
Ask HN: Should I work for a software consultancy? - throwaway7h3299
	I&#x27;m an intermediate level developer employed at a product company for the last few years. I want to get exposure to a breadth of challenging problems (one person I look up to in this regard is Rich Hickey, who &quot;has worked on scheduling systems, broadcast automation, audio analysis and fingerprinting, database design, yield management, exit poll systems, and machine listening.&quot;).<p>Is working for a reputable software consulting firm a good way to access these types of problems? If so, what are some consulting firms that would work on problems like that (rather than building someone&#x27;s shiny new rails app)?
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brudgers
Keep in mind that Hickey worked on all those things over a period of several
decades starting in the era of C++ and Common Lisp...and that the recent
database was a project he did after Clojure was success. The reason to keep
that in mind is that in between there were almost certainly many crumby
projects and death marches. Part of consulting is 'paying dues' in the form of
getting projects done solely for the purpose of getting paid and then moving
on to _whatever_ the next paying gig happens to be.

Another way of putting it is that Rails came out of a consultancy.

Good luck.

