Is working for a design agency a good choice for a front end developer?

Question

I had 2 jobs previously as a front end developer, now I might be offered a 3rd job from a design agency, here is some background.

1st job: software house, overall positive

Positives: I learnt a lot about software development, company culture was great (from my point of view), very friendly colleagues, willing to help each other almost selflessly. I enjoyed working there and made some friends. Technology-wise they kept their stack well and everything is pretty up to date.

Negatives: I only worked for part of the project, wrote some code using HTML, SCSS and JS (jQuery), but never got a chance to build a website. I felt that I didn't learn much website building knowledge and responsive design.

2nd job: design agency, an overall negative

Positives: I built the frontend of a website by myself, learnt a lot about responsive design, how to build a website (front end only), how to make a website look beautiful and modern.

Negatives: Rubbish company culture, lots of legacy projects with 90's tech, records developers work hours to charge the clients, regular meetings wasting developers' time, the company does not value their staff, no agile, bad team leader, ordinary colleagues.

I left the 2nd job, and now I might be offered the 3rd job from a design agency. I do not know anything about the company culture. By the look of their website, they seem to be different from my 2nd company and use good software development to build their projects. Now I want to be careful with this job because I'd like to stay in my 3rd role for a long time. I have some questions:

1. is it a wise choice to work for a design agency generally as a front end developer? (career development and learning wise)
2. was it just bad luck I had a bad experience from my 2nd job?
3. what's your experience working for design agencies?
4. any good questions I could ask before taking the role?

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I might be offered the 3rd job from a design agency. I do not know anything about their company culture.

Here's the issue. You need to learn about their company culture in order to make an informed decision, if you want to find a job where you can stick around more than a year or six months.

Ask the hiring manager about what it's like to work there. Ask if you can speak with some of your future peers, and then ask them what they like about working there and what they don't like.

You need to decide if this company is the right fit for you or not, before you decide to accept the offer. A design agency could be a great place to work, or a terrible place. Most times it comes down to company culture. You owe it to yourself to investigate.

Answer 2

Companies that adopt the agency model of working tend to be less concerned with code quality and more interested in delivering projects faster out of the door.

Their usual lack of interest in quality leads to sub-par coding standards. You may end up absorbing, or more probably, you will not be exposed to modern coding approaches and standards, particularly around testing.

Nowadays, testing and quality code are typical requirements in any quality-oriented company out there, and they'll look for practical experience on this matter from their candidates: if you work for an agency, it'll be hard to fill this gap, and you risk remaining stuck in agency companies forever.

I'd recommend you accept a job in an agency only in these cases:

• You need a job right now; otherwise, you'd have a hard time eating and paying for a roof
• You enjoy working on small/repetitive pieces of work that just "have to work."
• You don't like testing, or you can stomach "ugly" code that looks shiny from the browser.

Then an agency can be a good fit for you.

Answer 3

Here is another point: you must be realistic.

rubbish company culture, lots of legacy projects with 90's tech, records developers work hours to charge the clients, regular meetings wasting developers' time, company does not value their staff, no agile, bad team leader, ordinary colleagues.

I hate to tell you, but this is more the norm in possibly like 80% of the companies out there. Things get build, then budget are tighter - so maintenance may work with ancient technology. Except the "work hours to charge the client" thing every other element seems like a really typical enterprise job to me. Unless you start accumulating enough money to say "go f*** yourself" to pretty much EVERY job - that is how reality looks like.

Exceptions are startups and VERY IT focused companies. But then, they may often just be a bit better. The larger a company, the more it is going to be hit by a combination of the Dunning Kruger Effect and the Peter Principle. Was there not a study recently that said 65% of managers add NEGATIVE value to the company?

Validate company culture, but also be realistic about your expectations. Jobs are there primarily to make money. Career opportunities are REALLY limited - because there are way less places the higher to the top you go. And companies are NOT run optimally, as sad as it is.