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Does Company Culture Matter in a Software Engineer Job?

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If you’re already into the corporate world or looking forward to getting into it, chances are more that you would have witnessed people discussing the topic of Company Culture. Many people consider the company culture as a pivotal factor while looking out for a tech job and some of them even accept or reject the job opportunity by making a decision heavily based on this parameter. Correspondingly, there are individuals also who turn a blind eye to the company’s culture in the professional world.

Does-Company-Culture-Matter-in-a-Software-Engineer-Job

Now, you must be coming up with a query in your mind that if you should be concerned about company culture or not while looking forward to making your career as a Software Engineer, right?

Okay, to understand this, firstly there is a need to know – What exactly is Company Culture? Company culture can be described as the values, beliefs, goals, and most importantly practices followed in an organization to achieve the respective business goals. A general misconception about company culture is that it is often defined as the alternative term for office vibes but in reality, it is something more vast than that. It indeed is the key facet for both – the employer and the employees.

Let’s take a look at several noteworthy facts & figures for Company Culture:

  • More than 60% of candidates treat the company’s culture as a considerable factor while looking out for job opportunities.
  • Around 18-20% of candidates decline the job offers just because of the poor company culture.
  • Professionals who don’t like the culture of their respective companies are 25% more likely to leave the organization.
  • Companies with better cultures witness around 70% higher employee engagement rates compared with others.

As of now, you’re aware of what is company culture and all the facts & figures around the same. Furthermore, let’s take a step forward and discuss why company culture is important for the organization as well as your career goals:

1. Increases Employee Engagement & Productivity

When an employee gets a good company culture and all the required things whether it be resources, team support, etc., it encourages him to become more engaged in his work which eventually enhances his productivity.

2. Better Employee Retention

Indeed, healthy company culture is quite beneficial for employee retention and it helps organizations to keep their best people along with them. In the majority of cases, an employee who quit his job often doesn’t get satisfied with the company culture and does not find himself connected with the company.

3. Smoother Onboarding Process

The significance of company culture becomes more crucial with the new employees. To make the onboarding process smoother, there is a need to come across them with strong company culture during their orientation & training programs and to let them understand the core values & goals of the organization.

4. Efficient Targets & Goals Achievement

And yes, with the business growth perspective, strong company culture is necessary for resource planning, team management, completing projects on deadline, and overall effective functioning of the organization to achieve the desired targets and business goals.

Now let’s take a look at several prominent elements of Company Culture that should be taken into consideration as they can affect your career life as a Software Engineer:

1. Working Hours Flexibility

One of the most-discussed aspects of company culture for every organization. Even in today’s world of digitalization and advanced tools & technologies, many companies are still attached to the working hours considering it as the parameter to determine employees’ productivity & performance. Though it is not bad to have an arriving & leaving time for the employees or some fixed working hours in an organization. But the point is that it shouldn’t be so harsh or rigid and there should be some flexibility. For instance, if an employee completes his allotted task or project priorly, on a particular day, as he needs to go for his personal work then he should be allowed for the same instead of being asked to be available till the departure time.

2. Professional Development & Learning Opportunities

Another facet of the company culture that must be taken into account by candidates in a job opportunity is the professional development and learning opportunities offered by the organization for the employees. The companies should focus on providing learning opportunities and fostering employees’ professional development, it’ll not be beneficial only for the employees but for the employers also as it motivates the employees to work more passionately and in an engaging manner that subsequently enhances the productivity of the organization. And being a Software Engineer or Developer, it becomes more necessary for all individuals to look out for a company where they can get exposure to the latest technologies & trends for their professional growth and career advancement. And yes, do remember to not become too self-centric when you get these learnings or development opportunities in an organization.

3. Creative Freedom

To be honest, this is something that you can’t expect from any company beyond a certain extent and it is justifiable as well. However, the complete absence of creative and working freedom in an organization is also something not appreciable. The workplace should not be only a physical space for the employees where they just go to complete their tasks but it should be a place for them where they can think over various new innovative ideas & strategies and discuss all these with the key people of the organization to come up with something worthwhile. Moreover, companies often experience higher chances of success when the employees are given such kind of freedom and involved in all those impactful decisions in the company.

4. Team Environment & Collaboration

Another element of the company culture that can affect your career is the team environment & collaboration in the organization. And in a Software Engineer job profile, a better & collaborative team environment becomes a must for an effective and efficient workflow. For instance, if you’re a developer in an organization then you need to communicate & collaborate with other teams such as designing, testing, operations, etc. – and if there is a lack of a supportive team environment within an organization then it eventually will affect the performances and career prospects of each & every individual. Meanwhile, you also need to work on your teamwork & communication skills to get things done conveniently.

Below we’ve mentioned several strategical points that you can opt to follow to know about the culture of a particular company while considering a job opportunity:

  • Visit the official website of the company as it will help you to know about various crucial insights such as the organization’s goals, visions, history, etc.
  • Try to know if any of your connection works at the same company as he/she can provide you with a lot of worthwhile information and advice. You can use various online platforms such as LinkedIn, etc.
  • Check out the experiences of the employees and company reviews on Google Reviews, Glassdoor, etc. to know more.
  • When the interview is about to finish and the interviewer asks you if you have any questions then you can come up there with the question related to the company culture. Though, you need to be a bit careful and decent while asking such questions in the interview.

So, as we discussed how company culture is important to your career as a Software Engineer – now it’s up to you to put in some effort and to know about the company culture as well before finalizing your decision for a job opportunity. Moreover, strong company culture is beneficial to employers also as we mentioned above when employees find themselves fit in the company culture, they become more productive and efficient. And yes, maybe the research process of knowing about company culture takes an adequate amount of time of yours but undoubtedly the benefits will be more than worth it!!



Last Updated : 21 Nov, 2022
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