The Goldilocks Job

Which type of job sits in the Goldilocks zone of “just right” for you? Government or private? Large or small organization? Service or manufacturing? It’s an important question for job satisfaction.

For many folks, the question is simply, “Where can I get a job, period.” Engineers usually have more options and finding your Goldilocks engineer job requires investigation and discernment. The correct fit depends on your personality, habits, and goals in combination with the culture of the workplace. You can find out for sure only by working at a specific place, day-in and day-out, but here are my general observations.

Large organizations, both private and government, share some characteristics. They have lots of rules (policies) on how to handle various situations, which can limit flexibility and creative solutions. They also have lots of resources, so if you encounter a tough problem there will probably be someone who can help. Large organizations can afford some less productive members. That can be good – providing some valuable expert that is needed occasionally – or bad – allowing poor performers (deadwood) to hide their lack of productivity.

A common occurrence in large organizations is that employees get slotted into a narrow specialty and do the same thing over and over again. I’ve known some people who loved that and others who hated it. Getting wider experience requires a policy that ensures rotational assignments or that the person aggressively seeks out new project types within the organization.

Small organizations offer a mostly reversed image of large ones’ characteristics. They are much more flexible and creative. Readily available skills and knowledge are limited to existing staff. If you encounter something new, you will probably have to look outside the organization for help. A small staff often means that everyone needs to be a generalist, able to take on a variety of project types. You don’t get pigeon-holed into one type of project but your ability to become really expert in some specialty becomes limited. Personality conflicts that might be tolerable in a large organization can be impossible in a small one.

Government organizations have much in common with large private companies with near-monopolies, including inertia. In fact, the differences between large and small organizations tend to be greater than those between government and private. Some people disparage government workers but I’ve seen just as many conscientious, smart, and hard-working people in government as in the private sector. One major difference is that the clients of private organizations are usually the ones providing the funding, i.e., buying the product; whereas, government is funded by political bodies, not the clients (i.e., the public). That affects priorities within the organization.

One notable difference between private sector and many government jobs is the notion of billable hours. Many engineers really hate having to generate funds for, and then account for, every hour of every day, which is pretty much standard in the private sector. It also happens in some government offices. New hires aren’t expected to generate their own funding but someone has to give them permission to charge to a project. I found that it helps keep people focused on what they were supposed to be doing but I do agree that billable hours can be a distracting burden.

Which one works best for you?