projanen wrote at 08/20/2010 09:09 PM:
Following Neil's good advice, it's certainly an issue I'll bring up in any future interviews, but the business types won't like it.
Neil V.'s advice is to be careful not to torpedo an interview unless one intends to. :) Any student who sees this should also remember that most every organization -- be it industry, academic, government, military -- will need its employees/members to ultimately bow to the needs and directives of the organization and the chain of command. Academia has Academic Freedom, military has Integrity, politics has Plausible Deniability... but at the end of the day they also need you to get something done. That something, in CS/software, is often an engineering artifact, but not necessarily the holy grail perfect gem of engineering. So if you make the interviewer think that you misunderstand the dynamic, then they might affectionately ruffle your hair like a preciously naive youngster and hire you anyway, or they might have to figure out whether you're a rigorous engineer or a messiah/morale problem waiting to happen. :)
If you want to intentionally torpedo things... One company I was thinking of starting, years ago, when talking with prospective CEOs, I would intentionally mention not only "don't be evil" but also the conditions under which I would poison-pill the company and our operations (related to privacy and civil liberties, since we were in a sensitive space). Even the most smooth-talking alum of Harvard Business School will choke briefly, if not turn a shade of white or green, at the thought. So far, the only context I've found that you can have this luxury of all principles foremost is when starting your own company and telling everyone before they come onboard. Everywhere else, you inherit their realities, and (with few exceptions) those realities trump the perfect gem of engineering and other ideal pursuits you might have.
I have found much more satisfaction by building custom applications for in-house use. My favorite job was being the only C.S. major in a company of other engineers. We each had our specialty, were truly appreciated for it, and were expected to deliver our best. From my experience, in-house software prioritizes quality over marketing and even over economy if you're fortunate.
Sounds like a good situation to be in. Just, if one finds onesself a big fish in a little pond in one's area (CS or software), I think one should use the Internet to seek out a concentration of bigger or equally big fish, and find a way to keep learning from them.
Very early in my career, I had my own software consultancy. I decided to leave it to go work for a hardcore engineering company who did tools for mission/life-critical systems. Most everyone there had more experience than me, and my boss was a German PhD who might've thought that anyone who wasn't a German PhD was not as good. I worked like crazy, and learned a lot through challenges and osmosis.
-- http://www.neilvandyke.org/
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