The JobSyntax Blog : Do you care what type of software you develop?

Welcome to JobSyntax Sign in | Join | Help

Do you care what type of software you develop?

In a meeting the other day and was talking with someone about the products they develop. Very neat, but not in a "sexy" industry necessarily. So of course it got me thinking about software engineers (aka you all) and what you work on day to day. Here's my question; if you get to work on a cool product using the latest technology with fun people, does it matter what industry you actually work in or develop the product for?

And on that same note, what makes "hot" industries hot? I think about things like gaming, security and search and I wonder if it is more about the company versus the products they build. Like if you have an awesome company that develops kick-ass software for the automotive industry - is that even appealing? Or is it more the reach of these companies - they span across industries?

Moving in a completely different direction, I am heading out to a memorial service with my family in Newport, RI for the next few days. My Grandpa passed away after a short battle with lung cancer. He was my "Thursdays with Norman" and I am really going to miss him. Terribly.

And with that I have to say that I'm channeling a little bit of Linda Richman today and feeling somwhat verklempt. So for those of you SNL lovers out there...software, it's neither soft nor something you wear. Discuss.

Share this post: digg it | bookmark it | live it | email it

Published Tuesday, July 18, 2006 12:16 PM by Zoe
Filed Under: Zoe's posts

Comments

	Drew said: Yes, it matters. I don't think you'll find many bleeding edge game developers willing to work on Office Live, for example. July 18, 2006 1:52 PM
	Zoe said: Thanks Drew - I figured that much :), but what about your average good guy/gal developer out there? July 18, 2006 7:00 PM
	Scott said: I think it only matters in retrospect. The day-to-day grind is the same while you are immersed in it but months/years later after the project is completed it is much more exiciting to look back at a game you helped develop compared to say the install package for Vista. "Duran Duran was neither Duran nor Duran. Discuss." July 19, 2006 8:21 AM
	Jeff Parker said: Well my personal opinion is kind of like when you cross the line of another debate are programmers artists. A good article you may have seen on this debate is here http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/artofprog.html and basically my take on it is the same way as maybe an artist. You can contract an artist to make you a painting and tell them exactly what to paint. The artist may do it, they do have to eat after all and they do love working in their field. They just may not be excited about what you want them to paint. However, if you contract an artist to paint a picture and can paint anything they wanted, the artist will put more passion and be more critical of his own work as the artist is doing something they absolutely love to do. July 19, 2006 8:52 AM
	Dan Glick said: Personally, I care more about whether the work itself is interesting than whether the end-product is 'sexy'. I saw a job opening for a dev on a massive server sytem for gaming. I was intrigued by the ad, not because it involved gaming, but because it involved end-to-end architecture of a scalable server system. (Scalable server architecture turns me on. YMMV.) You could be working on the coolest product ever, but if your day-to-day assignment is writing tedious, unoriginal utility code, what does it really matter? July 19, 2006 7:22 PM
	Zoe said: Hey guys - thanks for chiming in! These are all really good, and in cases, somewhat different perspectives. I like it! I do tend to have to agree that I would be much more excited, myself, about working on solving a really challenging problem even if it wasn't at a "sexy" company. I know a lot of folks that work at what is considered and awesome place and end up doing really boring work. *dipatched from a small town in upstate New York. :) July 20, 2006 11:56 AM