For awhile, I was working at NASA on an open source project. I had idealized NASA based on movies, and thought it was the kind of place where one could be bold with coming up with novel solutions to hard problems. I was naïve enough to think that if I had good solutions I could ignore the bureaucracy. I was extremely productive and often speaking up and contributing confidently in meetings. I ruffled feathers, and thought it was fine as long as my work was good. Around a year in, a middle manager started to micromanage who I was allowed to communicate with. I recall a point when I asked a superior, who had a cubicle next to mine, and who I had a positive relationship with up to that point, how his weekend was. He didn't respond and later that day the manager called me into the office and reprimanded me literally to the point of tears, for "going outside the chain of command". Eventually, despite being the most productive member of our open source team, in terms of open issues resolved, new features shipped, and tech debt paid off, I got fired for "low performance".
The lesson I took away is that I shouldn't work for bureaucratic organizations like NASA.
NASA's managerial culture is (in)famous for all the wrong reasons - see the Challenger and Columbia crashes [1][2]. It appears that every once in a while they crash a major vehicle, external pressure gives some control back to technical authorities, but over time they seem to fall back into the same bad habits. Depending on when you were there, it would be interesting to see if post-Columbia culture has "reverted to the mean".
Thinking back to Boeing's recent 737Max issues, I wonder how much managerial exchange is there between the two Aerospace organizations.
I agree that you are best placed to make that decision. I'm also fully aware though that I'd be a terrible corporate employee. I have enough interaction with corporate (large) customers to know I wouldn't be a good fit.
But I think your root mistake is in your measures of "performance". As a programmer you measure bugs fixed, features added, debt removed. Your manager though has different criteria (for himself, since he does none of those things) and some of his criteria bleed onto you.
Things like communication, documentation, co-worker relationships, priorities and focus, and so on. (for all I know you were excellent at all these.)
In my experience the most frustrated employees are where they want to play by one set of rules, but the organisation plays by a different set of rules. Funding the place where your ruleset match the organizational is critical.
I would wither in a place that was all process and little result. But I've also seen people wither at my office because there's a lack of formal process. Right person, right place, right time, is when the magic happens.
I love corporate work myself. I worked for small startups, but I feel better supported with a large organization.
I love middle-managers. It’s the one occupation everyone hates, but its sooooo important. They are able to keep focus, and make sure corporate pathologies don’t sink in. Plus, they’re very nice people.
I like chit chatting with the devs two floors up. They’re usually working on different projects, but facing all the same issues. Learning about the other teams around coffee or at lunch is fun.
I love the rumor mill. So and sos team is being split up. The manager that just resigned is starting his own company. We are about win a gigantic contract with the NSA. None of it’s true, of course. But it’s fun!
I like having an accounting department. We have these crazy accounting people who do all their work out loud, so we always know what they’re doing. I once heard then arguing over my paystub, so I walked over and asked if I could help. They were shocked I was real person and not some numbers on paper.
The politics are better when the company has a more formal way of doing things. Good companies have a cursus honorum.
At the end of the day I like big companies for the same reasons I like big cities: lots of people.
I'm sorry you experienced that. I've worked for a few big organizations and find that each of them have pockets of good and pockets of bad. I wouldn't exclude all large/bureaucratic places based on that one experience alone. I suggest that if you don't want to work for any kind of bureaucratic organization, do it for other reasons. Maybe reasons more along the lines of "you like owning a whole stack," "you enjoy wearing many hats," or "you like knowing everyone in a small, tightly-knit organization."
>The lesson I took away is that I shouldn't work for bureaucratic organizations like NASA.
PR or Reputation management can force a culture onto people which might be a bit toxic behind the scenes and some people just do not like their authority challenged, so stepping outside of the box even the mere suggestion can be a deadly experience.
There's a reason the government and government contractors rarely attract good developers, and when they do, they don't keep them. It's a shame.
I know someone who knows quite a bit about the military-side of this space, and we were discussing a related problem: the US's capability of ramping up war-time production if we get into a hot conflict with Russia or China. The amount of waste, bureaucracy, and cost that goes into all of our military contracts would simply have to change, or we'd be screwed.
This friend of mine thinks we'd figure it out, but I'm not so sure.
One data point is the Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) [0] experience in the UK military during Operation HERRICK [1], a.k.a. the Afghan campaign. The UK's military acquisition is notoriously glacial but when soldiers started dying because they didn't have the right kit a lot of things were suddenly acquired extremely quickly, for example electronic countermeasures against IEDs, new drones, body armour and a whole range of vehicles that massively reduced crew vulnerability to IEDs. The speed of delivery was partly achieved by cutting the red tape around acquisition, e.g. by not requiring competitive tendering if a 'good enough' already product existed in the market.
This strategy itself created problems for long-term through-life support of a suddenly incoherent vehicle fleet but in turn increased motivation to develop standardised vehicle architectures [2] to allow faster modular upgrades.
This approach isn't going to suddenly deliver a new type fighter aircraft in the timescales of a hot war with China, but it does demonstrate that at least one NATO acquisition system could be speeded up a bit. A current example that is being worked at the moment is how to ramp up supplies of artillery and missiles for supply to Ukraine.
[Edit] Things more generally have slowed down again, e.g. as evidenced by the UK's (failed and cancelled) Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme, a disastrous attempt to upgrade the British Army's primary armoured infantry fighting vehicle.
I have had a similar experience with a different employer, on job interviews, when the interview asks if you have ever been terminated, what do you say and how do you explain it?
I've been terminated multiple times (not from NASA). Sometimes the company is folding, sometimes it's being acquired, which sometimes looks very similar to the engineering team being trimmed down to nothing. Sometimes it's because of bad management, sometimes it's because my expertise has been fully leveraged and they are going a different direction. I don't need to explain the reasoning of other people who's viewpoints are subjective and based on decision trees that reduce me to an abstract symbol. I collaborate, set goals, achieve goals, and ultimately focus on my own growth. A company is not a calculator or a family. A company is an organization that I'm involved with at a creative and financial level. I'm merely a part of the larger body, at the perimeter. I don't try to internalize what is out of my control or take it personally.
For awhile, I was working at NASA on an open source project. I had idealized NASA based on movies, and thought it was the kind of place where one could be bold with coming up with novel solutions to hard problems. I was naïve enough to think that if I had good solutions I could ignore the bureaucracy. I was extremely productive and often speaking up and contributing confidently in meetings. I ruffled feathers, and thought it was fine as long as my work was good. Around a year in, a middle manager started to micromanage who I was allowed to communicate with. I recall a point when I asked a superior, who had a cubicle next to mine, and who I had a positive relationship with up to that point, how his weekend was. He didn't respond and later that day the manager called me into the office and reprimanded me literally to the point of tears, for "going outside the chain of command". Eventually, despite being the most productive member of our open source team, in terms of open issues resolved, new features shipped, and tech debt paid off, I got fired for "low performance".
The lesson I took away is that I shouldn't work for bureaucratic organizations like NASA.