I've been a sysadmin since the mid-90s, working almost exclusively for startups and small companies. Eventually I got tired of it, and went to GE in late October (not as a sysadmin, but a security/automation related position).
So, on the bright side, there are no more insane hours, there's no begging for money, I'm doing a bluesky / "fun" project for a living, and for a big company a lot of it seems to be more fast paced like a startup. My coworkers are nice people, and my boss is like a real life Ron Swanson.
Downsides? We're not really supposed to telecommute though some managers allow it. There's a dress code, but it's tolerable. Lots and lots of meetings, and lots of lots of management. There can be a lot of communication issues between different departments. Almost everything has a well designed workflow, but they often break down due to those communication issues. As GE is a very large and political company, people without great social networking skills may need to work on them.
All in all I'm happy there, and it's a really nice change from burnout-inducing workloads, pagers constantly going off at 3:00 AM, and wondering whether any of us will have a job by the end of the day.
So, on the bright side, there are no more insane hours, there's no begging for money, I'm doing a bluesky / "fun" project for a living, and for a big company a lot of it seems to be more fast paced like a startup. My coworkers are nice people, and my boss is like a real life Ron Swanson.
Downsides? We're not really supposed to telecommute though some managers allow it. There's a dress code, but it's tolerable. Lots and lots of meetings, and lots of lots of management. There can be a lot of communication issues between different departments. Almost everything has a well designed workflow, but they often break down due to those communication issues. As GE is a very large and political company, people without great social networking skills may need to work on them.
All in all I'm happy there, and it's a really nice change from burnout-inducing workloads, pagers constantly going off at 3:00 AM, and wondering whether any of us will have a job by the end of the day.