Devblog

Career Progression
About seven years ago now I finished my degree in Electronic & Computer Engineering, had gained a wide variety of skills in building and maintaining computer systems and was becomming a quite capable web developer. I had also had some years of experience in industry from huge multinationals to small companies with a dozen employees to EU funded projects. I was therefore ready to head out into the world of business to start my career and got a job as a web developer in a small training company.

Seven years later I’m still at the same training company although both the company and me have changed a lot in that time. Although I’m still the only web developer, I’m not the only IT person there now – we have a graphic designer and a media guy too. The main change though is that I’ve moved up to an Operations Director role essentially meaning that I can now call the shots. This is unusual in a company that specialises in the way that humans work – it’s not usually the IT people who would thrive in the company. The reason though is simple – business awareness.

In larger companies you have the ability to work in very specialised roles. The IT department may have a developer, a server guy and several support people whereas in small companies this tends to be one person who has some or all of these skills in the right mix needed for that particular organisation. Within the larger company this means that you can remain in your role, maybe being promoted to department head or above, without too much business sense as there is always bosses above you who ensure the services you provide are serving the company.

In small businesses however, there is going to be very little chance of promotion if you don’t develop a very good understanding of your particular business – the way it operates, the market it operates in and the way in which every department in the company (which may be single people) operates. This will make you more valuable – meaning that you can not only provide an IT service, but also that you understand and are capable of making informed decissions in any area of the business – and hence are able to move up the company ladder to the top.

That’s fine. To get promoted you develop a business knowledge. But what about starting out in small businesses in an IT role? What advice could I give…?

Starting Out
With the benefit of hindsight I would absolutely do things differently than I did when I started out. This is partly due to the experience and insight into the business I have in my new position but mainly from one simple fact. In small business resources are very limited – a point that is highlighted in the current economic environment. For the business to suceed everything must be done in a lean and efficient fashion.

During your training you learn to do things “properly” – to make sure code is commented, to make sure your server is the best you can get, to centralise your IT services for easy user management. However in the small business environment, this is all crap. Commenting code takes time and for the most part a single developer can remember which file or function does what, making the commenting a waste of time. Yes, comments will make it much easier for another developer to learn but commenting takes valuable time and due to the time wasted in commenting and the chance that you will replaced as the developer on that particular project within it’s usuable lifetime are relatively small – it’s probably best for the business to skip it and do something that earns more revenue. This doesn’t just apply to commenting but coding also – we’re taught to use a thorough and robust approach to coding and while I agree that this is the best way from a software approach, from a business point of view sometimes just making it work is what will stop the business from dying.

This lean approach also applies to servers and infrastructure – sometimes it’s best to “just make do”. Spending thousands on a Windows Server will ensure that it is easier to manage, runs 99.99% of the time and will live for years and years, but using an old box with Linux on can provide the same services at a fraction of the cost. Yes, it’s harder to fix when things go wrong but once everything’s set up, that’s a very, very rare thing. And if the entire thing does fail, in a company of say, 20 people or less, it won’t take more than an hour to set up those machines to work without the server so the company can continue. Everything can be changed back later when the server is fixed. And most importantly you’ve saved thousands for the company to use for either marketing to bring in more revenue, or even for more wages for a certain IT person… Get my point?

Although I’m the first to admit that this isn’t the best way of doing things from an IT perspective, it is from a (small) business point of view. Yes, sometimes it comes back to bite you in the ass but most of the time it just works. Still need convincing? Well our companies turnover has doubled every year for the last 3 years. And my wages are 3 times what they were when I started.