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Ask HN: Should I join a consulting firm?

4 points by cableshaft ↗ HN
So this job search is nearing its conclusion, and I basically can choose to either join a consulting firm or a software shop.

The consulting firm seems like it could be a chance to become more exposed to how several companies do things and possibly learn more faster, but also seems like a risk of them adding me to a company I'd never choose to work for where I could be stuck for six months to a year, and that client also might force me to go back to an office, where I've been remote for years at this point and is my preference.

Meanwhile for the software job, the industry isn't super interesting to me, but businesses find it incredibly useful. They have a lot of clients and are in the process of onboarding a lot more. Their tech stack is a bit older and they said they've had some difficulty upgrading certain parts of it due to the needs of the software (trying to stay vague, they went into detail in the interviews what their challenges were). Also people seem to really love the company once they join and stay for a long time. And they've been fully remote since before the pandemic.

The offers are close enough to not be a huge deciding factor by themselves.

I've worked at several software shops before, but this would be my first consulting firm. Should I give it a try? What are some of your experiences?

2 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 7.2 ms ] thread
yann2
If you find software boring eject. Especially if you dont have loans to pay off. Waste of time especially middle aged software companies with a legacy stack that they will coast on for as long as they can. Cleaning up someone elses mess is not as motivating as making your own.
cableshaft
I have a wife, two dogs, and a mortgage.

I don't find software boring necessarily, just the recruiters that contacted me in fields I'm more interested in were a lot more flaky and I didn't get very far with them this time around (didn't even get a phone screen with the company scheduled with me for most of them).

I do work on some personal projects on my own time (mostly games) but I don't have as much time or energy for it anymore, so it's been pretty slow. At some point I'd like to take a six month sabbatical to focus on them but I'm not quite ready to do that yet financially.

I think I'm going to try to get myself into a position where I can in a year or two though, pinging away at my projects in the meantime so they're further along by then (hopefully even get one of them out the door before I do).

Thanks for your advice!