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I don't want to work for a big company

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Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#31

Post by blindhippo »

ArtB wrote: post #21
blindhippo wrote: post #19

"But being in school is not something I truly want. I love creating, innovating, pushing myself with real-world challenges and projects, and the amount of satisfaction you get from pushing something out there is tremendous." I've seen this type of sentiment before - it's quite common for people who don't go through school. University level education (quality ones) give the student exactly the same feeling that the au…

Experimentation in a very narrow manner. A university is where you explore new algorithms using Fortran on an old Sun machine. However, if you are just interested in a new programming paradigm, want to write an ORM in Haskell, or design a new IoC container university is not for you. As someone with a masters degree in CS I can assure you.

Might be true for Computer Science, but what does computer science have to do with tech/innovation? ;)

Engineering programs are a great example - most provide opportunities for students to join projects outside of the core curriculum to build something cool (sun powered cars, robot competitions, etc). Even the Arts programs offer opportunities to do exciting things (and especially fine arts).

My comment was to dispute the notion that school isn't an environment where someone can push the boundaries - on the contrary, it's the very place that boundaries SHOULD be pushed (both personal and other).

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#33

Post by lifeisstillgood »

michaelochurch wrote: post #30
vonmoltke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that most companies make it a lot harder to move internally than they advertise. They have ridiculous "headcount" issues and it's almost impossible to move in most firms without a top-20% performance record... but impossible to get a top-20% review unless your manager sees you as having staying power. So you have to play dishonest political games, in most companies, to get the one big-company benefit…

What you experienced is typical. It's harder to get a new job within a company than to get an external promotion into another one. Here's probably more than you care to read on this topic. I just finished it this morning: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/gervais-macle... The short version, as pertains to what you experience, is that companies have (since Enron made it fashionable) included performance r…

My own recent-ish exeprience on this may be of interest - I was made redundant (worked in City) in 2008. I kept job hunting like a demon, and went through three jobs in 18 mths, going from unemployed to 100K - but each time I moved companies, and I think I did not spend less than 4 out of 5 lunch hours glued to phones hunting down leads.

Not sure if thats of interest

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#34

Post by JonnieCache »

michaelochurch wrote: post #24

Sorry to break it to the OP, but most companies are shit. Big or small doesn't matter that much because all people (under the right conditions) have parasitic tendencies and power makes it worse. Good companies are easily less than 10 percent, and startups are no better. What makes startups seem great is the survivor bias. The shitty ones with MBA-style management and closed allocation tend to faceplant. The good one…

> ladyboy

This doesn't mean what you think it means. Or at least I hope it doesn't.

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#35

Post by kozikow »

michaelochurch wrote: post #24

Sorry to break it to the OP, but most companies are shit. Big or small doesn't matter that much because all people (under the right conditions) have parasitic tendencies and power makes it worse. Good companies are easily less than 10 percent, and startups are no better. What makes startups seem great is the survivor bias. The shitty ones with MBA-style management and closed allocation tend to faceplant. The good one…

In small company, while you don't have internal mobility across teams it's much easier to work on different projects, since cost of switching between projects is not so expensive as in big company. There are no formal management rules, so you don't have to play politics to achieve this.

Even in companies with "open allocation" you are not given completely free choice where to work, because you first need to gain credibility. It's faster to achieve level of credibility, required full freedom on what to work inn smaller company with open allocation than in big corporation, even ones, which are pretending to have open allocation.

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#36

Post by pandaman »

IMHO, the divide (at least in the US) is not between big and small but between public and private. In a private corp you get a chance to find an awesome work environment no matter the size and in a public, it appears, even if it had not been bad before, it's going to become worse.

PS. I am not saying that all private companies are awesome. Some are exceptionally bad e.g. Lucas Arts used to be pretty horrible. I am not saying that all public companies are horrible either - Apple seems to be all right.

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#37

Post by michaelochurch »

JonnieCache wrote: post #34
michaelochurch wrote: post #24

Sorry to break it to the OP, but most companies are shit. Big or small doesn't matter that much because all people (under the right conditions) have parasitic tendencies and power makes it worse. Good companies are easily less than 10 percent, and startups are no better. What makes startups seem great is the survivor bias. The shitty ones with MBA-style management and closed allocation tend to faceplant. The good one…

> ladyboy This doesn't mean what you think it means. Or at least I hope it doesn't.

Synonym for "golden child" or managerial favorite, and yes, I know that it originally meant a male prostitute dressed to look feminine. I'm not the first to use it in that way.

"Golden child" doesn't have enough bite and Ancient Greek references get old.

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#38

Post by lifeisstillgood »

JonnieCache wrote: post #34
michaelochurch wrote: post #24

Sorry to break it to the OP, but most companies are shit. Big or small doesn't matter that much because all people (under the right conditions) have parasitic tendencies and power makes it worse. Good companies are easily less than 10 percent, and startups are no better. What makes startups seem great is the survivor bias. The shitty ones with MBA-style management and closed allocation tend to faceplant. The good one…

> ladyboy This doesn't mean what you think it means. Or at least I hope it doesn't.

Shame, cos I could have sworn he was talking of my direct experiences

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#39

Post by chollida1 »

> In my opinion, the larger the company and the higher the hierarchy, the harder it is to innovate and experiment with something different for that next project.

In my experience this just simply isn't true. Both large and small companies can put up reasons why you can't innovate or experiment.

For small companies there is always a deadline or budget that gets in the way.

The size of a company has no real bearing on what they allow their employees to do.

The only difference I've seen is with well run and poorly run companies.

In my experience these are evenly distributed between big and small companies.

Or put another way, your manager will determine 90% of your happiness at your job.

Re: I don't want to work for a big company

#40

Post by tannerc »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #17

One of the cardinal rules of software development is to ask your market what their pain points are, but come up with the solutions on your own. That's because your users understand their problems, but they aren't aware of the different ways you can solve those problems. For lack of a better word, I'm going to call this the over-association fallacy . The over-association fallacy is when you think "I must have X, Y is…

Yes, I love this realization.

People don't know what they want, but they sure as hell know what they don't want. I think this ties both to businesses (specifically startups and what they focus their efforts on) as well as employees and entrepreneurs themselves.

To quote Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."

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