Thanksgiving has just passed and while I'm not American it did get me thinking. I'm thankful for many things in my tech career, especially having the perspective of having worked in other industries.
Flat management
Less management layers mean less bureaucracy and more contact with the decision makers in your company. This also means less politics and tech-related companies are typically less frustrating places to work.
Agile workflows
While I'm not a fan of the industry that has grown up around agile software practices I appreciate the feedback-driven nature of software development work flows every day. The chance to improve the things that matter and reduce those that simply add friction is not commonplace in every work environment unfortunately.
1-1's
Tech companies realise how expensive and difficult it is to recruit and retain skilful people. This realisation tends to drive modern people management practices in tech companies. The 1-1 is a great example of this in practice where it is the norm for all people, at all levels, to have a regular one-on-one meeting with their direct manager. Quite simply, everyone has a direct channel to air grievances, discuss performance and development and have an open agenda meeting to discuss anything they consider important.
Collaborative environments
Software development is a team activity - collaboration between those involved is critical. This means all the good and bad that goes along with people. The things that are good tend to be very satisfying and seeing those grow around you is very inspiring. Thankfully other characteristics of the tech industry, such as those above, tend to moderate the bad.
Meritocracy
Working in software may be one of the truest examples of a meritocratic environment I've seen, at least when it comes to those whose role it is to contribute technically. Those that are better tend to rise, something that is not the norm in other industries.
Scalability and automation
Disruptive innovators in the tech industry has meant there tends to be a keen awareness of the practices that are scalable in a company and product and those that are not. Manual processes are firmly in the latter category and you can rest assured you will not be doing the exact same thing in 20 years (or 10, or 5).