gaelow

I've recently started working for a medium-sized start up (~100 employees, 8 years old) as a junior developer. Up until now I've been working as a freelancer in direct contact with the client/end user, and all my projects translated into something useful: a product or some extra functionality on a product that satisfied a particular demand. Very small contracts lasting only a few months and comprising just a few thousand lines of code each.

Now I just do whatever management throws at me, which is usually work handed to them by account managers who get contracts to work on big projects (hundreds of thousands or even millions of lines of code and several months or even years of development).

One of the first things I've noticed on my new job is that a good number of projects never reach production or, if they do, they are useless products retired or restarted from scratch by a different company a few months later. Specially when it involves government contracts or collaboration with other companies.

Should I worry about this smoke/functional product ratio and start looking for a new job, or is it what I should expect from any software development company handling many big projects at once?

What should I do if I stay between a few months and a couple of years and become project manager to avoid any products I am put in charge of ending up as vaporware?

What should I do if despite my best efforts I still can't avoid it?