Lesson #5: Know the risks and rewards of joining a new company or team.
—Chris Cannon, Class of 2012
After graduating, I was extremely lucky to have multiple job offers. Two of the offers were from well-known, established companies whose work I admired and which I aspired to be a part of. The third one was from a brand new data visualization team forming at Bloomberg. That team and how it would operate was being pitched to me as “a tiny startup within a much larger organization.” Salary, benefits, and the quality of projects were comparable
among all three companies, so i had to weigh the risks and rewards of joining something new.
From past experience, starting at an established company meant working within their existing system. At a fledgling company or team, there’s a lot of risk, simply because there is no track record you can refer to. But the reward would be in helping to shape and define the team’s mission and your role within it from the very beginning.
As part visual, interaction, and product designer, I not only develop the design and branding of our products, but also help determine how these products function and what future projects our team should pursue. The process isn’t always smooth, but the results are immensely satisfying.
Chris Cannon is a Senior Designer at Bloomberg Visual Data, New York City, NY, USA.
This post is part of an ongoing series this month.
