Sometimes we developers work on non-technology related companies. What should you expect if you intend to work on a non-IT driven company? Here I've listed my brief comparison between the 2 worlds.
| NonIT | IT |
| Legacy Technology | Diverse tech: sometimes legacy sometimes new |
| Mostly maintenance | Could be both: maintenance and new projects |
| Stack in one place/project app | You can jump from project to project, tech to tech. |
| No Career, all people stay in the same place for decades, until retirement or pass away | Free to stay in your current position or establish new challenges |
| No special HR for IT, HR is focused on the main company business, IT is like a 3rd party | HR also focuses on the main company business:: the Dev teams. |
| Training only on corporate tools | Encouraged to certificate on all technologies as many as possible |
| No innovation possible, keeping biz running is the most important | Depends on the Client you're working for: it could be maintenance or new features. |
| Not part of the decision maker | Depends on the company: some do,other don't |
| Paid extra hours, but depends if you're being asked for or not. | Strictly based on customer selling hours: not a single hour should be worked and not billed. |
| Bonus depends on company financial results, not on IT. | Bonus depends on the project and customer. |
| Company employees with all the benefit | Only working for the consultant company, you may feel left behind from the Client. |
| Full time employee: paid holidays, sick days, maternity leaves. All based on local regulations. | Vendor: higher salary, holidays may or not be included, limited sick days. Probably working to another country. |
| Office driven management and teams: Company may have remote policies but will encourage you to go onsite. | Mostly remote. |
| Standard laptop and provided office tools (monitor, keyboards) | BYOD and you can enroll your laptop with VPN. |
| Quiet quitting: People is not collaborative, they only do what their direct superviser tell them to | People is willing to do: if you look for help, always someone will help. |
Corporate world
Many companies in the 2020's are still managed by people that made their career in the 80s or 90s, taking with them a lot of practices that were common during those days.
Promoting the unskilled because of years in the company
I think the most destructive practice of those days is to promote people based on their years in the company. That practice might be useful in some non-tech specific areas, in which procedures and know-how is very important. Anyhow, keep doing things the same way for 40+ years is a potential risk.
When promoting a non-trained non-tech people - 1st level supervisor, the company continues the legacy culture, and also encourages that unskilled the empowerment to believe that they are "the ones" (the 'leaders', the 'managers') that make the company work efficiently.
Special Scenarios
If the previous situation is combined this special characteristics of the promoted person, then weird things will happen. If the previous situation is combined with:
- an aggressive/possessive attitude, all his/her employees will surfer until they quit.
- a "I'm the king blue-blooded chosen to be in this position, and you're meant to be my slaves", then employees will always be mistreated and there will be no-one to escalate to.
- a "non-my responsibility" (lazy?) attitude, then every task will be performed by his employees. He will became a very expensive email forwarder for the company.
In my personal experience, I had my boss had the 3 of them at the same time.
Please share your experience
I find very valuable to know what is you experience with this type of companies and this types of first level supervisors.
References :::: The Companies Expert