I thought working for a reasonably large tech company would be insightful. This would be an opportunity to make leaps and bounds in my knowledge and ability. I expected to learn some “secrets” about how successful companies manage themselves and how employees contribute to their company. I pictured a summer where I got to perform well and feel great while doing so. Unfortunately, I neither felt accomplished, or any more knowledge than before the summer began.
The Experience
I had a lot to do at the beginning of the summer. To become effective on my team I had a lot to learn. Every day consisted of many diagrams, questions, lectures, and a lot of unclear responses that took time to digest. I enjoyed this stage very much. There was always something to do and an obvious path to follow that always led to more work. However, my undying curiosity slowly wore out as I started to see some patterns. Recycling old products results in “fresh” products, revolutionary projects do not meet the “criteria” to be pursued, and priorities do not reflect the mission. The day began to go by a lot faster as less and less got done.
The lack of innovation broke my heart. Recycling ancient product lines takes priority over exploring new technology to develop truly superior products. Instead of discovering future capabilities through research, products created by other corporations are bought for the customer. Better approaches seemed so obvious at first that I began to question the thoughtfulness and standards accepted at the company. Too many deliveries to the customer do not get created internally. Outsourced products cost shocking amounts of money despite the imperfect solutions with unreliable support to fix issues. Management consistently struggles to obtain fixes for systemic problems from outside companies. Implementation of cover ups in internal products takes the place of proper solutions from contracted products.
A handful of projects were exploring the capabilities of the company to advance the industry. However, there were always excuses for why the industry did not accept the new innovations being proposed. Customers can’t move in a more innovative direction without risking safety and reliability. There is no motivation to accelerate the advancement of the industry because every single customer is satisfied with the what exists. The story is that the customer is scared of moving to a radically new product. But I believe no one is willing to go through the hard work of coming up with an improved solution that’s wildly different and provides an amazing experience because it’s so much work. Huge company’s take control of the industry preventing small start-ups to clear a niche.
Almost every day feels like a waste of time despite all of the opportunities I see for my future here. One of the first days a couple of engineers were bullshitting when they got onto the topic of their careers. I started asking some questions when one shared that in hindsight, he would do things a lot differently. This got me thinking a lot about what I really want to do in life and what my future could look like. Weeks into the summer I could not understand his essential role to this company. Seeing someone with no passion perform so well confused me even more. This man developed so much content and supported the company so well it blew my mind. But the company continues to provide just enough to meet the customers expectations.
Reflection
Price’s Law gives insight into large companies: the square root of the employees perform half of the work. For example, a 225 person company likely has 25 people performing half the work. I never fully absorbed this concept until I began to see it in person. Watching smart and talented people slave away for similar compensation as their useless peers destroys my confidence in this system. However, 10-year employees have a significant advantage over new hires. Approaching a problem requires a full understanding of the business dynamics and all the systems at play. Learning the workplace environment takes years longer than it should due to the lack of documentation and tools to properly train employees.
The idea of job security and the promise of a paycheck every two weeks sounds amazing. However, watching smart people with lives dedicated to a company has left me to question this norm. I believe a career all about something other than myself would leave me both painfully unsatisfied and overwhelmingly regretful. Imagining a future in the position of my coworkers terrifies me. Restricted to weekends and a couple hours a day for chasing what I love has led me to search for something better.