Another Career Path Thread

[DA-LION-619]

I recently got another job as a contractor which is totally different from my freelance/working remotely gig. I'm in a enterprise environment which vastly differs from the 'start-up' culture I'm used to.

Enterprise:
I thought I'd hate a office job but I work in a relatively stress free environment. I can come into work at anytime and leave at anytime, take a break and go for lunch without needing to explain where I'm going.
My co-workers are cool, there's no office politics. The lead dev is helpful, I work with SSRS so I'm still new to understanding what certain terms in the business mean, like I recently learnt what a 4–4–5 calendar is.

I'm basically there to work and I don't get bogged down in unnecessary meetings, any problems that arise are dealt with so everything moves along efficiently. I recently complained about the lack of RAM in my dev machine and they just ordered me a new workstation.

I do honestly enjoy going to work without the feeling of being forced to be at my desk because of free lunch.
There's a lot of projects going on or that are planned and with my .NET and mobile background I'm probably going to be involved.


'Start-up':
Here I mostly ride solo and work with SMEs, my boss architects the solution and I implement it. I have free reign to do whatever I think is best without needing to worry about technology costs.

Recently things have been ramping up and new projects have come on board, and I need to be more involved on the client-facing side so I'm being flown up to JHB to deal with that in the coming month.


Conclusion
Both employers know about each other and they honestly don't care as long as the work gets done and I'm never disturbed when doing the other's work. I'm almost done with my studies and both are expecting to throw a lot more in my plate and I can only go with one.

My question to the guys that have been in both environments, which offers more growth?

 

[Hamster]

The one where you work with a team in the same office. You need the face to face experience (at first anyway).

 

[DA-LION-619]

The one where you work with a team in the same office. You need the face to face experience (at first anyway).

The 'Start-up' job will basically turn into a full-time thing, I'll have relocate to JHB for it. At the same time I'll also be contracted out to another company(auditors) so that team experience will be there.

 

[Hamster]

Well if that's the case and neither of them involve you sitting at home or soloing code into production:

"Work for a dev house and not in an IT department™"

 

[DA-LION-619]

Well if that's the case and neither of them involve you sitting at home or soloing code into production:

"Work for a dev house and not in an IT department™"

Tried the dev house thing here in Durban, not a good environment.
1. Nobody actually talks, Slack all day which is really weird...
2. Travelling isn't justified nor is moving closer to work.
3. The things they try to do to make you stay at work or socialize, after work drinks etc.

By dev house if you mean work with developers or people who have understanding of code then that's basically covered.

 

[Hamster]

You can't work for one dev house and think they all suck just like you can't work for one enterprise and think there are no politics.

And the socialising thing, yeah, it is a real schlep sometimes. You know what's worse than not grabbing a drink after work every now and again though? Being passed over for awesome projects coming up because you just weren't on the mind of the leads or that other guy that was there happened to stumble across an opportunity during conversation and volunteered for it.

Here is some career advice for you: Your code alone is not gonna cut it. Every second monkey can code and every tenth one of them are reasonably good at it.

And if you think it is unfair to have to socialise every now and again, wait till you see how much brown nosing you need to do to get onto that corporate ladder.

 

[semaphore]

3. The things they try to do to make you stay at work or socialize, after work drinks etc..

**** that.

 

[DA-LION-619]

You can't work for one dev house and think they all suck just like you can't work for one enterprise and think there are no politics.

And the socialising thing, yeah, it is a real schlep sometimes. You know what's worse than not grabbing a drink after work every now and again though? Being passed over for awesome projects coming up because you just weren't on the mind of the leads or that other guy that was there happened to stumble across an opportunity during conversation and volunteered for it.

Here is some career advice for you: Your code alone is not gonna cut it. Every second monkey can code and every tenth one of them are reasonably good at it.

Okay let me rephrase.

Choosing between working with mature technologies with projects that will take 1 - 3 years to be completed or working with the latest and greatest with shorter project time frames?

 

[Hamster]

Okay let me rephrase.

Choosing between working with mature technologies with projects that will take 1 - 3 years to be completed or working with the latest and greatest with shorter project time frames?

I look at it this way: I'm building up a CV so that I can land my "dream job" one day.

You'll need to decide how you want to achieve that. Me, I went after the projects that gave me big company names on my CV and not so much the tech.

 

[Chevron]

Okay let me rephrase.

Choosing between working with mature technologies with projects that will take 1 - 3 years to be completed or working with the latest and greatest with shorter project time frames?

If it was me probably the second.