I don't want to work for a big company
medium.com
I don't want to work for a big company
1–10 of 52 posts
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#2Tangent - Can someone please explain to me what medium is? It seems like it's the new svbtl, but I'm not quite sure if it's a collection of individual blogs, a curated selection of posts or an open community platform.
Their home pages (https://medium.com) states "Sharing ideas and experiences moves humanity forward" which sounds really nice, but still tells me absolutely nothing about what the platform actually is/does.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#3Tangent - Can someone please explain to me what medium is? It seems like it's the new svbtl, but I'm not quite sure if it's a collection of individual blogs, a curated selection of posts or an open community platform. Their home pages ( https://medium.com ) states "Sharing ideas and experiences moves humanity forward" which sounds really nice, but still tells me absolutely nothing about what the platform actually is/…
I consider Medium a new way of writing articles with some insight, instead of tutorials and online findings. I'm thinking of using it for the sole purpose of getting my opinions out in the open.
Medium only comes with a simple editor with minimal formatting options and you can push your posts into "Collections", by either yourself or by other people. With that you can create lists of articles about things that are related to each other.
I only just got into it, so I can't really say what the main focus is, but that's what I think.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#4Tangent - Can someone please explain to me what medium is? It seems like it's the new svbtl, but I'm not quite sure if it's a collection of individual blogs, a curated selection of posts or an open community platform. Their home pages ( https://medium.com ) states "Sharing ideas and experiences moves humanity forward" which sounds really nice, but still tells me absolutely nothing about what the platform actually is/…
How about first link from Google when asked your question? ;) http://gizmodo.com/5935016/what-is-medium
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#5The vast vast majority of interesting technical work is done in large organizations, or at least organizations that have enough people that you're not "picking your clients". Small companies that have genuinely interesting work are sadly the exception rather than the rule. Many of those small organizations support themselves with DARPA R&D contracts or the like.
If you really care about interesting work and colleagues, there never a cut and dried answer about small vs large organizations. Ever.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#6Tangent - Can someone please explain to me what medium is? It seems like it's the new svbtl, but I'm not quite sure if it's a collection of individual blogs, a curated selection of posts or an open community platform. Their home pages ( https://medium.com ) states "Sharing ideas and experiences moves humanity forward" which sounds really nice, but still tells me absolutely nothing about what the platform actually is/…
How about first link from Google when asked your question? ;) http://gizmodo.com/5935016/what-is-medium
Even that link concedes - "There's really nothing new about Medium."
I'm really not trying to hate on Medium - it looks really clean, but I'm just trying to figure out it's placement in the content publishing space.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#7I have worked as a software developer for a very large company (Ericsson) for nine years, and for smaller companies (Tilgin, Symsoft) for eleven years, and I too prefer small companies.
The biggest difference for me is the impact ypou have. In a small company, your own contribution is a much larger part of the total output, and that is very satisfying. Frequently it also means faster turn-around time - what you do gets deployed much quicker.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#8The vast vast majority of interesting technical work is done in large organizations, or at least organizations that have enough people that you're not "picking your clients". Small companies that have genuinely interesting work are sadly the exception rather than the rule. Many of those small organizations support themselves with DARPA R&D contracts or the like. If you really care about interesting work and colleague…
I do agree with you on the fact that the most interesting technical work is indeed done in large organizations, but it has (at least in my own experience) always been the case that the companies strive to get lots of clients instead of trying to choose the ones where they think they could do something awesome with. You know?
I suppose I came out a bit aggressive on the fact that it's about small vs. large organizations only, but this was just my own personal opinion based on (only) a few years of experience in the field.
I'm not ruling out large organizations, and large organizations can also be all up for the new and interesting stuff, but that's not the case in the bureaucracy companies (which I'm ruling out) where everyone is stuck to the standard in-house CMS, programming language, or framework.
There's always exceptions to every rule. I agree with that.
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#9[deleted]
Re: I don't want to work for a big company
#10One thing I've noticed about large organizations is that they pay more. Pay is set in a structured way with regular pay rises, so you can just sit tight and watch it rise.
Additionally, you can move around without leaving the company. Why is that important? Check the graph from the long term unemployment article[1]. Personally, I like to move every 2 years, so that's kind of important.
I'm going to write about something of personal interest now. Downvote away. It's a bit UK specific.
Something I've noticed, looking at the people I graduated with 8 years ago, is that the ones who have done well went to work for large companies. They did a grad scheme, stayed in the role after it had finished, and just sat tight, maybe moving a couple of times within the company.
They earn a multiple of those that didn't - the PHDs, sure that's expected, but also much more than the freelancers and those who have hopped between small programming houses. Certainly more than people who did something fashionable, like fashion, the arts, or teaching English abroad.
The funny thing is that those left behind don't have an opportunity to get on that gravy train now. Grad programs are for recent graduates. Experienced hires from companies the recruiter has heard of get first place.
Another effect (an this is UK specific) has been in mortgages. Since 2008, you need to save maybe 70k dollars in order to get one. That's a full years pay for a software engineer. 4 if you count tax. But rents are double or triple mortgage interest, so unless you already have one, you won't save that.
So we have this widening wealth gap between those who got onto, and stayed in, a graduate program 2008, and the rest. It will really be quite something in future.
The BBC did some analysis where they collected data about the population (wealth, cultural signifier), and clustered it. They found 7 distinct clusters, and decided to invent a new 'social class', called 'emergent service workers'. This turned out to mean 'young people who graduated since 2008'. I suspect they will be a generation of lifetime renters, doing similar jobs for a little less money than their peers 2 years older (starting salary has a compounded effect, and is suppressed by maybe 1/4 right now).
I don't really see this in the press. As usual, they don't notice things.
We live as ever in interesting times.
[1]http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/LongTer... [2] www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/class
