How can I leverage against my company's IT department?

Question

I work for a large company. We're about to go international. People recognize our brand very well. But our IT department is awful. It changes leadership, is understaffed, and never gives my department any resources. When I arrived 6 months ago I was an intern. People were storing data on spreadsheets and using vlookups instead of queries. People swore up and down how brilliant I was after I built some local databases and used a little C# and .NET. I am their rogue IT guy, doing what our IT department fails at doing every day.

It was not long before I was asked to make a data-driven iPad app. I told them we need to host a database via Amazon's cloud service if we don't get IT's support, but my boss says hes uncomfortable with that idea as our team has just gotten used to Quickbase (which is awful imo). I'm being expected to make an enterprise app but not getting any enterprise resources. It's also a critical part of my career as I'm only 23 and this app could be scaled and licensed to other companies.

I could try to host a SQL Server or MySQL database on my work computer, but I know I'll get tracked down by IT for having a rogue server. What strategy could I follow to gain leverage? Should I make a database, make it go live on my work desktop, distribute the app, and wait for IT to come? When that happens, they would have to go through my boss, his boss, and his boss' boss once they become dependent on it. Can I just let THEM fight it out and defend me for doing my job?

Answer 1

It would depend on the internal politics of your company. If your boss or his boss or any of those people up your chain can overrule the IT department you should be fine. Especially since you were tasked with developing the app. An alternative is to run the server on your home computer. That could possibly get you out some stuff.



It's clear that you are brighter than most at your company. If you have the support of your boss and so on, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I would just give them a heads up if you do host it on your work computer so when IT finds it it's not a shock to them. Or they'll tell you not to but will give you guidance on what to do.

Answer 2

Oh...gawd...the IT department that has no clue what IT is dilemma. I've lived it. Still am. Until a month ago, I worked for a smallish, but publicly traded ($75M market cap) company. I had a 35 Meg inbox limit. Same limit I had when I started there 15 years ago. HELLO IT??? IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE? HAVE STORAGE COSTS CHANGED OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS? HELLO??????



But don't host on your work computer. That isn't a solution, that's a hack. And a brittle one. You don't want your app to go down when it comes time to install some updates, or be slow because you are running some CPU intensive task. It's your dev box, not a server.



I would push harder for the Amazon solution. Try to win some support there, even if you have to pay for the first couple months out of your own frickin paycheck. (Sell it as a proof of concept demo, and explain what it will cost to keep it going beyond 2 months). We ran a rogue AWS instance like that for a couple years. We paid the bill using the corporate secretaries Amex card. The monthly charges were small enough to stay under the radar screen. It did get a bit complicated when she got laid off, but by then it was mission criticalish enough that another way *had* to be found to pay the bill, and it was.



You should be able to build a good, robust solution on Amazon without a huge expense. You really can't do that on your dev box. Go for the robust solution because it's the right way to do it. Prove it, then sell it.



>> I guess what I'm asking is how can I force IT to support the database and app I have built.

You can't. They don't have a clue what you are doing. And they aren't all that interested in learning new things. (Or, at least, that has been my experience).



And... steer clear of the lawyers. They are more clueless than IT. At one point, our lawyer wanted us to get Amazon to sign an NDA covering all software we had running on AWS. Not gonna happen if your market cap is a 2 digit number ending with M.



I wish you luck in the alligator pit you've dug for yourself ;-)

Answer 3

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