Career Advice

Papav3r

Hi guys,

Looking for some advice. I'm a developer with 6+ years experience and just about to complete my masters in Advanced Software Development. I've worked as a full stack web developer for all of my professional career. I've got a solid grounding in PHP, TDD, SASS, Webpack, Javascript and always try and stay up to speed in the latest frameworks and trends involved with those languages React, Vue, Laravel etc. I feel like coming from working in an agency, I'm able to handle tight deadline work and learning new skills and technologies in short periods of time.

I've been with my latest employer for the last 18 months and am starting to lose all motivation with the type of work we're doing.

I'd love to move and work on a product where the deadlines maybe aren't as hectic and more time is afforded to implement best practices. A lot of the time in my current place, it feels like we're patching stuff and moving on to the next fire.

Definitely want to make sure my next role is something that I'm happy in.

Anybody been in a similar situation? Any advice?

Cheers

14ned

Papav3r wrote: »

I'd love to move and work on a product where the deadlines maybe aren't as hectic and more time is afforded to implement best practices. A lot of the time in my current place, it feels like we're patching stuff and moving on to the next fire.

Definitely want to make sure my next role is something that I'm happy in.

Anybody been in a similar situation? Any advice?

Lots of people have asked the same thing on this very forum over many years.

Same reply goes. Very few places in Ireland implement best practice. Everyone's cutting corners and rushing jobs which piles up technical debt. Most management in the Anglo Saxon world prefers to maintain a culture of crisis to "motivate" the workforce through constant panic.

Basically everywhere will be the same, just a question of how awful it's gotten in some given shop. I hate to be so pessimistic, but I'd really say don't sweat it. Work exactly the hours you are paid for. Don't bust your ass on anything. The fact there is constant firefighting is an active and deliberate choice by your management. It's not your problem, it's their choice. So do the best you can do considering and relax and pocket the money. If you ever decide you'd like to formalise the fact you are a disposable worker bee and get paid for that, consider moving into contracting. Else don't worry about it, there are far worse jobs to have.

Niall

Papav3r

Thanks for the reply.

I just can't accept that everywhere will be the same.

14ned

Papav3r wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.

I just can't accept that everywhere will be the same.

I've been twenty years at this and I really would say it is at Anglo Saxon managed shops. There are very occasional exceptions like when I worked at ARM in Cambridge twenty years ago, but they rarely last more than five years before they get bought out and the new owners try to extract "synergies".

Germans and Danish are very different though. French are either amazing or awful, huge gap between best and worst there. Continental management practices are much, much better at long term thinking regarding infrastructure building. As a sweeping generalisation, management cares much more about technical debt and not building it even though they come to market much slower. Also about building stuff to last instead of building a crock of **** to sell to people as fast as possible.

As much as all that sounds wonderful, do bear in mind a senior software engineer in say Germany might earn €45k a year and consider himself well paid. And don't forget more than half of that will go in taxes and other social obligations. We get paid a lot more in Anglo Saxon land for what we do, but with that comes Anglo Saxon management.

Obviously everything I've just said is from a jaded perspective where money and getting paid is for me the single most overwhelming reason I go to work each day. Others may have a more rosy view. But as I mentioned, don't sweat it, there are far worse jobs out there. Just don't ever expect work to be fulfilling, but be glad if it is on a day by day basis.

Niall

dazberry

Papav3r wrote: »

I'd love to move and work on a product where the deadlines maybe aren't as hectic and more time is afforded to implement best practices.

After a run in financials I had a real grass in greener thing going on and thought that if I went to work for a product orientated company that things would be must better - oh how mistaken I was. But the truth is you can never really tell - companies always put forward an image that can be very much at odds with the (dis)organisation inside the walls.

14ned wrote: »

Obviously everything I've just said is from a jaded perspective

I think you'll find a lot of us that long in are a bit jaded, perhaps even a bit burned out and topped with a fair mix of cynicism

14ned wrote: »

As a sweeping generalisation, management cares much more about technical debt and not building it even though they come to market much slower.

I remember years ago getting really frustrated by the lack of interest by management in a move towards "better" practices, I can't conceive now that we didn't even have unit tests for instance, or a proper build process but I was cut down at every turn - there was always some excuse or fabricated reason as to why not. These days I seem to be drowning in best practice, and a lot of those best practices seems to have brought about a level of paralysis towards delivery...

D.

14ned

dazberry wrote: »

After a run in financials I had a real grass in greener thing going on and thought that if I went to work for a product orientated company that things would be must better - oh how mistaken I was. But the truth is you can never really tell - companies always put forward an image that can be very much at odds with the (dis)organisation inside the walls.

At least in finance they do care somewhat about testing and not deliberately riddling your work with bugs from being overly rushed, though by "care" I mean they go through the motions of looking like they care which is better than nothing. At product orientated companies it really can just be ship sh*t as fast as possible to customers too stupid to realise what they're buying. I've seen code intentionally and deliberately written not only with zero testing, but zero error handling and that shipped to customers whilst holding a straight face and they handing you dosh.

I'm generally not in favour of more regulation, but the fact it's not illegal to ship that kind of code in a business to business relationship is morally wrong. The producer is actually genuinely working on the basis that it's more profitable to ship sh*t and get sued for it than deliver not sh*t. Before you suggest that such companies would go out of business, well I ain't seen it yet. It appears to be a business model with some reasonable legs it in somehow. I hate working those contracts though, you feel sick with yourself, but in the end you give the client exactly what they want. It's not your place to argue.

dazberry wrote: »

I remember years ago getting really frustrated by the lack of interest by management in a move towards "better" practices, I can't conceive now that we didn't even have unit tests for instance, or a proper build process but I was cut down at every turn - there was always some excuse or fabricated reason as to why not. These days I seem to be drowning in best practice, and a lot of those best practices seems to have brought about a level of paralysis towards delivery...

There's box ticking best practice and actual state of the art good management. Box ticking best practice takes some fashionable tool or practice like "agile" and shoehorns it badly into existing practice and processes. It's just another way to be even more dysfunctional, which suits most orgs just fine because dysfunctionality always is a choice by management because they prefer it that way. Actual state of the art good management is definitely slow tortoise wins the race, but once you've built an amazing ecosystem around a product or service your productivity for all new work is amazingly high because you're not fighting all that accumulated technical debt with everything you do. The code helps you modify it rather than hinders you.

Niall

Buford T Justice

14ned wrote: »

I've seen code intentionally and deliberately written not only with zero testing, but zero error handling and that shipped to customers whilst holding a straight face and they handing you dosh.

Wow, do you work for my boss?

Despite my persistent moaning about lack of testing on anything that I produce its still shipped, as its cheaper to do this.

Papav3r

I've tried to implement as many best practices as I can in my current role. I've suggested adopting styleguides, universal development environments etc but testing is always the one that we can never seem to fit in.

We've got custom e-commcerce solutions online without a single unit test across them. If I was the lead on our team it would be keeping me awake at night knowing that this but we're constantly told, it's not in the budget.