Working for large companies

[Nerm]

As most of you already know I work for a pretty small consulting company. When I say small I mean less than 10 total employees. I recently was approached by the head of IT of a somewhat local (~40 minutes away) manufacturing company to interview for their Sr. Network Admin position they have open. They are a large global company with 10,000+ employees. That is a huge swing in work environment for someone like me. Their networking team alone is the size of the entire IT staff at my current employer. I actually have done 3 interviews already. I basically did the interviews because I figured what is the harm in at least interviewing. After 3 of them I am starting to think this could become a serious relationship and they might actually make me an offer.

Now that we have the back story out of the way I am looking for advice from those of you that work in networking for large companies. What can I expect in work/life balance, red tape, etc. According to online research the going rate for this title in my area is between $80-100k/year and I was wondering if the large company headaches are worth the salary/benefits/etc.

[dlots]

Totally depenends on the company and what all policy they have in place. 

A good change management policy means less down-time and stuff is well planned out and nothing happens in a huge hurry.

A bad change management policy means sooo much more time at work cause you have to do tons of paperwork, and litterly everything goes to the change managment group: you want to no shut an access port with nothing plugged in?  You have to come in at midnight for that (I don't work for that place anymore).

A good re-imbursment policy is great, I went from taking 3 months to get re-imbursed for a $200 expense to getting it within a few week.

Honestly I greatly prefer my larger company to my smaller company (the smaller company sucked balls though)

[deanwebb]

I love my job at Major Multinational Firm with over 100,000 employees. However, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it... to wit:

1. Follow-the-sun support can have me up at odd hours to assist or train my counterparts around the world.
2. Vendors are much more aware of their relationship with us... but that can also mean vendors going over my head to counter technical arguments with financial ones.
3. Much more specialization, with job rotation allowing for exposure to new technologies as opposed to having to learn all of them at once.
4. I am very lucky in that I have some exceptional managers and co-workers. There are places that are going through hell...

Which brings me to my next concern: mergers and acquisitions. Big companies do these all the time, and they can be highly disruptive and political. Also bankruptcies... these result in massive staff turnover and restructuring. Watch out for those.

There's also the industry sector... this determines what kind of paperwork will swamp you. If it's medical, HIPAA and FDA will be the cause of much of your documentation. If it's financial, welcome to SOX and PCI-DSS. Defense? DoD boys will have some special paperwork for you that you'll never be able to complain about to anyone without the proper security clearance.

In my view, it's a different set of problems that are pretty much on the level of whatever problems you leave behind. Compensation tends to be much more fun, though, especially if you're in a big-bonus industry during a banner year.

Please see also the "Problems of a Company of a Certain Size" thread. It's humor, but there's a lot of truth in that humor... http://www.networking-forums.com/index.php?topic=201.0 You posted a few there, so you know what I'm talkin' about. 

[routerdork]

I just left a large manufacturing company a little over a month ago. I had a lot of complaints. I prefer smaller companies.

The large company I left:

• Small team of 4 covering 6 continents, one guy was in a lot of meetings and another wasn't doing much. So really a team of 2.
• Company wouldn't let us hire for the 2 open positions we had.
• Technology wasn't always at the top of the list.
• Each manufacturing plant got to decide if they ultimately wanted to purchase something or not.
• Lack of management support for a globalized support team. Some sites still paid contractors and/or full-time staff and circumvented our work only to ask for help later.
• Unions controlled the plants and dictated a lot of things they shouldn't have.
• Equipment upgrades were hell to get funding for because of number 4 and the fact that there wasn't much of a budget for us.
• Change management was a PITA if it meant any disruption to manufacturing. And I don't mean just people complaining, systems so old that a network drop means server reboots that can take hours to get all systems back online causing production to halt. And all this because some moron fired the programmers that knew the systems before they ever upgraded them.
• We got acquired by a much larger company that made things slower and moved an already slow decision process overseas creating an even slower process with more levels to churn through.
• Way too many levels of management made communicating needs even worse.

I thought of it as government. Way too many people to get anything done efficiently. Too many people that feel they control their own kingdoms. And so many people holding down a job that shouldn't be there.

But you can find many of these things at many different sizes of company, I just have a good way of picking bad companies    Small company I'm at now, ~120 people, is pretty awesome plus the whole team here is motivated and knowledgeable about what they do.

[Nerm]

Please see also the "Problems of a Company of a Certain Size" thread. It's humor, but there's a lot of truth in that humor... http://www.networking-forums.com/index.php?topic=201.0 You posted a few there, so you know what I'm talkin' about. 

Yea some of the things in that thread are the kind of things that have me concerned about such a move lol.

The mergers/acquisitions point is a good one. I hadn't even thought about that. I know there are trade-off's of problems from small to large I am just trying to get a concept of how many good vs how many bad trade-off's.

@dlots, That is the kind of stuff I am talking about with the expense reimbursement. To me at a small company waiting even a few weeks seems crazy. If I have $200 expense I just say "Hey Bill I need reimbursed for $200 for such and such", "Bill" then cuts me a check same day lol.

[that1guy15]

Everyone here is giving really good advice. But yeah, it really depends on the company...

The questions you listed all need to be asked in the interview.

"Large" is also very relative. How many servers, switches, routers, firewalls? What is the ballpark annual budget for IT, or what projects are approved for the next year?

BUT... I have been in your shoes too and a jump like this is what propelled my career.

Ask yourself, what will this job do for my career? if you like what you come up with then do it!!

Best of luck dude!!

[icecream-guy]

I spent 4 years trying to get into SAIC, when finally I got in, I was a number and a body to fill a spot.    LOTS of corporate training.   ~15K employees.

see this thread here for more information on comparing companies of certain sizes.

http://www.networking-forums.com/index.php?topic=201.0

[Nerm]

Yes "large" is relative. ~10,000+ employees for some of you is still small but for me that is gigantic.

I definitely see it however as a potential career stepping stone. The 3 interviews I have had so far have also been great. Seems like a good IT team with a good management team at least on a personality level.

[deanwebb]

Hey, if you like them and they seem like a sharp bunch that cares about what they do, join in with them.

If, however, they sound tired or dull or like everybody just takes it easy there... keep looking, unless the money is fantastic. Then take the job and keep looking while you're there.

Whatever you do, you don't want to work at Kruger Industrial Smoothing... or work there for long... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NYDW5whpw

[wintermute000]

The typical pros and cons of large orgs (process etc.) is well covered already by others. However I'd add - IMO unless its a telco, cloud services provider, etc. then moving from consultancy/VAR/vendor to customer will feel like going backwards. You will be handcuffed to one environment. But even more importantly, exceptions aside (e.g. banking), where the network is a cost centre not a profit centre, you will be fighting a rearguard action all the time.
Hence why I said telco, cloud provider etc. Banks for example can be an exception because their environments are so complex and they rely so heavily on them and have regularory issues preventing use of public clouds so they do focus and prioritise IT (typically).

[Nerm]

With how small the consultancy company I work for is I don't really see it feeling like going backwards from a career perspective. Since we are small our clients our small so the projects I get to work on aren't massive or life changing in any way that I would miss. In fact during the last interview they were telling me about an upcoming wireless project they had coming up first of the year that from the sounds of it would be bigger than anything I have ever done as a consultant.

[burnyd]

At times you will feel like you want to go somewhere that deploys dlinks and half duplex netgear stuff.

It has its ups and downs.  I personally have been exposed to a ton of technologies at a large enterprise which makes me happy but at times its overwhelming.

[deanwebb]

Sounds like you want these opportunities. Also sounds like you like the guys you interviewed with. Bigger companies don't mean bigger problems, just different ones. If you do sign with them, do so with confidence.

[icecream-guy]

With how small the consultancy company I work for is I don't really see it feeling like going backwards from a career perspective. Since we are small our clients our small so the projects I get to work on aren't massive or life changing in any way that I would miss. In fact during the last interview they were telling me about an upcoming wireless project they had coming up first of the year that from the sounds of it would be bigger than anything I have ever done as a consultant.

If you are a consultant now, and the new opportunity if a real permanent gig, with all things in your favor, take consideration,  Having comfort in knowing when your next meal is coming is a real blessing.

[Reggle]

All this aside I'd say do it, because even if it turns out not to be what you want, I assume you're young and you'll learn a ton of stuff about both networking and business that you can use for the rest of your career.