New Role

Reflections on differences brought about by company size.

Recently I made the hard decision to leave my job at Boombox for a new opportunity. This was due to a variety of reasons that are outside the scope of this post, but I will say that I am pleased to be continuing my focus in macOS application development.

I’m only a couple weeks in to my new role at Crowdstrike, but wanted to put down some initial thoughts about differences that stand out to me as I move into the largest organization I have yet worked for. While Doma was large enough to be operating as an enterprise, it is nowhere near this size; this is also my first role in the cybersecurity space.

• Duration of onboarding activities. At my previous two roles, there was a drive to jump in and start contributing as fast as possible, perhaps even on the first or second day. Certainly by the first week. On the other hand, this larger company with years of established code has a longer and more intensive onboarding process. There is a healthy focus on investing in the employee, which will pay off in their future work.
• Learning resources. Big companies mean big partnerships, and access to learning and reference materials that would be unobtainable (or special budget requests) elsewhere.
• Security rules and restrictions. I have long been a big proponent of personal dotfiles. I typically like to approach a new computer with my existing preferences and tools ready to go. However, when dealing with cybersecurity, the safety of tools must be considered. IT will control and dictate which programs should be run on company assets; finding and evolving personal habits is an interesting part of that. Overall this has led to an interesting process of introspection and simplicity. For each tool that I have blindly installed with brew bundle simply for the sake of using it a couple times in the past, I had to answer the question: “Is this tool critical to my workflow, or can I go back to basics?”
• Enterprise grade benefits. I would not have been able to accept this new position without a robust paternity bonding leave policy, as we are expecting a new baby this fall. It seems to me that many larger companies now offer the same leave to fathers and mothers, which is welcome. It was pointed out during DEI seminars at a previous company that this is actually more inclusive for women, that is, for fathers to take just as much time off, since they will not be the only ones staying home and missing out on opportunities.

I am hopeful to be able to make a big impact in my new role, as well as grow my own career. With the scope of the organization, there should be plenty of opportunities to take on new challenges and aim for professional growth.