Advancing in a software development career?
April 21, 2022 1:09 AM Subscribe
I've been in software development, working for consulting companies, for close to 15 years now. I've been a "technical architect" or "technical lead" for probably 8-9 of those years. I'm burnt out and frustrated with the consulting treadmill. I feel like I painted myself in a corner. Ideally I'd like to be something along the lines of VP of Engineering or Solutions Architect. Preferably at a product company, but I definitely don't want to do development at consulting. I could see myself developing on a small startup if that's even possible, but somewhere I have agency in my work. My perfect job description and work experience within.
By consulting I mean once for one of the Big Three and other large consulting firms. The last one I worked for full time about 6 years ago had a model where in between projects you literally had to sell yourself internally. Everytime a project opened up internally you had to redo your resume and interview with the project leads. I said that's ridiculous and decided to consult on my own. My experience has been actually architecting a project, acting as product owner, doing pre-sales/discovery, responding to RFPs and leading large (10-15 size teams).
I've spoken at conferences and have a small name for myself in a very niche market which I want desperately to get of. Think Salesforce as I do not want to give it away, but it definitely is too enterprise for me. Recently I took on a job after a six month search simply out of desperation and was informed I was not even going to be an architect on the project, but lead developer. And basically staff aug doing XML transformations on a large integration project for the next 12-14 months, handed a client laptop and was told by a coworker that was the last time I'd speak to the company that hired me. Also I'm expected to be an "evangelist" 5-10 hours over 40 a week with a blog and I'd receive that compensation for that at the end of a year. That's a bit of a rant. This is a ninth circle of hell and after a very long job search, it was the only taker.
Here's a description of what I'd consider my ideal job:
1. I'd like to lead or otherwise be involved in strategic decisions around product design or in the case of consulting helping the client decide the solution that fits them best.
2. Working directly with executive stakeholders in defining the team and helping align business value to technical resources ... e.g., you want to decrease abandoned shopping cart rates by x amount here are some solutions I can provide and here's the budget I need for each and ideally enforce good programming practices
3. Either start efforts or initiatives within the company directly tied to the health of the business and/or lead teams in that.
4. I actually enjoy internal presentations, pre-sales or sales meetings at least in a consulting context, and creating POCs. To that extent I like experimenting with new technologies, figuring out what works and what's valuable from an operational and strategic perspective.
I've done all of the above to in my previous roles, but they were definitely not my primary role. Unfortunately, that's the exception, a lot of roles I simply have no agency. if the client didn't pay for it, I can't do it. In fact not just can't, I shouldn't. Freelancing exposed me to a lot of different companies, and how projects and teams are run. Unfortunately it limited my growth career wise as I built no social capital. I was hired for a job, it was completed, I moved on.
I have exhausted my personal network, and I'm sort of at a loss. Is a career coach or resume writer someone that would help me? I spent a lot of 2020-2022 scouring Indeed/LinkedIn for the job I wanted and even tried to start my own consulting agency but burned a lot of personal savings finding out doing so alone is near impossible. I'd like some concrete steps or advice that would help me.
I'd also be open to if my job description is not something available, or something very difficult to get into, something that would give me comparable agency. I'm not naive I know everything has drawbacks but friends I know who are happiest seem to have a large degree of agency and also happened to luck into their jobs to a large degree.
Thanks! Sorry about the length.
By consulting I mean once for one of the Big Three and other large consulting firms. The last one I worked for full time about 6 years ago had a model where in between projects you literally had to sell yourself internally. Everytime a project opened up internally you had to redo your resume and interview with the project leads. I said that's ridiculous and decided to consult on my own. My experience has been actually architecting a project, acting as product owner, doing pre-sales/discovery, responding to RFPs and leading large (10-15 size teams).
I've spoken at conferences and have a small name for myself in a very niche market which I want desperately to get of. Think Salesforce as I do not want to give it away, but it definitely is too enterprise for me. Recently I took on a job after a six month search simply out of desperation and was informed I was not even going to be an architect on the project, but lead developer. And basically staff aug doing XML transformations on a large integration project for the next 12-14 months, handed a client laptop and was told by a coworker that was the last time I'd speak to the company that hired me. Also I'm expected to be an "evangelist" 5-10 hours over 40 a week with a blog and I'd receive that compensation for that at the end of a year. That's a bit of a rant. This is a ninth circle of hell and after a very long job search, it was the only taker.
Here's a description of what I'd consider my ideal job:
1. I'd like to lead or otherwise be involved in strategic decisions around product design or in the case of consulting helping the client decide the solution that fits them best.
2. Working directly with executive stakeholders in defining the team and helping align business value to technical resources ... e.g., you want to decrease abandoned shopping cart rates by x amount here are some solutions I can provide and here's the budget I need for each and ideally enforce good programming practices
3. Either start efforts or initiatives within the company directly tied to the health of the business and/or lead teams in that.
4. I actually enjoy internal presentations, pre-sales or sales meetings at least in a consulting context, and creating POCs. To that extent I like experimenting with new technologies, figuring out what works and what's valuable from an operational and strategic perspective.
I've done all of the above to in my previous roles, but they were definitely not my primary role. Unfortunately, that's the exception, a lot of roles I simply have no agency. if the client didn't pay for it, I can't do it. In fact not just can't, I shouldn't. Freelancing exposed me to a lot of different companies, and how projects and teams are run. Unfortunately it limited my growth career wise as I built no social capital. I was hired for a job, it was completed, I moved on.
I have exhausted my personal network, and I'm sort of at a loss. Is a career coach or resume writer someone that would help me? I spent a lot of 2020-2022 scouring Indeed/LinkedIn for the job I wanted and even tried to start my own consulting agency but burned a lot of personal savings finding out doing so alone is near impossible. I'd like some concrete steps or advice that would help me.
I'd also be open to if my job description is not something available, or something very difficult to get into, something that would give me comparable agency. I'm not naive I know everything has drawbacks but friends I know who are happiest seem to have a large degree of agency and also happened to luck into their jobs to a large degree.
Thanks! Sorry about the length.
It sounds to me like you would be a good technical cofounder.
Also I'm expected to be an "evangelist" 5-10 hours over 40 a week with a blog and I'd receive that compensation for that at the end of a year.
Yeah so this is BS, a pig in a poke. 25% of your time? That sounds to me like your actual value to them is ⅓ more than what you're currently making. Otherwise, that end-of-year compensation actually reduces your rate of pay.
posted by rhizome at 12:13 PM on April 21, 2022
Also I'm expected to be an "evangelist" 5-10 hours over 40 a week with a blog and I'd receive that compensation for that at the end of a year.
Yeah so this is BS, a pig in a poke. 25% of your time? That sounds to me like your actual value to them is ⅓ more than what you're currently making. Otherwise, that end-of-year compensation actually reduces your rate of pay.
posted by rhizome at 12:13 PM on April 21, 2022
Had the same thought as rhizome. You could join a startup early on and eventually be CTO with a team underneath you if it succeeds. I kind of think you need a few year stint at a company where you really own your work and have the agency to do a ton of thigns and startups could fit the bill.
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:27 PM on April 21, 2022
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:27 PM on April 21, 2022
Response by poster: That sounds fantastic, but how would I go about taking steps to discovering a startup or finding a place I can own my work? As I said my networking has really turned dry as most, if not all my network, is in the family phase and I've exhausted everyone in my network. Even going out to old coworkers.
posted by geoff. at 2:05 PM on April 21, 2022
posted by geoff. at 2:05 PM on April 21, 2022
I think there are lots of roles in regular product companies that would give you what you want without being a startup CTO (which is high stress and high admin, and likely high risk since you will only have a shot at small startups).
You can be a regular engineering manager or a tech lead or you can even switch gears and be a product manager.
posted by redlines at 2:33 PM on April 21, 2022
You can be a regular engineering manager or a tech lead or you can even switch gears and be a product manager.
posted by redlines at 2:33 PM on April 21, 2022
Best answer: You really do align well with an Enterprise Architect job with your consulting experience. Just get on LinkedIn and look for Enterprise Architecture jobs. A lot of places an Enterprise Architect is a director-level position or at worst a manager-level position. It will be good experience and a stepping stone. You may need to take a slight paycut from your burnouts-ville consulting firm job, but you ideally will be trading that money for a more relaxed lifestyle.
Alternately, you worked contracting gigs for many years, so reach out to some of the companies you worked with that you thought were good companies and kick some tires. The worst they can do is say no. The amount of overhead a tech company has to pay a headhunter firm to find an employee is not insignificant. Having a quality application knock on the front door sounds awesome, assuming you can find the door someone is paying attention to.
posted by cmm at 3:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
Alternately, you worked contracting gigs for many years, so reach out to some of the companies you worked with that you thought were good companies and kick some tires. The worst they can do is say no. The amount of overhead a tech company has to pay a headhunter firm to find an employee is not insignificant. Having a quality application knock on the front door sounds awesome, assuming you can find the door someone is paying attention to.
posted by cmm at 3:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Just get on LinkedIn and look for Enterprise Architecture jobs.
Thanks that's what I was looking for! Whether to keep looking on LinkedIn/Indeed and what job role versus some other venue.
posted by geoff. at 3:07 PM on April 21, 2022
Thanks that's what I was looking for! Whether to keep looking on LinkedIn/Indeed and what job role versus some other venue.
posted by geoff. at 3:07 PM on April 21, 2022
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From your description, you are combining two roles to me. You are combining an Engineering Director and an Enterprise Architect. At smaller companies, these probably ARE combined though. But I don't think you will be able to jump straight from a consultant title to a VP of Engineering unless you have an "in" with the company.
As for concrete steps, maybe look for an Enterprise Architecture job to get that title on your resume and then look to move up to VP of Engineering (or CTO?) from there. Most larger companies have Enterprise Architecture and LinkedIn shoves job openings at me like twice a week. It's a good time to be looking for a job in the software market right now.
posted by cmm at 7:04 AM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]