Observations Of A Newbie
or my first week outside a big blue corporate suburbian office.
(OK so only 4 days so far, I allowed myself one day off between jobs).
On the work side……
A company can actually work and make progress without loads of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms), they actually talk in words here rather than code (I don’t mean meaning the software type) and it does make things easier to understand!
The problems are the same, the challenges are different. What I mean by that is here, as I suspect in every software development team, we wrestle with the same fundamentals, what should we produce to make money, how do we decide which of the (too) many requirements on the list should we do (MVP anyone?), how do we balance our limited resources between the current products/opportunities and the future ones & how do you get developers to write any bl**dy thing down! ;o) However the challenges in tackling those problems are different; resources are limited, but in a different way, they just don’t exist, you want more resources you have to go hire them from the big wide world and that takes a while. The world is your oyster, there are no sibling parts of the organisation that restrict what market you target or how you approach it, but the world is your oyster; so how do you decide which area of the sea you want to go play in, given that your customers are invariably pulling you in a number of wide directions (no change there then) without trying to boil the ocean and therefore invariably failing. The approaches and thinking to solve these is, I would say the same, but how you go about executing in those is different….. And it can definitely be in a good way, for instance 2 functions not agreeing on an approach? Let’s talk, a handful of us, and decide, and we can decide because they is not a higher up version of the function, there is not wider politics, escalation hits its ceiling pretty fast….. there is just the few decision makers in this conversation, here and now, so we decide and then we get on with it.
The uniform of the Software Engineer exists everywhere, I did kinda know this but I thought *maybe* just 10 minutes walk from Bank working with a company built on the bucks of financial institutions that the suits might get a look in, but no, the cult of development is stronger than any institution. Don’t get me wrong the sales guys are in suits, and I am sure a customer visit may warrant dusting one off, but on a day to day basis jeans are omnipresent. This does at least mean I get to keep my habit of Dress Down Fridays, I know, I know, why not the other 4 days odd-ball, but then it has been a number of years since anyone actually let me near a code base, so any description of me as Software Engineer would have to be pre or post fixed with the word Manager!. And the only time I did pretty much have to wear jeans everyday…. they just don’t do smart casual in Canada…. I struggled with not being able to come home at night and shed my work ‘skin’, somehow that doesn’t seem to be such an issue on a Friday, maybe the glass of wine or gin is the demarcation instead ;o)
There is no escaping the shift to Git…. seriously is there anyone out there not doing it even for some small sub projects!
On the personal side…..
The move from the very picturesque Hursley Park, 20 mins down the road to commuting to and working in the city was always going to be a big change. South West Trains kindly reminded me that it is a serious commute I am doing, by on my very first day having ‘signal problems’ at Clapham meaning we sat quietly contemplating life, the universe & everything just outside Waterloo for 25 minutes on the way home. The third day excitement was a canceled train, but given it was the night of high winds I guess you have to give them that one and the next train arrived with load of seats so I can’t complain too much.
Kinda surprised at the number of folks in the city smoking…. on my brisk morning walk to and from Bank that I was intending to be healthy, I always seem to be stuck behind someone “having a fag” with of course the accompanying sods law that where ever I move to so does the smoke.
I must admit to so far basking in the lack of general process and security paranoia (I can unlock my iPhone in less than an essay/minute now!!!) …… although I suspect that might change when I try and do something horrible complex and find I am on my own to sort it.
When you are in an organisation an org chart seems like a redundant piece of paper An org chart of some sort is incredibly useful for a new employee to know roughly who is who, what they look like and who on earth to ask those burning questions of!
and where does everyone go to on a Friday? Seats on the train in, straight onto the first Waterloo-City tube (usually it is at least the second if not the third by the time there is a small Nickie sized shape for me…. and it is not more that the size of the person in it ;o) ) and minimal dodging of people walking down Moorgate.
Anyway enough observing for now, time for that glass of wine!
