Software Engineering – Week the Twelfth
This past week, a former student of Downing’s and employee of a company called The Zebra came to talk about his experience of the software development process. After talking about the benefits of code review he told us about his software development history. He had interned at a large company (Amazon, if I recall correctly), then worked for a smaller company and now works for a tiny company. Explaining that age had a lot to do with the best fit of size, I became intrigued by his insight. The following is my assessment of the general gist. I have used my imagination to fill in many of the details not provided by our guest speaker.
Small means risky. It also means rewarding. However, most of all it means you can exercise a wide range of skills by working on the full stack of software. In web-tech this means both backend and front-end. Additionally there’s more control over planning decisions–essentially taking on the role of a project manager as well as an engineer. Apart from long nights spent hopping from one type of role to another, this builds a skill-set which will serve wherever you’re interested in specializing later on. I say ‘later on’ because it’s probably not the easiest life being a jack-of-all-trades for your entire life. Specialization, but not myopic specialization is good. If you can see the rest of the world but are a badass at one field, then there’s nothing you can’t tackle.
As life progresses and hair begins to thin, a stabler situation is needed. The spouse might want you to have health insurance for when you get antibiotic resistant pneumonia when working 23 hour nights in a cold office (disclaimer: you should never actually lack health insurance if you can help it). Your affections turn toward mid-size companies. These companies are small enough to know your boss and get input, but also large enough to provide good pay and benefits. At this company, the learning will continue–perhaps not as fast as at the start-up but it will continue nonetheless. Like an overfed catfish in a pond, this larger pond starts to seem smaller as your accomplishments, like breadcrumbs, bloat your body.
Finally, animal control determines that the pond is too small for your graying fish-body. Retirement plans flirt with your mind as you accept the power of sitting outside on warm days with cold tasty mixed-drinks and actually starting to stop to enjoy life. But the onslaught must continue. You haven’t been polishing your now-platinum brain for nothing. You’re ready to take things to the next level. You’re ready to be hired as a super-specialist by a large company. Plenty of pay. Plenty of benefits–you can finally afford that cosmetic surgery you’ve been avoiding for the past 10 years. The catch? …well, you have to show up for work. By this point, just having you around is an asset: you’re that cool.
4/13/2014