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Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by saryant on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @10:31PM (#4874714)
I ended up on a project like that. My first foray into "professional" software development, about 18 months ago:

I was an intern in college getting a CS degree, just finished my senior year. I had an summer internship lined up with a small company but they folded at the last minute so I had to scramble for something to fill my summer. I wound up as an intern at a financial firm. Fairly large but not one you've probably heard of.

I was told that I'd be on the mobile development team. They knew I didn't have experience but I said I was eager to learn.

Turns out, there was no team. I was the team. The CIO had decided that they needed an iPhone app, despite being an entirely B2B company with virtually no consumer brand awareness, and he'd already sold the corner office crowd on the idea.

Problem is, no one in IT wanted to build it. The CIO had no clue what he actually wanted, they were understaffed as it was and no one had the time.

Enter me.

In my first meeting with the CIO, he pulled out his iPhone, went to m.msn.com and said "I want this but for $COMPANY." I went back and laughed in my cube for a while. I think he just liked the news article carousel MSN had.

My boss had talked him down to a mobile website which I began throwing together in jQuery Mobile. A few loan calculators and some contact info. I had a few ideas for something more aggressive but I got shot down as they needed me on other projects anyways. They had me spending a few hours a week on mobile dev just to keep the CIO happy.

My internship ended right as the CIO was bringing in a big consulting firm to replace everyone. And that's the story of how I decided not to work at a megacorp.

Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by yskchu on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @11:21PM (#4874852)
Don't let that experience sour you too much about working for a megacorp. It sounds you got quite a crap deal.

The worst project you can be on is one:

1. With no clear goals, he has no idea what he wants.

2. No support team; basically, like you said, you're the team, and even worse, you're "green".

It sounds like you got one of those "pie in the sky" projects; there's no clear benefit that the CIO can get from this, and if you succeed, he looks awesome; if you fail, he doesn't care, it's one of those "throwaway" projects.

In a megacorp, you have to get into a project which is directly involved in their day to day business, directly contributing to revenue, to get more recognition, resources, and $$$. Get into such a project, or make yours give some visible benefit to the company.

In your example, I'd have tried to pivot it to be a reporting tool; I find that senior management in banking generally have a poor visibility in their business monitoring, current transaction levels etc; this can give clear and visible benefit to the company.

Once you can show the benefits to your Boss and the CEO, the extra help and resources will follow.

Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by facorreia on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @06:45AM (#4875875)
I agree. You got handed a pretty sweet opportunity to learn and to shine. The CIO had a goal: he wanted to impress the other executives with an iPhone application. You even had a hint: he liked a news carousel. IMO choosing to build a mobile website instead was a mistake. I would have chosen a "RAD"-style app builder and produced a first version with visual appeal. You'd make him look good, achieve a first win, and become known as "the mobile guy", on the route to become Mobile Development Technical Lead.
Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by saryant on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @11:30PM (#4874886)
The experience itself was invaluable in learning things like this. In the end I actually did ship a product, just one that had nothing to do with mobile.

They needed someone to rewrite a stagnant product they offered their clients. Essentially it was a white-label online wizard for selling accessory products to auto loans. All the sales logic itself was handled by a backend elsewhere, I just wrote a front end for it and tool for quickly creating a custom version with a client's logo and color scheme.

In the end I learned some .Net, some Javascript and even more about working within a large organization. I don't regret that summer at all.

Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by Ziomislaw on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @10:25AM (#4876621)
I agree that your tips are great, and would definitely work... but why bother? It is much easier and satysfying to just work in _normal_ enviroment, with friendly and intelligent people. And without any nerve-wrecking office politics and soul-sucking fluorescent light.
Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by readme on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @10:43PM (#4874744)
Lots of clients don't know what they want. Helping them figure that out is part of our job.
Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by piggity on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @03:36AM (#4875455)
My motto is - "Where there's confusion, there's contracts"
Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by herval on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @10:31PM (#4880135)
If you found the lack of direction and/or the "you as a team" frustating, wait until you work on a startup. Megacorp will seem like a dream come true...
Re:Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers by saryant on Thursday December 06, 2012 @12:50PM (#4882788)
I enjoy that type of work now and I'm working on an MVP as a solo dev at the moment. It was just an off-putting experience at the time.

It was the first time I was expected to write code that actually did something besides get me a grade on a homework assignment.