I'm asked many times when would I like to move up from programmer's job. Most of the times this question came from my friends who are also working as a programmer. It seems that most of the local programmers are hoping to move levels up within the organisation's ladder. It also means that most of the local programmers consider their current job some sort of ground and temporary work. Am I thinking too much or it is actually a fact?
This is the typical job position hierarchy in most of the local software companies (in terms of power, pay and authority):
Project Manager
|
System Analyst
|
Solution Architect
|
Programmer
|
Tester
Many of us strive for the project management role merely because of the mentioned factors (power, pay and authority). How many of them looking for project manager position because they like to manage customers and programmers? If they really do, will they be still enjoying in such position if they have lesser power, lesser authority and lower pay comparing to what programmers have?
Will this hierarchy possibly be changed where programmer can also be a very influential position? It indeed happens in US, but somehow, it just seems impossible for Malaysia.
I did not have to make a request and the company just gave me a new optical scroll mouse and no signature required. This incident made me questioned myself that why had I been filling forms just to get a tiny device, like a mouse. I understand that most of us feel not safe working at small company, or we don't choose small firm for a more valid reason, low pay and
financial unstability. There are two kinds of big company: good and not-so-good. Do you think Google will require their top coders filling up form just to get a keyboard or mouse while they're competing with Yahoo!, Microsoft and etc. into the extent that they release new feature almost every week?
"How can everyone get new hardware as they like, we must follow procedure". Sounds familiar?
Over here in the company I'm working at, we fix a bug only if it is reported in the issue tracking system, we must follow certain application building and deployment procedure and we verify articles before posting to our internal knowledge portal. But we don't have to do anything to get our 2-button mouses replaced.
PS: we should define, obey and follow those procedures which really offer benefits.
