Dream company… or not?
Sometimes people want to work in the big one. Yes, that global company that has a lot of projects and seems to be very nice. But, do you know what’s about the behind work? How is the culture? And, how could that company boost your career? (or not?).
The big company
Nowadays, there are a ton of tech companies working on several kinds of projects, with a high demand of engineers as developers, tech leads, testers, etc… Most of them present reasonable offer letters, flexible time, healthy life balance, and other perks that could catch your attention, but not everything looks and feel adequate when you’re close enough and not everything is completely true. It’s a fact that those companies have an extensive client portfolio covering projects in different areas, and you could get fascinated by the salary and benefits. Despite last year, I learned a lot of lessons about culture, quality development, good practices, and something I find crucial, roadmap.
I started my career working for startup companies, mainly in mobile projects as Android Developer; fortunately, they had a good culture about constant learning and tech growth, so that helped me to improve my hard and soft skills, while I tried to keep looking for new tech updates applying most recent tech stuff. Working in that environment was an excellent complement for growth purposes and gave me the perspective of work-life balance; until I realized that I was supporting the company doing my best and scaling to the next rank, without good compensation. I reached that point in life where everyone wants to get their stuff, cover their new adult needs and be independent. Then, I felt unbalanced in a professional context: with high skills but low rewards. So, I decided to talk about it with those bosses, and they ended up making promises that never came into reality. Long story short, I left the company and, there was when my most important lesson and adventure started.
I was impressed when seeing the market offers related to my engineering profile. There were a lot and well-paid jobs, so I decided to apply to different ones and in a few weeks got hired. I moved to a new city and started a banking-related project. The app seems cool (just as an outside view) and, I had high expectations because it was a big project in a big company… (ha!). Then I got introduced to project architecture, code structure, and workflow and, I couldn’t believe how flawed it was!. The team didn’t care about the quality. They were still using old tech and were frightened of adopting new technologies (Really?!). They said they were puritans of agile methodologies but didn’t know how to implement it, had awful estimations, and leaders weren’t leaders, just old school bosses. Career path didn’t exist there. Yeah, the salary was far better, but only that. At that moment, I began to understand what matters.
Several months passed and, I was still working on the banking project, implementing some new features and fixing bugs mostly of time, in a “SCRUM” team where most of them didn’t know the workflow. I had the feeling of no progress in my tech career. Sure, working in a large corporate was a different experience, bigger teams, more law perks (some cases), fancy offices, but that wasn’t what I was looking and chasing for. So I decided to stop my self-sabotage by finding that balanced company with a friendly culture, growth, and good pay.
During my research, I found a startup company looking for a mobile engineer. I applied to the position and, since the beginning interview, I could see the culture of growth encouragement and teamwork. In the challenge project, they evaluated good practices, architecture, and what kind of technologies I knew and applied. Also, the pay was regarding the level of seniority I had (Finally!). I got hired and, once I started working on the project everything felt better: great teammates, clean code, quality, most-recent tech, agile framework… I finally found the balance.
Experience those different perspectives gave me a better overview of the tech industry, what you can find outside, but most importantly, I discovered what I want in the medium-term for my career and personal life. My path became more visible and got a little more sense.
Set your roadmap
At beginning of your career is possible you haven’t defined the path you want to road in the next years, if your case is the opposite, you’re doing very well.
The tech industry has a lot of focus areas and is constantly growing, so, is important to aim at the objective point you want to hit and get expertise.
So maybe you should ask yourself the following questions:
- What is your expertise area? ¿Mobile, Web, QA, Data analysis?
- What position visualizes yourself in the coming two or five years?
- What kind of work culture do you like?
- What is your kind of workflow in a project?
I think those questions could help you define short or medium-term goals and, allow you to visualize a path to follow up. But, to level up your career or your personal life, there are needed specific steps to be performed. If you want to become a tech lead, what skills do you need to develop? If you would like to scale up your seniority, what topics do you need to master? So, you should consider the following:
- Which soft skills and hard skills do I need to improve or acquire?
- What are those opportunity areas I need to focus on?
- Do I need specific certifications?
- What do I need to do to reach my previously defined goals?
The thing is defining objectives.
Enjoy what you do, rewards are included
The most important (at least for me) is to enjoy the activities you’re doing, to feel connected with the project, business idea, and the team. If what you do makes you feel well, challenged, and leveling up your skills, maybe there is the right place. When you like the project, app, system, or whatever you’re working on, then it’s easier to face challenging situations, understand the business model, and also feel confident by supporting with innovative ideas that could boost the project.
Rewards and compensation? They arrive on their own.
Final thoughts
There’s a large number of big companies offering projects such as warm bread. You could get attracted by the remuneration they offer but keep open eyes and criteria according to what you are looking for. So, first, define the goals you want to reach and take decisions that can lead you to get needed results and experiences. Keep learning and educating yourself. That is what most companies with a growth culture want. A “Small” company does not mean small projects, non-scalability, or not growing. Sometimes is the opposite.
What kind of experiences have you had?
Thanks for reading!
