Work in Product Companies vs work in Service Companies

I started my career in a product company. After being worked for 3.5 years, I decided to switch job to a service company where I experienced shocking change wrt work culture, quality of work etc. Hence I would like to write down my experience of working in a product company to that of a service company. It would be helpful for those in dilemma while switching jobs.

First of all, there is a drastic change in work culture between two kinds of business.

In a product company, there is usually a team where there is already a defined process, tools, methodologies and experienced people to provide guidance. It would be lot helpful especially for freshers. When compared to a service company, there is no defined process as such (although many might claim to be a CMM level 5 company). Team members are not very cordial as there is immense pressure on each individual to a short deadline.

In terms of quality of work, there is deeper understanding of domain, technology in a product company where as domain knowledge, understanding of tools hardly matter in a service company. The Nature of work can be very stressful in a service company where one is expected to put in extended working hours during weekdays and weekends. Creativity and innovation in work generally tend to take a back seat in a service company due to work pressure and short deadlines.

But one can expect a quick vertical growth in a service company compared to Product Company.

Working in Service Company is like investing in short term stocks where you expect to get quicker smaller returns where as working in product company is like investing in long term stocks where one can expect huge benefits after long time of many years.

But one might tend to feel stagnated and at times frustrated due to slow nature of environment in a product company especially if one doesn’t like what he does. In those scenarios, one should take a right decision to switch job based on interest rather than points like money, level of experience and designation. It’s up to an individual where he is happy working and what his priorities are…..