference, and it works for you, more power to you.

Thanks for that.

I have been questioning myself for deciding to never work for the man again and your words reassured me.

No amount of money is enough for mediocrity to be forced upon you.

I try to be very conscious and grateful of the fact that mine is a privileged position. I do not (yet?) have severe pre-existing conditions, children, or a sick spouse that would pretty much force me to have to find a corporate job with the right kind of health insurance. There are some things that were under my control, such as making sure my partner was on the same page with not wanting to have children and was ok with having a very humble lifestyle, but there are thousands of other variables which are pure luck.

There are plenty of people out there for whom to drop out, stay afloat on savings for a few years, while rolling the startup dice, is simply not conceivable. If I were in that situation and had to take a soul-crushing enterprise job just to be able to afford the right medications, I would probably not enjoy people telling me that "I could do more with my life". If that's the author's situation, then I'm sorry, mine was an inappropriate conclusion. I digress, however, don't think this thread is the correct place to discuss US policy :)

I honestly don't think that my job is going to be soulless and boring. I'm not developing enterprise software. I'm developing software that runs in millions of Ford vehicles.

I'm not going to stop hacking on side projects. I'm not going to stop learning new things.

I'm not settling down, I'm just getting started.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com