What's it like to work at GitHub?

"Talented people with a lot of experience have strong opinions."

i hear this often. and i've worked with some people like that, many of whom i admire (in some ways).

yet i am not at all opinionated (as far as i can tell). when people ask me for advice, i often find it very hard to guide them because there are so many options, and what will work best seems to depend so much on non-technical factors.

and i am not sure what to do about this. i have tried being more opinionated, and there are times when a decision affected my work and i have fought for what was right, because i am doing the work. but often other people, opinionating, just seem like noise (worse, sometimes i suspect people confuse being opinionated with understanding something).

no real conclusion here, sorry. sometimes i wonder if people are too opinionated; sometimes i wonder if i am not opinionated enough (or if i am not that talented - although i do take re-assurance from the d-k effect). but that part of the post, and a related comment by the author here, disturbed me a little. i am not sure a place full of opinionated people is that pleasant (or optimal).

i was wondering if this touches a chord with anyone else?

Everyone's different, and that makes for a great number of different strengths and weaknesses. The biggest problem you run into with opinionated people is that they're frequently more interested in offering their opinion than doing anything about it. On the other hand, that means there's no shortage of constructive criticism when you want it.

In short, opinionated people are just another type of person you have to deal with. If you can't make yourself be as opinionated, that's no big deal. If this is a significant problem for you, perhaps it's best to figure out what skills you have that would complement "opinionation".

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

Having strong opinions is different from having an opinion on everything.

Being in a place full of opinionated people is nice, so long as those people are able to discuss their opinions rationally and are okay with not getting their way every time.

The difficulty in a consulting company is that (unlike a SaaS company) there is typically a 1:1 ratio between hours worked and money earned.

Our company does many of the same things, but in the end, we're still tied to the billable hour. I talked about it briefly here: http://lincolnloop.com/blog/2012/may/31/lincoln-loop-everyon...