On leaving consultancy
I’ve decided: I’m never returning to software consultancy again. After nearly a decade in consultancy, I recently took my first in-house software engineering position. How do those roles differ? Why do I prefer my current position? First things first: why did I get into consultancy in the first place?
I got into consultancy because it allowed me to see different companies and technologies, meet different people, and tackle a variety of problems in a short timeframe. In retrospect, it was beneficial to my career, as I rapidly built a network and expanded my skill set.
Consultancy also had the benefit of never having to fully commit to a single company. Whenever an assignment didn’t turn out as I hoped, I left without it having a major impact on my life. Yes, I’d have to start over at another assignment, but I kept the same employer. I’ve prematurely terminated a few assignments this way and was grateful for the option. Those negative experiences even had an upside: they taught me what I value in my work: good atmosphere, being surrounded by fun people, and freedom.
However, never committing to a single company was a double-edged sword. There was always a sense of distance between me and the company I was at: I felt like an outsider looking in, never feeling the need to truly understand its goals and mission. Unsure about how I contributed to the bigger picture, I often felt demotivated and disconnected.
Worse was that I wasn’t selective about finding companies that aligned with my ideals. The temporary nature of the assignments meant that I was more inclined to make concessions: a gig with interesting technology outweighed the fact that I was indifferent about the company. Big mistake.
My main selection criteria for my current position (at the Dutch Railways1) was whether I aligned with its purpose. I’m glad I did. Now I feel part of something bigger than myself: improving public transport. That’s a mission I can get behind. Yes, it still scares me sometimes that I “can’t hit the rage-quit button” and walk out when something happens I don’t like, but that mission resonates with me and pulls me through. It’s a much deeper sense of fulfillment than anything I felt during my consultancy days.
Worse than feeling disconnected from a company’s mission was feeling disconnected from the people I worked with. A big reason for that was me. Every assignment was finite, had an expiry date. This feeling pervaded how I acted, and I didn’t invest in relationships. The relationships I did build were with people in my vicinity, and even those were shallow.
Now it’s completely different. I engage with more people and get to know them better than I previously did. Work turns out to be a lot more fun with meaningful relationships. Not having an expiration date made all the difference. Relationships now feel worth putting time and effort into, because I don’t know upfront that they’re short-lived.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand the allure of consultancy: its faux safety of not having to commit and sampling many environments. But there’s no free lunch. It did me more harm than good, which unfortunately took me nearly a decade to realize. Better late than never.
The Dutch Railways (NS) is the biggest passenger train operator in the Netherlands.↩