I’ve had one full week with my new employer, ARANZ Medical.  So far so good.  Compared to many 1st week’s I’ve had (and there have been a few of them!) it went surprising smoothly and I felt useful from day 1.  My orientation lasted about 2 hours then I was into finding my way around the development environment and code base, then some bug fixes.   A bit of ASP.Net web forms, some Silverlight and some Windows Mobile.  By Friday I was creating new features and I’m in the process of reimplementation of an installer using WIX.

I’ve also had a week to compare the differences between a service company and a product company.  Firstly the advantages.

1. No time tracking.  Accounting for every 6 minutes of the day becomes second nature after a while and I hope to retain some of my internal prioritisation that this gave me, but I believe it is unrealistic to impose constant pressure on developers and expect quality code.  There has to be some leeway for experimentation and time for a brain to work.
2. Second chances.  The chance to upgrade a product means you get an opportunity to improve things.  The constant merry go round of projects in a services company seldom allows for version 2 and many customers have the unrealistic expectation that we could deliver the perfect solution on the first attempt.  This situation was often initiated by sales people and left to the developers and project managers to refactor fantasy into reality.
3. Creativity encouraged.   Finding new an interesting applications for a technology and product creates opportunities and opens new markets.  The focus with a service company is on delivering exactly what the custom is paying for an not a gram more.  NO GOLD PLATING!  With a product you want shiny stuff, but of course, there is still a budget to worry about – it just takes the form of a backlog rather than a sum of money.

There are a couple of specific advantages in my particular situation:

1. No SharePoint.  I’ve said it before but now I can say it without worrying about upsetting sales people.  SharePoint is a shit development environment.  It’s a great platform as long as you keep things simple.  I’ve been guilty of over complicating things from time to time, but with SharePoint you have no choice – it’s too complicated for the small things and too large to be simple.
2. My own desk. I don’t want to ruffle feathers but someone has to say something.  It was a stupid idea to start with.  Putting all your developers together on long benches does not improve communication and productivity. Everyone I spoke to hates the idea and the feedback from other offices is the same.  Justification for this stupidity can only be financial because it makes no sense any other way.

There are of course disadvantages to a product company when compared to a services company:

1. Same same.  The product is what we work on.  One product at a time.  For months or years.  In a service company you get to work on many projects a year – sometimes you like ‘em, sometimes you hate ‘em.  The variety keeps you going but it also wears you out.
2. Less opportunity? Yes and no.  Not sure yet but I’m assuming that people stay around longer so there is less movement.  In my particular case, I’m happy with this.  I’ve reached the stage in my career (life?) where I’m happy to do what I do best.  I’d like to do more but I really don’t want the extra stress that often goes with extra responsibility. 

That is my impression after one week.  It will be interesting to see what else pops up after a few more.