Does working at a bad company damage one's career? [closed]

Question

I am an undergrad computer science student working part time at a small company in the US.
I have worked there for 1.5 years now, and although it’s my first job as a developer, I feel like a lot of things aren’t right with this company.

Here are some things:

• There are no project leads nor clear duties and responsibilities, leading to a crisis when an employee quits.
• No rules or requirements for documents, no standards, no code reviews (never had anyone review my code).
• The CEO (who has no IT background) often bypasses the IT manager and gives tasks directly to the developers, supplied with ill-advised ideas of how to execute them. In one instance, the CEO instructed me to just release important application without testing.
• I have been given an inordinate amount of responsibility that I feel I haven’t actually earned.
• I was tasked with writing a very important application, but was given no technical specs, had to glean everything from an old undocumented application.
• Talks to CEO have yielded no results.
• No training, courses or conferences of any kind for anyone.
• A senior developer said he tried to change things but gave up.

Is this a terrible company and could I actually damage my career by working there?

Answer 1

Although I don't have a background in computer science as an undergrad, hopefully a story from my internship experience can be of use of you.

For all of your bullet list and the question in particular:

Does working at a bad company damage ones career?

Relax, it doesn't and should not. But beware, don't bad mouth your former employer.

Hopefully some of the more experienced members of the Workplace can vouch for my sentiment, but at the end of the day, these experiences are just that, experiences. There is no perfect workplace (although some would argue being self-employed is 'perfect' given that you control every aspect of your environment) and as a result, having unrealistic expectations would result in dissatisfaction.

A thought you should consider is to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. What kind of experience and knowledge can you learn from your rather poor experience at Company X?

At one internship, my team was tasked with working on data-cleaning a huge amount of spatial data. Guess what, the database we were editing? It was live, live not in terms of a cloud server, but live in terms of it being used by production teams the the very next day with no source control. A location I was working on was being queried by a live-team and it caused a cascading situation where $3-6,000 worth of man-hours was spent in identifying the issue and fixing it. (In my defense, there was no equivalent of a lock-out, tag-out procedure, so I had no idea that the repo was in-use). But guess what? Now that I am tasked with a data-migration project (my dept. is transferring files to the cloud) I am aware of SNAFU's when there isn't source control.

Despite the gross dangers of the situation, it wasn't my place to change policy, but to learn from existing policy and if I were to ever find myself in charge of a similar project, to draw from that knowledge and say

CEO of Company Y, Policy A is a poor idea, here is why.

Learn, live, move on.

Also, don't bad mouth your old company in interviews. Try to frame the deficiencies as situations where you disagreed with policy, raised and/or thought of alternative solutions, but was ultimately wasn't your place to change policy.

Answer 2

Hmm ... well, there are bad companies and bad companies. (Tautology much, akaioi?)

What you should look at is whether this company has a bad reputation in the industry, or just on the inside. Ask your friends, look at Glassdoor. If it does, why does it?

Some scenarios I've run into or heard about are below. Note that what's done is done; you worked there, so let's focus on how to deal with when interviewers ask you about it.

• Company chews up devs and spits 'em out -- No harm in having this on your resume. You worked there, learned a surprising amount even though you didn't like the working conditions, and are now looking for a better corporate culture.

• Company is poorly managed -- Again, no harm here. Interviewers will likely ask about it. You can explain how you and your group coped with the adversities. This can actually get you points. This is your scenario

• Company's work is a little ... seamy -- Some people will flinch a bit if they see adult services or even online ads. You can focus on the technology you worked with, and downplay the actual content. Turns out these sort of companies deal with enormous volumes which make for some pretty keen engineering. Above all, don't make jokes about it. Taste and tact are your watchwords here.

• Company is/was in a gruesome scandal -- Think Enron or so. This is a hard one to talk through, but is doable. You can note that that whole business saddened and dismayed you, and no surprise you're looking to leave, eh?

So, in general... Focus on the technology. Focus on the problems you solved. Focus on how you overcame the problems that gave the company a bad rep and actually managed to move some product. Most interviewers will be interested instead of appalled.

(Minor side note: when describing the adversities, don't whine about it, or rant. Be frank and factual: "We had persistent problems with late or insufficient docs, and here's what we did...")

Last note, honest! You actually have an opportunity here. Wouldn't it be a feather in your cap if you were the guy who created an "island of sanity" at your current place? That would be something to crow about later...

Answer 3

Is this a terrible company and could I actually damage my career by working there?

Well, saying it is a "bad" company may be a bit subjective to answer here.

However, one important thing to consider is that you are not the company, you just happen to work there in this moment. You may be a good worker on a "bad" company, or a "bad" worker on a good company, and those factors are independent to each other.

Therefore, having worked on some "bad" company on the past does not change the type of professional you are, so I don't see that affecting your career directly (like being discriminated for having worked on company X previously). When recruiters consider you for a position they usually give more importance on your skills and knowledge, rather than if your past employer was "good" or "bad".

Now, what could be harmful for your career is the fact that you are working in a place that you don't seem to like too much, and probably also not learning the skills you may want/need to develop your professional career. This is something really important you should consider, as you could probably be better looking for a job you prefer and that helps you develop your professional skills in the way you want.

As a last comment, it seems to me that you have a decent time working there, so you could actually be in a position to try implement/prepare those changes you believe could be useful, making the company better in the process. If this is not possible then you should think if working there is something that you actually want and that could benefit you, as suggested before.