| The worst corporate environments bring you -- persistently; repeatedly; seemingly as a matter of policy, no matter what the "propaganda" of internal communications -- to doubt yourself. When that's the case, get the h-ll out! When it's not that bad, evaluation the pro's and con's and make sure you have a plan forward -- your plan forward, not theirs. It may -- perhaps even likely won't -- work out just the way you plan. But, you'll be making progress and trying to get somewhere. If you don't have a lot of personal responsibilities to others (e.g. family) and want to learn more, a different environment is very likely a better bet. Sometimes one can end up on a... "blessed" -- or ignored -- team in a larger corporation, where corresponding autonomy combined with a good manager leads to a good, productive, educational experience. (In my experience, this is when the team members are so valuable and rare that Management has realized/decide that they can't afford to do without them, and maybe is even respectful of or afraid of disrupting the environment, balance, or "magic" that makes the team work.) But that seems to be somewhat the exception. And from cycle to cycle, year to year, you don't know when a critical person is going to move on, or Management is going to "notice you all" and make things crap. |
100% agreement. You need to figure out your plans and goals, and then implement those. If you can find these goals at your current job you'll probably stay, otherwise you should think about leaving. This is the same whether you're in a company of 1 or 100,000 people.
One thing larger corps will expose you to is bureaucracy and politics. It's actually quite handy to learn. It becomes evident when people don't have skills like allowing a party to save face. You absolutely have to work with people that get on your nerves again, you have to network, and in a few years they could be your boss. It's just the way things go.
> corresponding autonomy combined with a good manager leads to a good, productive, educational experience.
There are actually several different career desires. While autonomy could lead to a productive experience, it is not the only way. Certainly your autonomy could cause other problems. Some of the other career desires could be work/life balance, challenges, security, or advancement. In other words, you can still have a productive experience but put value on things other than autonomy. I do not doubt that a good manager will help you significantly.
My corporate job is dry at times. I do learn things and solve problems with scopes that few people would. Is it enough for me? I'm not sure, and it's certainly a good question to always be considering. I have started trending towards "ask for forgiveness" rather than to ask permission. So far that hasn't back fired, and that lets me work on some work related topics that I find interesting.
Is corporate good experience to have later in life? Yes. Like another post was saying about full QA test suites, standardized release processes, etc. You need exposure to these things, and how it's done "in the big leagues." Then you can go to a startup if you wish and choose to ignore certain aspects. But you know them, so it's not impossible to implement them later. That makes you infinitely more valuable than someone who does not have that knowledge.