Brian's Rant-o-Rama - provided free of charge provided you free me from charges

January 18^th, 2008

So as I sit here typing this, I am at my last day of my current job (as you can see, they are not exactly getting 100% of my attention today). I like this place a lot, and hate to give it up for a new position ... but that new job I am moving to appears to be a much better fit for me and my skills. And, as Milton got the Devil to say in Paradise Lost, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" ... and that is the difference for me in my new job.

(And, to be fair to my new employers, my new position can hardly be fairly compared to Hell ... just that I will have more responsibilities and things to consider.)

* * *

One thing I've noticed in the high tech business is how many -er- Software Bedouins like me there are. What I mean by that (and so you don't have to go off and read up on the Bedouin) is that we move from pasture to pasture, traveling the land almost like gypsies. But not quite Nomadic, and not quite stationary. Bedouins.

There seems to be a two-year life-span on a lot of jobs for people like me in the software business. We do two years at one place, two more at another. Maybe 3 years here, or 18 months there ... but that two-year freshness limit is clearly in place. And, sure, there are folks who find a company and settle in for the long haul (>5 years, sometimes >10 years), but they are not the majority. Two years is the number for the bulk of us.

I can think of a few reasons why that is so:

Software technologies tend to have a two-year life-span. Either you learn some new trick at a new job, or you are hired because you have new knowledge of some new technology. First you implement it, then you fix all the bugs, then you maintain it. Depending on the product, you might go through one more release-and-repair cycle after that. But by the end of those cycles, two years have elapsed and suddenly there's a new technology that renders your pride and joy (that technology that you owned and made your own) obsolete. Hard feelings, protective feelings, resentment, despair, irritation, etc. ensue, and either you adapt, or you move on.

You learn a lot more. If you stay at the same company for a long period of time, the company eventually reaches some sort of stability (and then slowly decays) and it stops innovating. Once it stops innovating, its employees tend to stop learning anything new. That's not such a bad thing if you want to just keep drawing a paycheque and have a happy home life filled with family and/or hobbies. But it's not so great if you want to always be at that cutting edge, satisfying your urge to learn the newest, latest, sexiest technologies. Once you've got a handle on your company's technologies, two years have passed, then fear, uncertainty, doubt, restlessness, irritation, boredom, etc. ensue, and either you learn to change gears, or you move on.

After two years, new employees, like fish, begin to stink. After two years, people really start to feel like they have settled in and laid down some roots. But a software company constantly has people coming and going. That includes ineffectual sharp-faced little rising stars who come in, classify other employees as Steady Eddy's, then proceed to change processes and technologies. Hard feelings, resentment, anger, despair, feelings of inadequacy, etc. ensue, and either you learn how to swallow a new flavour of garbage, or you move on.

More?! More money?!?! After two salary reviews and two raises, employees start to get expensive. Despite the best efforts of HR departments, companies who survive in the software business tend to push people out around the time they start to get expensive. It's nothing personal, mind you. In fact, if it was personal, it probably wouldn't happen. Cheaper is not necessarily inferior, since the technologies change frequently. How could a company survive if it was paying 20% more to someone who insists on sticking with old technologies (not learning new) when it could be paying rock-bottom to someone who knows—or is at least willing to learn—new technologies. After all, you can't sell Version 10.0 of your software to customers if you aren't using those new technologies yourself. Hard feelings, resentment, embarrassment, despair, etc. ensue, and either you accept that you are not being paid what you think you are worth, or you move on.

You kids are never happy. This business employs people who tend to be very intelligent and/or impetuous and -erm- short of attention sometimes. We get bored pretty quickly. Two years is just about as long as we can manage before we start stretching at the leash, wanting new trees and bushes to sniff at. (Like my analogy? :) ) Hard feelings, resentment, boredom, irritation, etc. ensue, and either you find a career-threatening hobby, or you move on.

You kids never get along. This should perhaps be part of the last point: Those smart impetuous people I mentioned tend to have friendships with rather limited lifespans. After two years, they are out of patience with each other, and not sufficiently skilled in social graces to learn how to cooperate and compromise (on a personal scale). Hard feelings, resentment, anger, sometimes open hostility, etc. ensue, and either you find a way to avoid each other, or one or both of you moves on.

Well, I suppose there are other reasons, too, since none of the above reasons are why I am moving this time. So, in the interests of making it look as though I am better than the people I write about (isn't that the common conceit of all bloggers? A complete lack of humility?) I will add a final point. Bear in mind that though it may apply to many more people than just me, I write it only to describe my current career move:

Two years is just about right for each stage of a high-tech career. When you are first hired out of college or institute, the first thing you do is go to an entry-level position. Two years later you are a Junior (at least). Two more years and you are Intermediate. Two more years and you are Experienced, maybe a Journeyman. Two more and you are Senior. And after a decade of working at some position, it's time to start thinking about moving across the Great Divide to some sort of supervisory or managerial position. Each of those career segments are about two years in length. Well, speaking personally, I've been in the computer software business for 13 years. A wee bit long, actually, to not be managing some department somewhere. (But there are extenuating circumstances: I've done development work, training and localization, as well as the bulk of my job as a technical communicator—I been carrying a three-track career, not a single-track.) But there are no hard feelings, no resentment, no irritation, and no anger. But I am moving on.

So, in any case, the role I'm moving to is definitely the next level in my career; when I think about what I've learned about the Software Process—especially as far as a technical publications department is concerned—I realise I am very well-suited for the position I am headed for. To whomever reads these rants regularly enough to care: I'll keep you posted.

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