"is a digital marketing company the place for keen developers?" I think you cannot pre-judge based on industry/type of company.
I currently work for one of the largest broadcasters in the UK. They say they are agile but internally, they are not. However, I worked in another division of the same company a few years ago and it was the most cutting-edge, agile environment I have ever worked in and I learned loads. This time last year I had just joined a finance payments company whose sole reason for being was the software they developed. It was pure waterfall, code and fix, throw more offshore resource - type place. I hated it and vowed only too work for agile companies going forward. I joined my current company, assuming they 'got' agile and now, even though I have made some changes for the better, I have decided to move on and look for a truly agile company. Now the issue then became how to know a company is truly agile before you get there. My plan is to interview THEM. I'm working on a list of questions to ask to truly get to understand whether they 'get' it or are just giving it lip service. Sorry for the ramble, but this thread came along at a coincidental moment with deciding to look for another contract, reading James Shores' diary (recommended) and Martin Fowlers' statement ringing in my ears: "Change your organisation or change your organisation". Rakesh On 1 December 2011 21:57, Marco F. <zentrop...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > this may sound yet-another venting kind of post, and if it does sound like > that to you, please stop reading. sorry to waste time. > > if you're still here, good… i'll try not to wast too much of your time. > > i'm a java developer at a big international digital marketing firm. > i've been working here for 14 months now. > > before this, i was a java developer at another big and international digital > marketing firm. > worked there for 2 and half here. > > (before that, i worked for accenture for a short while. it was my first job > ever after university). > > i grew a lot (professionally) working for these 2 firms mostly from > "passing-by" mentor-workmates (was never enrolled a single course or workshop > or anything). > but i've always been the youngest (31) and so I was always on the developer > side rather than the architect one. fine. > > both companies seriously look the same when it comes to the > non-creative-fluffy-marketing work. > > i feel like i've been working on the same project! > it was either: > - the same old CMS (i dare you name one that's sleek, light and has a great > UI), > - soap-ws to allow third party to use our services and do stuff, > - (recently) a very nice RESTful application (it basically replace the > previous one). > > i tend to be a very active professional, so during these years, i've been the > one saying "hey let's try nosql!" or even "let's switch to logback" and so on. > > success rate? zero. > > so lately i've been feeling very frustrated. > looks to me like tech dpt. of companies like these does not want to focus on > being innovative and one step ahead of the usual system integrators. > > i told my boss we should be focusing on doing cutting-edge stuff like > tweet-monitoring and social stuff integration or HTML5 craziness but what did > i get? "yeah sure…. now update those two users emails on production db and > check on that tomcat… we'll talk about that later". > > recently, i've been studying a lot on many different areas (tdd, agile, > responsive web design and so on). > all of this was done at home or stealing time from stupid (yes, i mean it) > tasks that could be automated but no one has ever asked my team to do. (we > seriously manually update users' emails) > > so i'm asking, is this a common situation in companies like these? > feels like when technology is not core-business (which is very arguably the > case, if you ask me) tech dpt. lack its necessary push to go forward. > > what's even worse is that tech guys dry out an die inside and so newcomers > only "normally interested" in what's going on like me end up like the only > luke skywalker at a star wars themed party. > > i have been contacted by so many consulting firms, but i do like hanging > around creative guys, producing stuff for the web and seeing the whole > structure. i'm sure these firms would push the pedal more on what i might be > doing (four letter: java) but i'm afraid i'll miss the photoshop layers and > hexadecimal colors. > > sorry to have bothered you. > > -m > > ps: the posse's always an inspiring thing. thank you guys. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. 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