I am a software engineer with just over 3 full years of experience and have been working for places ranging from small web consulting boutiques to even smaller departments/offices for places that do not deal with software or IT. In some cases I work just alongside my boss, with no other co-workers to get directly in touch with.
For me working in a mostly solitary office environment is not very fitting for me and sort of depressing. Telecommuting from home is a bit different in that I can be more flexible with my hours. But I would want to increase my chances of larger businesses answering to my resumes when most of what I have done is small-scale work for smaller clients.
One thing I like about working in larger departments and businesses is being able to bounce off ideas with many people, but also more importantly, a place where moving ahead does not mean leaving the company. My ideal place of work is in a larger business focused on software but I do not know how to get there.
Your best bet is to find businesses where their main output is software and stalk their pages for job vacancies.
More often than not, software houses are more keen to find excellent programmers as the people they hire are directly responsible for the success of their business. One of the best ways to get noticed as a Software Developer is to keep a record of your code on somewhere like Github and send that along with your resume.
If you want to hire any professional you’d want to see their work first, and the same rings true for programmers. Put a few of your own projects up and spruce them up so that when an employer comes along they’ll be able to see the great stuff you’ve built.
I already have a portfolio so I can probably set up access to some of my code there. I would like to expand my abilities by doing some projects in other languages as well though there must be some way to show I can work in things of a larger scale. Working in a moderately busy environment suits me better than a solitary quiet one, which kills my mood to do work.
I have to disagree on some of the points. I worked for 3 big companies and 1 small one.
Small businesses are willing to take greater risk by trying out new ideas. In big companies… it can get pretty hairy and stupid. For example, a non-technical guy could give directions to what technology to use. If you don’t use it then he’ll find someone who would.
Small businesses are the one that’ll sky rocket your career if everything goes well. These businesses tend to grow exponentially
I definitely do not recommend Telecommuting, even though it sounds really nice!!! In my experience, project tends to lag when it’s not face to face meetings and easily lose focus of the project.
You may think bouncing ideas to bigwigs maybe a good idea but you maybe stepping into political battle w/ someone else. Honestly, if you have great idea then you should pursue it as a personal business… A good example is Google employees. Lots of talents quit…why? their ideas get rejected… too much politics… so they leave and start their own business.
Of course, working for big companies does have great perk!!! like benefits and business trips and etc…
I like bigger places for the social aspect. The last place I worked at only gave me one co-worker that was physically in the same office as I was- my boss. We shared one cubicle in a big room full of unrented cubicles. The place felt very quiet, but tense and dreary. I like it when there are lots of people to share stories and jokes with, there’s more chances of a relaxed environment.
I’m not talking about bouncing ideas to bigwigs, I’m talking about bouncing ideas to technical peers, people on the same page as I or just somewhat above. Also, I am bad at running a business myself.
Of course, working for big companies does have great perk!!! like benefits and business trips and etc…
I prefer big places for this reason as well. My mom also gets upset when they find out I’m not getting health insurance.
Also, a majority of my work is with clients who need someone to maintain/update legacy code, which is proprietary. Someone else that works in the industry has told me that these types of developers are slowly going away in demand, since businesses are getting smarter to realize that there exist many CMSes that they can work on that have more support and faster turnaround time. I have less experience with several popular CMSes. I’ve done Mambo which is already superseded by Joomla, no Drupal whatsoever, and know Wordpress though there’s not much of a demand for it here.
Maybe that’s why I’m only getting attention from small-fry businesses that don’t even know about pre-made solutions and don’t keep up well with our industry. Their management are only concerned with the end result and not the process.
Am I really limiting myself severely by working exclusively with proprietary code? My language of choice is PHP, and at medium and high levels of experience, I think PHP work is supposed to translate easily into doing other PHP work no matter where it’s used.
To me, any business asking me to build on top of CMS is small fries. Then again, CMS is mostly use to advertise their company and possibly make e-commerce site. If you join a company like in banking industry, google, verizon, and etc… they don’t use CMS at all. You need to write code that is at enterprise level that requires server side coding like “PHP”. So, you moving on to CMS maybe disadvantage if you’re going after big fish.
I’ve heard different. From that same person that’s worked in the industry for several years, he’s told me that more and more large companies, and government agencies, are jumping on the Drupal wagon. I wouldn’t consider the White House small fries.
I would consider White House site as a small fries. This is mostly read-only site that can be done w/ CMS and they should use these kind of technology. What I mean by big fish are those that are in million dollar range project and many exceeding in double digit. So, what kind of projects cost that high? Bank web application, Ebay/paypal, Amazon, Department of Defense/Homeland security web applications, Healthcare Web Systems, and etc… There are many projects like these that can not be done in CMS. These are mostly write&read applications. To me, majority of the CMS creates “Web Sites”. If you build using server side language, then most of them are “Web Application”. Guess I should’ve said Web Application is the big fries or fish.
There are only 3 main ways that you get noticed by larger companies, they are:
resume
linkedin
recruiters or word of mouth
And the vast majority of employees are hired because their resume made it to a recruiter. How’s your resume? If you have the skills and experience, getting a great job with a big company that fits you well shouldn’t be too hard!
Are you sure you want to work for a large business?
Small business are far more pleasant to work with, especially in the world of the web. Big companies often dilute their product with red-tape, which has a lot to do with upholding their corporate image.
If you build using server side language, then most of them are “Web Application”. Guess I should’ve said Web Application is the big fries or fish.
CMS’s used server-side languages, I think what you mean it custom coding from the ground up by using a framework. Like your working on a blank canvas. Many companies don’t require this kind of attention, but it’s good to know how to go about it.
Anything that goes outside the scope of a traditional CMS and requires custom coding from the ground-up is considered big fish. Even a open source CMS driven website can cost 10 - 20K, but your proposed system can get much more expensive.
From my experience the large company I worked for lost track of their goals into this corporate world of let me not say. Smaller companies are more individualistic and depends on people’s character, and your bosses too. I would prefer working for a small house rather than a big house. Apart from that you learn more in smaller companies because your expected to know more than one field, were as in larger companies you’re more specified into a specific category.
Again you are generalizing a lot. Take my experience for example:
when I worked for a tiny startup, I did so many things that I wouldn’t have done in a big company. We didn’t have many people so when there was something that needed doing, someone had to break out the books and learn a new skill. Very cool. I learned SO much that way
when I worked for a huge mega-corporation, I did so many things that I wouldn’t have done in tiny company. This company was big enough to win 300 million dollar contracts and I found myself learning how to manage gigantic project for governments, other big corporations, non-profits, etc. that would be out of reach of the smaller shops. Also, it’s hard to get the experience of managing a 200 person team at a 10 person company.
For me, combining them both is what put my career on track to get me where I am today. In my view, it’s not possible to be a truly rounded professional if you have never worked at small companies OR large companies. They both have much to offer.
Personally I worked at a large company, well large for my country, and it was quite bad, so much red-tape that is was not worth considering over. I never worked for a smaller company though, so anything I say about the small-fish might be inaccurate.
You’ve had the benefit of working in both worlds, so you’re very lucky in that fact. It all really depends on the company you’re working for.
I do know many who say big companies are full of BS, so there much be a reason for this, I too found the same complaint about them.
I know it sounds very generalistic, I remember the last time I went to a DrupalCon that one of the speakers said something along those lines too. But like you said, it honestly depends on the company.
Although, I was talking about the White House as a client, not the website. My statement was that large clients that can afford million dollar projects are gravitating more to CMS solutions for content websites and this mini paradigm shift needs to be realized.
So, what kind of projects cost that high? Bank web application, Ebay/paypal, Amazon, Department of Defense/Homeland security web applications, Healthcare Web Systems, and etc… There are many projects like these that can not be done in CMS. These are mostly write&read applications. To me, majority of the CMS creates “Web Sites”. If you build using server side language, then most of them are “Web Application”. Guess I should’ve said Web Application is the big fries or fish.
I was referring to big vs. small in clients, not as in projects. Big clients use CMSes, but as you said, mostly for content. I am fine just building “web sites” and not applications if the names behind them are big.
I think our notions of small and big are different, thus this disagreeing view. To me, small (at least “bad” small) means the IT department is super tiny, or there’s none at all and you’re the only developer working for a business that has no technical savvy. Plus, with no other senior programmers take you under their wing, the job is a dead end in terms of advancement in the technical field.
For me “big” just means big enough in staffing so that you don’t have to quit the company just to get ahead. And at all my jobs, I never had a true feeling of being in a coding team, and I want to experience that.
I’m more cleared on what you mean by Big vs Small client now. Yes, every Big client probably have a CMS for their main site.
If you want to get notice then you should probably contact IT Contractor Company like Northrup Grumman, Accenture, and etc… These guys do hire a independent contractors and you don’t have to be their employee. Many big organizations are tied to 1 contracting company for hiring.
