Thread: Career advice for a Java developer

Hello all,

As the title suggests I need a career advice.

I worked for a small software development company for 5+ years. Recently the company had bumped into some financial troubles and they had to implement a staff reduction. As a result I and some other developers were laid off. Not a big deal for me because I was contemplating search for another job anyhow.

Here is the problem:

The company I worked for was developing its own product and selling it on its own. Moreover the product in question was aimed at software developers, i.e. it was practically a software component.

But where I live (Eastern Europe) many software companies work on a different scheme. They predominantly describe themselves as "consulting companies". Normally one would consider "consulting" as giving some expert advice on ad hoc basis. But this kind of consulting is different. Practically they rent out their manpower to other companies, i.e. they take whole software projects and develop them from scratch for the client. No particular "expert" skills required. The projects last for a couple of years and then they promise to place you in some other project. Some are honest enough to say that they are actually providing services.

Recently I was at an interview in one such company. While I specialise in Desktop Java development and they are more interested in Enterprise Java, Spring, Hibernate, databases etc, it seems they were pleased with my skills. No wonder, by local standards I have an excellent university education. The compensation they promise is also much better than at my previous place of employment.

For some reason I do not like the idea doing services/that weird sort of "consulting".

Generally these services/"consulting" companies seem be recruiting more actively/giving better job opportunities. At the very same time I regularly find advertisements of food supplements in my mailbox which promise to help to cure cancer, while real medical professionals do not advertise themselves. Maybe these services/"consulting" companies are "predatory" in a similar way?

Here is the question:
Should I shun that sort of companies and search for a company with its own software product?

Another question:
Would it not be a career dead end to work on development of database front-end applications?