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Discussion: Is a Running a Massive Project equivalent to Running a Company

TuWang on October 16, 2019

As a software engineer, I have helped to manage the lifecycle of projects (i.e., design, implementation, testing and launch). I have also observed ...
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georgecoldham profile image
George

On a large project, its unlikely you have had to deal with:

  • Taxes
  • Finances (on a company wide scale, property, accounting, maintenance, infrastructure)
  • Insurance (Company liability, employee insurance etc)
  • HR (pensions, pay, legal issues)
  • Any advertising or PR that may be needed
  • Managing company relations
  • More im not thinking of

Nothing is too bad and there is loads of advice out there, but it's rarely as simple as just replicating what you do when working for someone else.

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tuwang profile image
TuWang

Insurance, HR, taxes and finance are definitely the empty areas that a software engineering role does not prepare people for. Thanks for the list!

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drbearhands profile image
DrBearhands

No, the goals are completely different.

Managing a project, your goal is only that the project "is good" (however you measure that).

Starting a company, your goal is only that you earn money. A good project might help with that, but not a lot. We know of at least a few successfull companies that didn't really offer that much but somehow did get a lot of funding. Wework comes to mind. On the other hand, good products can either go nowhere, which would be hard to find an example of, or get stolen and exploited by someone else, like Edison and arguably Jobs.

I found this out the hard way when I quit my job to go start a startup. I suck at getting money.

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tuwang profile image
TuWang

Thanks for the insights. Getting money is the key difference, noted!

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mommcilo profile image
Momcilo Davidovic

The main difference is when you work on enterprise project in big company you are paid for that. When you are startup, you have additional stress to provide stable cache flow. You must live in uncertainty some period of time, and it is not always an option, especially if you have family, credits etc... Beside that, from organization point, yes big project can be equivalent to running a company. A lot of people are involved, someone has to organize and synchronize things. Everyone has to find their role otherwise project will not succeed.

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tuwang profile image
TuWang

Super good point on cash flow! That’s something I would have never experience on a company project, since the visible cost to us is just software development cost(relatively fixed). Thanks for the insights.