I had an interesting conversation today: a friend of mine, who works as a software developer in Paris, told me that although the application he is working on didn’t quite work perfectly yet, his boss wanted to release it, i.e. integrate my friend’s application into the ERP of their client ASAP. The application is ready, but it hasn’t gone through the whole quality checking pipeline. According to the boss, the reason why the application should be integrated is that “a one-year old planning said so”. Allright, but the project was postponed by 2 months in between…So, since the application still needs two more weeks of testing (outsourced), my friend is on time with developing his software.

Trying to give some advice, I asked my friend to prepare a small document about the cost of non-quality, and try to convince his boss, using to the actual document, that non-quality is one of the worth things in any project. Imagine the software works perfectly: fine, perfect. And altough the IT services company my friend works for would’ve taken a risk, nobody would notice.

But then, and this is far from unlikely, imagine my friend’s application has a bug or worse, provokes a crash of their client’ system. Not only both my friend and his boss would lose their jobs, they might also lose a key account (the client is a major international bank), a project audit team would come on board, another software developer would be hired to dive into the code, find its shortcomings, and send it for a thorough (and costly since it’s outsourced) quality checking. All in all, the client would’ve to pay for a second integration. Nobody would be happy, that would be a disaster: a lose-lose deal.

Bottom line: I suggested to my friend that he didn’t accept, under any condition, to release his piece of software before the quality checking process is over, but also that he changes boss as soon as he can. His company’s reputation + his client’s business + himself are worth much more than his boss’s ego.

Another call to Tech IT Easy’s faithful readership. Your advice will be as usual most appreciate (in case you didn’t notice, I’m starting to use this blog as a free advisor, consultant and – soon to come , psychiatrist).

Here’s my story:

I’ll be entering the job market in about 6 months from now: I’m slowly starting to look for 4-to-6 months internships potentially leading to full-time job offers. Since it’s been quite a while that I’ve been thinking about my career options and entrance into the world of work, I’m facing a dilemma most of you, experienced readers, probably know about: do I want it big or small?

No, no, you didn’t quite get it. Or perhaps should I say that I didn’t make sure I made my point.

Should I go for a big company, or a middle-sized one?

I’m obviously not talking here about an elephant vs. an ant, but more of a shark vs. a gazelle; which means that one of my criteria when thinking about applying to big corporations is their dynamism, ambition to remain a leader, and vision. By the same token, a middle-sized company has to be growing at an at least 2 digits rate to be of an interest to me: grow with a growing company should empower me with positive skills and mindset much more than declining with an elephant, or living the boring life of an ant (and I apologize to my friends ants reading this blog).

In a small but fast growing start-up, I would certainly interact more with the entrepreneurs, and grow with the company. In case I prove myself to be both competent and committed to the mid-run success of the company, and I sure will do my best to match these criteria, I could also land quite a nice responsibility level within 2/3 years. Furthermore, I may have a deeper and faster impact on the company, pretty logical. However, small and fast growing companies are be definition not brands yet. Start-ups lack international visibility and brand recognition, which may damper, for instance, ambitions to secure a managerial position elsewhere, maybe abroad in the Silicon Valley or Israel, after, say, 5 years on the job: if I were a headhunter willing to avoid risk, I would certainly hire this IBM executive over this start-up manager. Common sense. Last thing, there’s small, and small: 5 doesn’t equal 40. A 40-strong company is actually 8 times bigger than a 5 headed one, and both are called small…

In a big but dynamic corporation like CISCO, Dell, CSC, Oracle, Microsoft, HP or IBM, I would learn proven methodologies, work with bright people, get to know how to deal with big corporations (in case I need to sell them something later on in my life), probably get a lot of exposure to international business and the long-term industry trends. BUT big organizations may easily be political, and although I believe many jobs are quite fun (it’s my job to find them!), the relative level of responsibility and potential impact I may have on the firm will mathematically be lower than if I were working for a smaller company. Do you dare asking why? Read Czech novelist Kafka again: bulgarian bureaucracy, red tape, administrative burden.

Right now as I’m writing this post (and it changed 2 minutes ago), I’m sitting on the ‘big and dynamic company’ side of the fence: I’m thinking of joining a world leading player for 4/5  years; then, at a managerial position, a smaller and fast-growing venture for 2 years, to be ’scaled up’ and ready enough to either buy out some company on the market or create my own business. The problem is that I’m changing my opinion everyday. What would you do?

Where would you stand? I’m sure you’ve experienced such dilemmas, and I’d be glad to see you share your experience on Tech IT Easy. Such exchanges could benefit other students-soon-to-enter-the-stadium in the future, for the sake of Humanity (that’s where the psychiatrist thing comes in).