Yep. I once worked at a manufacturing company. Their clients sent order information via an FTP server. The orders were formatted as flat files, aka just simple text files. I had to create code that painsakingly looked through each format and imported it into the new ERP system. Every vendor was different in each flat file. I'm sure some had similarities, but abstracting the logic was more dangerous in this case.
A lot of business software is boring. It does not take skill to do. It only requires someone to know a handful of tools and be willing to put in the time. So my advice to non-FAANG developers: if you want to make development your career, learn to be bored. Still work on marketable skills, learn new languages, etc. But remember that not every task will be an interesting new technical issue, it's probably going to be something you've seen a hundred times before.
> A lot of business software is boring. It does not take skill to do.
I guess it depends on your definition of "skill". ERP systems are complex, full of problems, inflexible and managed by bean-counters with "battle-axe" personalities. If you look at the work holistically, it does take skill and experience. There is a lot of room for improvement in these systems but the problems involve people as much as they involve technology.
>So my advice to non-FAANG developers: if you want to make development your career, learn to be bored.
is life at FANG really that different tho? Can't imagine that everyone is working on exciting stuff all the time. Would appreciate if someone could enlighten me.
I can speak for only one of the FAANGs, but the work I do there is definitely the most exciting to me personally from all the companies I've been at. There are challenging technical problems that require discussion with other engineers to design a solution. In most companies I've been before the challenges were mostly organizational and I had to deal with all of the "agile" crap to please PMs and managers, while the actual technical work was boringly easy.
It's not always rainbows and butterflies here either but I do feel much happier with the work I do here.
A lot of business software is boring. It does not take skill to do. It only requires someone to know a handful of tools and be willing to put in the time. So my advice to non-FAANG developers: if you want to make development your career, learn to be bored. Still work on marketable skills, learn new languages, etc. But remember that not every task will be an interesting new technical issue, it's probably going to be something you've seen a hundred times before.