This is a sort of rebuttable post to Ahmet’s, since I believe many people in tech don’t give the path at larger corporations an honest chance- they don’t leave their pre-conceptions at the door. If you join a large company, understand that it is okay, and that they are shipping code to customers that pay them :). Below I will summarize the past year I had working for BlackBerry which has been an awesome ride, much different then Ahmet’s.
1. You may not get your hand held
My experience may be unique, but personally this is what made my time over the past year so exciting and awesome: no hand holding. Large corporations have the ability to “test” you without need for the shipping product. Before you arrived they functioned- they will continue to function after you leave. This allows them to put you into situations where you can prove your worth. As you start to show your worth, your responsibilities will increase.
2. The problems I worked on were awesome
I spent time touching all facets of code. I was able to start on our Cordova/PhoneGap competitor called WebWorks. As I grew internally I was able to move down some layers into our “Webplatform” and then into the Native side of our WebKit port. There are days I am amazed I was allowed to touch some facets I could. Perhaps this speaks to my team being former Torch mobile guys- which makes the work environment not only slightly competitive, you are also surrounded by very very smart people who have written lots of code.
3. You actually have to write code
One of the things I have been bothered with recently in University circles and the start-up scene is the advertisement of “quality of life”; campus pictures seem to depict more beer drinking then working. As a profession we get paid well- we should reward this pay with hard work. For myself this meant writing lots of code. No, we didn’t spend hours in front of the foosball machine which was probably more of an ornament in the office- we spent hours writing code, figuring out requirements, and attempting to test the crap out of the BlackBerry 10 Browser and the Web run time. I’m not saying that people don’t do this- but let us all just take a minute and be real about our working days.
4. Yes process and systems actually do matter
You know that startup that just advertised for a ninja that can hack and do backflips? Well they may very well die- in the process of this death you may or may not learn how to actually write proper software. The awesome part of a larger organization with real customers that actually bitch (imagine someone complaining about a BlackBerry! Insanity!) is that you get to learn from seasoned professionals how to build real software that works. Then once it works, you have to make sure it can be maintained. Then once it is being maintained, you must have had foresight in your API design for the future. Once you are adjusting the API you need to update the code already in production or “shipped” to phones. Now after this process- nothing can break. These lessons are not small. I consider myself lucky to have seen them firsthand. The value of this process was more then money to me, it was the true education I couldn’t get in school. I hope your startup helps you learn them as well.
5. Big Companies are Big
Large organizations have by definition many many employees; this usually means they have lots of customers, and generally lots of money. You can make the decisions for yourself what this means to you. One could adopt a view of “getting lost” or on the contrary they could imagine the amount of impact that is possible through the large reach you have. Perhaps starting low, one could climb or assume a position that has a large impact on the organization. Sure, I’ve heard the arguments that we don’t want to wait- believe me I feel your pain- but we must acknowledge that we have much to learn, and we can have large impact if we align ourselves properly.
6. You probably are the entitled brat your parents see you as
I consider this a valuable learning experience. It is easy to think of ourselves as gods of code- but we must heed this mindset and see our labour as a team effort put forward to solve a common goal- not our individualistic ideas.
Conclusion
I suppose I need to wrap things up a bit. I think we all need to realize that disruption is good- but let’s be serious about this. You can either choose that path and start a business; or, your can work for someone else. When you choose the path working for someone else, we need to remember that there have been many before us. We need to have realistic and positive expectations. We should not berate, or marginalize the things or system that are in place. Constructive goals are reached through a nudge not a kick. We are getting paid to find solutions and not to criticize.
Don’t expect to know everything overnight, the journey is long, nobody else will tell you this. MVP’s, all night hacking sessions and the likes all bring forward this idea that a browser can be built in an afternoon…oh wait…errr…what is this? webview = new WebView(); oh shit, okay so maybe it can. Okay, I take it all back, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, maybe we can just go hack up an app and take over the world.
–Happy Coding
In 12 Months at BlackBerry, I learned these things
This is a sort of rebuttable post to Ahmet’s, since I believe many people in tech don’t give the path at larger corporations an honest chance- they don’t leave their pre-conceptions at the door. If you join a large company, understand that it is okay, and that they are shipping code to customers that pay them :). Below I will summarize the past year I had working for BlackBerry which has been an awesome ride, much different then Ahmet’s.
1. You may not get your hand held
My experience may be unique, but personally this is what made my time over the past year so exciting and awesome: no hand holding. Large corporations have the ability to “test” you without need for the shipping product. Before you arrived they functioned- they will continue to function after you leave. This allows them to put you into situations where you can prove your worth. As you start to show your worth, your responsibilities will increase.
2. The problems I worked on were awesome
I spent time touching all facets of code. I was able to start on our Cordova/PhoneGap competitor called WebWorks. As I grew internally I was able to move down some layers into our “Webplatform” and then into the Native side of our WebKit port. There are days I am amazed I was allowed to touch some facets I could. Perhaps this speaks to my team being former Torch mobile guys- which makes the work environment not only slightly competitive, you are also surrounded by very very smart people who have written lots of code.
3. You actually have to write code
One of the things I have been bothered with recently in University circles and the start-up scene is the advertisement of “quality of life”; campus pictures seem to depict more beer drinking then working. As a profession we get paid well- we should reward this pay with hard work. For myself this meant writing lots of code. No, we didn’t spend hours in front of the foosball machine which was probably more of an ornament in the office- we spent hours writing code, figuring out requirements, and attempting to test the crap out of the BlackBerry 10 Browser and the Web run time. I’m not saying that people don’t do this- but let us all just take a minute and be real about our working days.
4. Yes process and systems actually do matter
You know that startup that just advertised for a ninja that can hack and do backflips? Well they may very well die- in the process of this death you may or may not learn how to actually write proper software. The awesome part of a larger organization with real customers that actually bitch (imagine someone complaining about a BlackBerry! Insanity!) is that you get to learn from seasoned professionals how to build real software that works. Then once it works, you have to make sure it can be maintained. Then once it is being maintained, you must have had foresight in your API design for the future. Once you are adjusting the API you need to update the code already in production or “shipped” to phones. Now after this process- nothing can break. These lessons are not small. I consider myself lucky to have seen them firsthand. The value of this process was more then money to me, it was the true education I couldn’t get in school. I hope your startup helps you learn them as well.
5. Big Companies are Big
Large organizations have by definition many many employees; this usually means they have lots of customers, and generally lots of money. You can make the decisions for yourself what this means to you. One could adopt a view of “getting lost” or on the contrary they could imagine the amount of impact that is possible through the large reach you have. Perhaps starting low, one could climb or assume a position that has a large impact on the organization. Sure, I’ve heard the arguments that we don’t want to wait- believe me I feel your pain- but we must acknowledge that we have much to learn, and we can have large impact if we align ourselves properly.
6. You probably are the entitled brat your parents see you as
I consider this a valuable learning experience. It is easy to think of ourselves as gods of code- but we must heed this mindset and see our labour as a team effort put forward to solve a common goal- not our individualistic ideas.
Conclusion
I suppose I need to wrap things up a bit. I think we all need to realize that disruption is good- but let’s be serious about this. You can either choose that path and start a business; or, your can work for someone else. When you choose the path working for someone else, we need to remember that there have been many before us. We need to have realistic and positive expectations. We should not berate, or marginalize the things or system that are in place. Constructive goals are reached through a nudge not a kick. We are getting paid to find solutions and not to criticize.
Don’t expect to know everything overnight, the journey is long, nobody else will tell you this. MVP’s, all night hacking sessions and the likes all bring forward this idea that a browser can be built in an afternoon…oh wait…errr…what is this? webview = new WebView(); oh shit, okay so maybe it can. Okay, I take it all back, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, maybe we can just go hack up an app and take over the world.
–Happy Coding
Posted 13 years ago 1 note