I tend to agree with you. Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it.
I used to be like that (no really I did): I started programming when I was about 7 years old (LOGO, then Basic, then C). I finished my degree in Software Engineering with the highest grade of all my peers and with honours. About one year before graduation I started working at a software company (doing some rent-a-car systems and tourism web-dev) but inside me thinking I was so-much-better than what I was doing (programming .NET v1). So I took off and went to the UK to do a Master and a PhD.
Fastforward 8 years (4 of Masters/PhD, 4 of a PostDoc), I am 'back' as a 'simple' software engineer in a great company doing what I realized I love: programming software. I have been one year now, learning the company processess and their domain, meeting the people. And after this year, I've got a good career path laid in front of me with the opportunity to sometime become a tech lead.
And this is a great way to lose your best talent. Why work for a place that puts you through bullshit tests when you can work for a company that gives you important work and helps you succeed from day 1?
Personally, I did achieve significant success in a highly bureaucratic environment and got rewarded for it...but then I left anyway to work at a place actually encouraged me to work on problems that mattered, instead of constantly getting in the way when I tried to get anything done. Any sane person would do the same thing.
Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it.
It's a total waste of time to play that game. Why? Because not everyone starts on a crap job. When you apply for transfer after 1.5-2 years, you will be competing against people had real work, and you won't be able to get out of your second-class citizen status. You might get a slightly better project, but you'll never get an actually good one.
Were it not for the job-hopper stigma imposed by Boomersaurs holding the reality of the new economy against us (as if we had something to do with it) the most viable thing would be to roll the dice again after 6 months. The only way to get good projects in a company is to start on one (or have a pre-existing personal relationship with the CEO).
The best way to get good projects in a company is to get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed. My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck. He's a Principal Engineer now.
This is probably harder than taking a project that doesn't exist and making it exist, but that's why it's also more respected. It shows that no matter where you land, you'll be able to make the best out of it, and that makes you incredibly valuable to...everyone.
get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed. My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck.
In order to do that, you need a political protector who can guarantee, in advance, that performance reviews will come out in your favor no matter what happens. There's just too much risk for it to make sense otherwise.
If you have such a protector, then you're an unusually lucky person and most of my advice isn't for you.
You take the risk because you're secure enough in yourself that it doesn't really matter whether you succeed or fail or if you get that promotion anyway. If it doesn't work out - so what? You miss out on that promotion, but you still drew a salary the whole time. That's a lot more than you get if you found a startup and it doesn't work out.
My former boss had no such guarantee when he took the initiative with that project - if it had failed, he would've remained a SWE 3 forever (or, well, at least until he succeeded with some other project). I had no such guarantee when I volunteered for the 2010 search visual redesign - and I didn't get promoted, though I did get my picture in Businessweek and a reputation internally as a person who gets shit done. I also had no such guarantee when I volunteered to help start Google's Authorship program, but I did get promoted for that one, and a nice pick of future assignments. And since then, I've had a major project I initiated (which I'd hoped would be my ticket to staff and senior staff) get canceled and a major open-source 20% project get put in limbo. This blows, but that's life. I was an entrepreneur before Google; some of my projects have been mild successes (enough to get me professional reputation but no money) and many of them got me far less than I got at Google for sinking a year of my time into this failed research project.
What you're asking for is rewards without having to run any risk, which is a generally unattractive quality in a person. There are jobs that give you this bargain, at least until the company goes under - you could be a code-monkey at a Fortune 500, or an accountant, or a unionized laborer. But that wouldn't give you respect, which I think is what you're looking for. People respect folks that are willing to take risks for what they believe in, and accept the consequences when those risks don't pan out.
I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...). From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?
>>>Were it not for the job-hopper stigma
In large companies, perhaps, where your entry depends on a corporate checklist. But in a smaller company where the opinion of those doing the hiring counts for more than procedures, it won't matter if you have the skills they need to fill the job. Let's not forget that Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all behemoths the size of non-digital corporations.
I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...).
I'm using "game" as a synonym for "gamble", not "engaging, interactive experience".
When you let your boss assign you crap work to support his career goals while you don't learn anything, you're essentially gambling. The idea is that if you let him use your career in the way that a teenager uses a Kleenex, for about 3 years, his sense of indebtedness will inspire him to start giving you real work and this sudden turn to political favor compensate for your wasted time.
What actually happens is that the real work always goes to people with higher-quality work experience than what you got. You're not eligible for the good stuff, because you wasted years of your life on the garbage out of a misguided sense of loyalty (or perhaps financial desperation).
From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?
People who try to work directly for the company by solving important problems they weren't told to solve get fired for breaking the #1 Rule of Corporate Survival: Never Outshine Your Master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMy8Tf-zCag. (Ok, that's actually one of the 48 "laws of power" and I don't agree with the whole body of work, but that one is 100% true.)
I'm doing this right now. Hired on as a "programmer" I haven't written code in the entire time i've been in my current position. I'm doing the crap work, as are all of my coworkers who were also hired as "programmers" in the hopes that in a year or two they'll be able to jump into what they thought they were signing up for.
So now I have a decision, jump ship and hurt my "future" but find a place that gives me real work and get some experience or stick around in my "gamble" and maybe eventually get back to what I was doing as an INTERN in 2 or 3 years.
I'm jumping. not because I hate the company, but because I won't be anywhere further in my career or skillset in those 2 years.
Exactly why I'm leaving my company after ~3 years. There's absolutely no movement but lateral with a laughable pay raise, more responsibility in tasks that are unrelated to my skills and greater micromanaging.
While I've learned a lot here, most of the time I've been stagnating and it's depressing and infuriating.
