Flavors of Software Companies – The good, bad and ugly!

When it comes to the IT industry, like most other industries, each job is of a different kind. However, unlike something that is vibrant in other industries, in the IT industry each company is different and can be classified into one or other types - flavor. Those who have had a chance to work in different types of companies will know it, but, for people who are new to the industry or have been working for the same organization for quite a long time, this article will help understand the different flavor of Software Companies in my perspective.

Since the world is driven by software, the number of software companies and their types is vast. Hence, in this article, I am going to categorize the different flavors on a high level and from the perspective of a software development engineer – which I am and will be! Folks focused in other areas of software industry such as marketing, sales, finance, management, etc., may not find these flavors meaningful.

Each Company is different

and

your choice decides your career!

What do I mean by flavors of companies?

By a flavour I mean a combination of

  • the culture the organisation has
  • the work environment
  • the technology stack and approach towards technology
  • the learning opportunity (very important isn’t it)
  • the compensation (a reason to wake up and go to work)

The types of companies in my initial list

  • Freelance Work a.k.a virtual company
  • Service / Consultancy company
  • An Established Product company
  • A startup
  • Pseudo Startup (Small/Medium established companies with a claim of being a startup)

I am going to jot down, what I know of, mostly because of my personal experience in working in all of the above types of companies and some that I know of from people I know I can trust.

Posted by Arun Thundyill Saseendran

Arun is a software engineering leader. He loves architecting enterprise software and guiding its development. He is an active researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence and specializes in Computation Linguistics as a visiting researcher at Trinity College Dublin. Arun is also fond of reading and exploring the vastness of technology and periodically inking them. He is fond of machine learning, cloud computing and science of web. On a personal side, he enjoys spending time with family, he loves photography, travel and reading among others.

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