Why work for a consultancy?
Last night I was asked a question, which, at the time I didn't think was serious!
"What is the advantage of working for a consultancy over an enterprise or start up focused on a product or set of products"?
In hindsight, I realised it was a serious question, one which I often assume people know the answer to - having worked in all three. I'll keep the reasons why I think it is better to work for a consultancy generic, but may provide specific examples, relevant to my recent experience:
- Consultants work with enterprise and start ups, but often we get to focus on strategy, delivery and outcomes and aren't drawn into company politics.
- Consultants keep their tools sharp. Often people at enterprise or start ups focus on a narrow technology or problem set. We get to play with the latest (shiny) technology and constantly solve different problems. For example, we were the first in Australia to do Production deployments to the Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
- Consultants get the opportunity to influence organisational direction. I'm not saying this is right, but often, a consultants voice and recommendations carry a lot of weight. It can fundamentally influence an organisational direction for the better. But, that is a skill (which can be learnt).
- Often consultancies (the better ones) are small and dynamic with flat structures, not burdened with deadweight often found in enterprise.
- Consultants often get paid well - better than the alternatives.
- Consultants get access to all levels in a company from engineers to C levels.
However, there are negatives that go with it:
- Consultants can get attached to products and teams but have to move on. I have to say, I've felt this fleetingly, but generally the thirst for new shiny outweighs this.
- Consultants need to be multi skilled and often much more is expected from them than others.
- Consultants need to be able to context switch. If you can't do that, don't even bother.
We think that we aren't your average consultancy - we are a DevOps and Continuous Delivery consultancy, focused on delivering sustainable customer outcomes.
Some positive aspects to your negatives: Although a consultant has to move on, I find for the good consultants it tends to sharpen their skills for being able to focus on the delivery and getting the job done. This in turn is a great motivator for having the right tools in your toolbox rather than just trying to bend the tool that you've known for the last 5 years into something that it might not have been designed for.
Cyber security, Engineering & IT Operations Leader | Building Resilient Digital Solutions
6 年What about the type of organisation? Does the consultancy give all its profit back to the community? Is its vision about making the community a better place? What's the bigger picture? Toys are cool but so is doing more for others.