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.
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.