Programming Chicken in a Programming Cubicle ?

Posted by Nishadha in Sunday, January 27th 2008   under: Miscellaneous    Tags: ,    

Above statement true for Software Engineers working in large organizations ? Well according to the comments made by some in one of my previous articles No Jobs for SLIIT students thats exactly what they are , Programming chicken working in a programming cubicle. Well since I work in a large organization its safe to say I was a bit pissed at that comment. But user comments usually give some nice ideas for posts so I decided give few reasons why I think its good to work in a large organization.

  • In a large organization your job is more secured, mostly they have lots of projects and they plan for one or two years ahead , most small organizations are heavily dependent on customer projects.
  • In most large organizations work is planned , so it is unlikely that a Software Engineer ( SE ) have to put on extra hours , This leave time for personnel development and to mess around with new technologies and etc, etc. I wouldn’t have time for blogging if I’m doing extra hours at the office :) .
  • In large organizations you are exposed to the whole Software Development Life Cycle , From code reviews to quality assurance to functional testing. Being aware of the whole process makes it easier to understand why we need to follow certain standards.
  • In large organizations there are always experienced people around who can guide you , a solution that works is not always the best solution , and having experienced peers around will help you to find that best solution , ultimately making you a better programmer.
  • Then there are the added benefits like Gym facilities, Insurance Coverage which are not available at small companies. Well we have a badminton court and a swimming pool inside our office premises, I doubt you’ll have them in a small company :) .

Well those are the reasons I think its good to work in a large organization. Since I haven’t worked in a small company I cant speak for them. But I doubt you’ll get the above benefits working for a small company. As always feel free to comment on the above , especially if you are in a small organization.

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12 Comments Already.Leaving a comment can give you PR2 back link.

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Chirantha Said,
(Who am I?)
January 27th, 2008 @8:23 am  

Yep , if you can go to a large organization I think thats the best option , Read the previous article as well , dont worry hes a jackass who dont know shit about working in large organizations.

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sldude Said,
(Who am I?)
January 27th, 2008 @10:37 am  

from what i can gather u look like u r working at IFS, which is a great company and if you have just started stay there for abt 5 years more and open your own company that is the way to go if you really do love the work.

i used to work at eRunway before it became Virtusa i had a pretty good salary at that time arnd 1000USD, but i decided to take plunge and start my own thing and ive never looked back, it was hard in the beginning i did struggle for abt one year, but now everything is better than i ever expected it to be, we only employ 20 so it is the small organization that u r referring to, ull have to work a lot harder but the rewards also r much better

dont let the fact that u have a pool at your office be a deciding factor to work at your current place :) cuss even small companies like ours give these facilities to its employees, we of course got a group membership of the fingara club and we even give RS15,000 a month to have a small party and i dont think many of the big companies do that sort of thing on a regular basis

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Niro Said,
(Who am I?)
January 27th, 2008 @1:48 pm  

Hmmm.. Let me explain you my scenario.. Well some of my slBlogs readers know I’m also a director of a very TINY company called Archmage. Well I have worked in virtusa for my placement year. I started my company with four of my friends when I was in my first year of UNI. Now its two years gone.

Well yes small companies cant really give so much facilities like a BIGGY. Ofcause thats why its called SMALL..

Rumbling.. I tend to think more out of the box sometimes.. It’s safe if our only goal is only to have a nice income and live peacefully ever after.. Then safe to work in V or some BIGGY till we die.. Thats acceptable.

But in our life we have to do something nice to our country, Programmers life cannot be only programming. They have to evolved to a multi skilled personal. Software is an art.

* I personally advice anyone If you have any amount of knowledge start a company right now. Its so much of fun.

* I’m telling with my knowledge, this gives so much diversity to your life. I can’t express how much fun we had when we spent nights and code. When its small we built some awesome brotherhood. We enjoy basically.

* I have only one employee except for the partners. Well he call me Niro aiya, That simply tells how we enjoy. He has been in my house (which is the office too) day and night.

* Well in a small company we tend to get more pressure. I know that. We tend to do all the parts of a life cycle here. One person learns all. Thats why I say work in a small company for two years your better than a person worked in V for two years. ( Not in a specific track I mean all round facts. In a BIGGY you learn only few things but DEEP. In small one more things but not that DEEP)

* Best thing is to work few years in a large company, get some self confidence and exporcure and create your own one.

* Well if you ask me what will I do when I get out from UNI. What the hell ! I WANNA TO START MY OWN PERMANATLY. I can’t waste time.. Never ! only problem is start up money. I personally feel we have to have 10 lacks start up if we do it for a living.

*** So guys gather some of your friends use your knowladge start a company. It don’t have to be profitable but it gives more things than money. ***

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Niro Said,
(Who am I?)
January 27th, 2008 @7:08 pm  

Rumbling I think you have fixed the template issue.. awesome..

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sam Said,
(Who am I?)
January 27th, 2008 @9:47 pm  

I don’t want to take the credit for the term “programming chicken in a programming cubicle”. It was said by a M.D of a large company in a private discussion, which some of you even have mention the name of in the last post. At the end of the day, every large organization, not necessarily IT, a worker is just a number and management answer to the share holders – that is the only way it can be managed. And Works, they are easily buyable using things like, lunch, gym, transportation, etc.. And I can remember one time, we gave sandwiches and tea around 4.30, so the programmers won’t be hungry and they will stay longer after 5. And actually it works, and workers were delighted about the free food.

Programmers are always quiet capable of starting holy wars, like php vs .net, mysql vs mssql, and in this case large companies vs small companies. And none of those discussions ever go anywhere. I did not answer to any of the reply in the last post, because mostly all of them talk about assumptions about me, rather than the topic. I’m sure this time too, some may talk about how much asshole am I, than discuss about the topic.

One common factor I have seen numerous times in most of the good programmers are, they always try to start their own small establishment after some time, eventually. And others eventually grow too old in the industry. But Yes. I do agree there are advantages working in large organizations. Sometimes been a chicken is actually a better than been a horse.

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Rakhitha Karunarathne Said,
(Who am I?)
January 28th, 2008 @3:24 am  

I think that insurance coverage part is something you get in every company. To my knowledge it’s a government regulation.

I work in a large organization and here are my reasons.

1. I like to always have a new technical challenge. (Not just the challenge of meeting the deadline). In a large organization there are lots of projects going on which has different challenges and use different technologies. If I feel board about the current project all I have to do is to ask my PM to put me in to a more challenging project.

2. I spend lots of time reading through technical forums, blogs and technical materials to study new technologies as a part of my hobby. I want my job to leave enough time for that.

3. I do quite a number of hobby projects and some of those projects end up being used by the company I work. I want my jobs to leave more time for me to work on my hobby projects.

4. And I enjoy the various facilities given to us by the company but I think that you can get them from any company.

By the way it is quite sad that sam is trying to measure programmers by the number of hours that you are willing to put on. And also it is quite sad that he has not much of knowledge about how human resource is managed in software industry. What sam need to understand is developers in a software industry are not like crowds working in a garment factory (I am not trying to insult any one. I apologize if this statement offends someone). What I am trying to tell is the developers are never handled as a crowd in large organization. They are always handpicked for the projects that they are working on. I know this by my own personal experience. And for large organization like one I work it’s not that easy to hire some one or replace an existing developer. Again I know this by my own personal experience but I am not going to put those stories here because that will make this already too long post even longer.

By the way in case if you don’t know programmers are simple people. They are not motivated that much by salary increments likes other professionals. Free Food, Hardware Upgrades to their PC, Free Books can motivate a good developer way more than an equal amount of salary increment can do (I still remember how I felt when company gave me a brand new 3Ghz comp three years ago).

Here is an article that I came across some time ago. It talks about what motivates a geek.
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878-6131634.html

By the way I have met lots of good programmers and programmers who are better than me and one question I ask most of them is whether they are planning to start a company of their own. I do that because I have than dream and I like to meat people who share the same thing. But most people I meet are not really interested in starting their own companies. And they all have quite valid reasons. Most of the time its because they know the differences of the challenges and kind of projects that they will do as a company will not give them the technical challenge they are looking for. And an incredible number of good programmers that I have met give a higher priority to their personal life than their career (Few years ago I thought that all a good programmer wants to do is to write programs). So I do not believe the dream of starting their own company is a common factor among good developers.

In sams last paragraph he tries again to call those who are not willing to start their own company are chicken. My fried you really have some kind of a personal problem with those who prefer to work in large organizations and prefer to stay in their jobs. In case if you don’t know professional developers do not write code their entire life. After few years of coding they will either move on to play management, design and planning roles of software projects. Some who like to remain as geeks will play the role of researchers.

By the way, this is not a holly war. And don’t try to make it look like one. This is complete about you insulting other people in public without knowing a jack about them. And by the ay this blog is being read by a lot of students and I personally do not want them to be misled by an arrogant asshole (as you have mentioned in your own post) like you.

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rumbling Said,
(Who am I?)
January 28th, 2008 @4:17 am  

sldude,
Its not the pool , its more to do with the freedom I get to do my own stuff

Niro,
Good luck with starting your own company , But you don’t have to start a company to serve your country , and once you get experienced you get involved in other aspects of software management in large companies as well.

About the template issues
original code
(li)
(ul)get_top_comments(/ul)
(/li)

get_top_comments returns a string like below
(li)Rakitha(/li)(li)Niro(/li)…..

so the final structure will look like below
(li)
(ul)
(li)Rakitha(/li)
(li)Niro(/li)
……
(/ul)
(/li)

Replace () with “<>”

hence the list is right aligned making it look ugly in the theme.

I just remove the (li) at the top and (/li) at the bottom and it worked :)

How this worked in the original theme is beyond me.

Sam
I think you have a serious attitude problem , but everyone entitled to their opinions I guess

To All
This post is not intended at criticizing small companies , as its mentioned in the post just my thoughts about why it’s good to work in a large company.

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sam Said,
(Who am I?)
January 28th, 2008 @4:26 pm  

I apologies you, for making you sad. It was not my intention.

Very preciously. They indeed do handpick for special occasions.

If it is difficult to hire a new developer or a replace new developer, do you think the chairman will call up the manager and congratulate him for him tremendous success in delaying the product line? I think not.
Quite agree with the point, developers are easy to satisfy. The theory is, “give them a better looking office space than their homes, and they will stay in the office”. Free food, gym, pool, better computer at office, all part of it.

“Crowds working in a garment factory”. Hmm. Yes. They do generally respect developers better than that, because software development is specialized skill, and it is expensive to train a one. But in principle, both follow similar systematic organization structure. Most of the developers, do not understand the structured framework they live in, until they move all the way to up to management and look down. That is why I still believe the headline express the reality from the top.

If you dismiss what I said, saying “Sam have attitude problem” you shouldn’t have talk about it in the first place. I never have talk about none of you or your experience. I stick in to the topic, which is ‘the laid system from above’ in large organizations. I can’t help it, you guys taking it personally. I have been a programming chicken, programming donkey and a programming horse. I still do enjoy every bit of it. If you guys assume, just because you happened to working in a large organization, if you assume I don’t know a jack about it, you are utterly wrong.

If you take a large organization like Google, still one of their main management challenges is how to operate it as a “small company” with characteristics of a small company. We seen again and again, small companies succeeded tremendously, been creative, and then they turn in to large structured sleeping dinosaurs, where developers put in to candy coated structure.

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sam Said,
(Who am I?)
January 28th, 2008 @4:39 pm  

By the way, it is not my intention to say why it is good to work in a large company or a small company, or not work at all. It is all personal choice. I was expressing my view according to my experience how large organization structured.

If you think your company is not structured in such way, just say – no. my company treats me better and we have freedom to do things the way we like and come up with our own ideas and program things we like. That is about all. You don’t have taken it personally.

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rumbling Said,
(Who am I?)
January 29th, 2008 @3:39 am  

Sam I said you have a attitude problem not only going through this post , but a previous post as well. You get offended when I question your attitude but your quick to judge the attitude of SLIIT students whom you have worked for years and interviewed many as well. According to you SLIIT students have a awful attitude and Rakitha has given a nice link showing the attitude of some others. I suggest you read it.

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sam Said,
(Who am I?)
January 29th, 2008 @3:43 pm  

Rumbling.. Thank you indeed from bottom of my heart. It is so nice to know, all this post about me :) For a minute, I really really thought you are talking about programming and the IT industry, and I was so silly to talk about it too. Forgive me for my ignorance; if I realize earlier, it is me you are interested in I would have talk about me instead. And thank you again for spending your a valuable time in analyzing me. You have a remarkable talent in analyzing and solving issues.

And all the congratulation for, proving SLIIT studding have no what so ever problems and large companies are the diamond of them all just by pointing out my attitude, which you are the first one to discover just like the great discoverer Christopher Columbus. I never saw that coming.

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Niro Said,
(Who am I?)
February 3rd, 2008 @3:27 pm  

Goodness I missed the conversation he he..Guys calm down, lets be professionals.. Don’t take things personal. After all, we all have freedom of expressing our opinions..

Anyhow we cant underestimate Sams, Rumblings or any others opinion. Its all about the dimension you look in to the issue. I feel mentioning attitude problems is not necessary.

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