I think the question becomes what don’t you like about making apps and what size corporation do you wanna work in. Cuz the bigger a corporation you work for, the less bandwidth you’ll be responsible for. That’s not to say the less work you’ll do, but the less variety of tasks you’ll be asked to complete. Think of it like launching your own app (team of 1) vs working at a fortune 500 company that has a team of people doing every possible type of task you can imagine.
As a team of one you’ll be handling the graphic palette, and the menu layouts, and deciding to not design the app in a horizontal format because the pictures won’t organize well in that format. When you get to a big corporation, all those functions have teams dedicated to them. UX looks at buttons and menus, Strategy and CRO looks at what causes people to click them. Working as a dev at a big company is just taking menu orders. At a small company, you get to have more, “surprise me” moments.
Yeah; I will say, there is usually bigger paychecks at bigger orgs but I’ve found it really frustrating when you get told to spend 17 hours making the button red, when it was coded structurally to be green. Sometimes when you have more freedom you can make bigger design choices and it makes your job feel like it makes more sense. (IE if the button will be green the menu should be too)
So I’ve worked two “real” jobs. #1 was at a university, it was me running the website. I did everything single-handedly, (light) code, analytics, writing, photography selection, ect. Then I got a crazy 6 figure offer to come and work for a regional bank. The web team was 50+ people and I was working website strategy, which turned out to just mean being a project manager, and the nexus for teams to interact. I did nothing but manage tickets and sit in 30+ meetings a week. Was let go in April.
Tanks so much for this!!! You sound like someone who loves what they’re doing!! I talked to my advisor today and he said that there’s a new course CS + design which would make it easier to get into UX/UI and also graphic design. I’ve always wanted to be different while staying in CS. I’m about to give it a try!!