<p>Hi all, I was wondering if anyone here has knowledge about working in both industries?
I'm going to be a junior CS major and considering internship opportunities in both. I'm just coming off of a summer at a major software company and loved my job. I love the challenge of coding projects and would definitely enjoy working on them again.
But I've also seen a lot of hype (and a lot of opportunities at my school's career center) for consulting type jobs.
Any ideas of what the long-term opportunities are in each industry? Or general differences between pay, work experience/environment? I know it all varies by company - but in general?
From what I've been gathering about consulting, software engineering is more aligned with my interests, but are there opportunities or benefits associated with working in consulting that I might be missing out on?</p>
<p>From the information I have received the general difference is consulting is more customer oriented. You travel and meet with the customer to determine needs and all that stuff.</p>
<p>There is quite a few companies where software developers have consulting responsibilities on top of their developer responsibilities. Seem to be the direction a lot of companies are going. Depending on the company, the senior developer of an office could be in sort of the consulting role.</p>
<p>Salary wise is about the same. If you are smart enough to become a consultant you are smart enough to get a well paid developer job.</p>
<p>Unless the employer does a lot of in-house development and/or R&D, their revenue will come from consulting. Basically, what happens is that you (the developer) is farmed out to a client to produce a technical solution.</p>
<p>Consulting can be vary in terms of fun, stress, travel, working hours and opportunities. Still, one thing that I liked about consulting was learning about a company’s business. You may get sent to Delaware and work with the credit-card companies. There is NYC and Boston and the financial folks. There is DC and the federal government. There is Philly and the insurance companies.</p>
<p>If you have multiple skill sets (and your employer is short-staffed), you may split your time between multiple clients. I remember being the project manager on one project (doing project plans and schedules) and being a DBA on another project 40 miles away (got paid for gas and miles too).</p>
<p>Salaries will vary depending on employer, geography, your skill-set and what is the latest technology that is in demand/what you know.</p>
<p>OP, you should be more specific about what type of consulting you’re talking about. I get the feeling you’re referring to management consulting (strategic or niche). Is that true? Or are you referring to software consulting?</p>