If you had to choose, would you rather work in a small startup environment with a high degree of autonomy or work in a large corporation with more ...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Working for startups or big corporations (plus there are more options!) is different, but not as much as people put it. Each are going to have pros and cons... and sometimes the pros and cons are the same!
From my experience (that is anecdotal, as each company is a new world):
Startups: you need to deliver and deliver fast. Many times long hours and at weird times (I once had to take a client's call on a Saturday at 8pm while having dinner with some friends, and ask for my friend's computer so I could vpn to work.) You gain a lot of experience and learn a lot, which is great... but... that learning and experience is often not the best: having to deliver fast means cutting corners, and choosing speed over quality, you will learn practical skills and get technical knowledge, but it may not be the best practices. You'll get to wear many hats (and I really mean it, to the point of even having to send snail mail as a developer, or organize marketing content for conferences... and I don't mean slides, but folding brochures and picking swag from the store.) And that's good. You'll grow in all directions a little bit. Projects tend to be more interesting (not always) and there's a lot of responsibility and pressure: if you don't deliver, the company may well disappear. Start ups are great for younger people without family ties, who value more the project than the (long-term) perks or salary. If the start up succeeds (90% of startups fail), you'll hit jackpot and most likely move to the next one.
Big corporations: one bad thing about big corps is that you stop being a person to become a number, a cog in an engine whose only job is to make money. That dilutes responsibility, but less responsibility doesn't mean less pressure: you'll be working in multimillion contracts, if you don't deliver on time, the corporation may lose huge amounts (in the 6-7 figures, and good luck explaining that failure to executives). So don't think that it will be "5pm. Clock out. I'm done for the day." Salaries tend to be higher, and long-term perks tend to be sweeter (higher 401k matches, stock options, better and cheaper health insurances.) Also, let me break the bubble of work stability: yes, a big corp will not just close shop and be done as a startup, but layoffs are incredibly common (with or without economic crisis) and incredibly unfair. You may be the most productive employee in the company, but if your department is gone, you are gone. Another bubble to burst: opportunities for growth. May be educational, yes (learning may be slower but it can be of higher quality: big corps usually have learning budgets, even for grad schools), also because there are more processed and people in place, you'll be able to grow vertically (specialize) even if slower; but career-wise, it is more common to jump diagonally to a different department (or company) than to go up vertically (promotions).
Medium Enterprises (SME): They are more established and the survival pressure is gone (but still there), and normally their goals are more modest and their clients more "understanding" (no multimillion dollar contracts and the sword of Damocles of layoffs not hanging over your head continuously.) Smaller groups, maybe not as interesting projects (this depends highly on the company, I worked as a developer in a company that did smaller projects for the government and they were surprisingly challenging and interesting... and if they weren't, it didn't matter because they'd soon be over and get a new one.) The long-term perks and the salary won't be as big as the big corp, the chances of potential reward will be lower than at a startup and, in my opinion, they are more stable and balanced (both in terms of job security and work-life balance) than startups/big corp. These are the ones where I enjoyed my time the best because they offered a nice balance between startup and big corp life.
My two cents: focus on the project more than the type of company. Of course, there will be personal factors that may make you choose between small or big, but in the end, you'll be happier with a project that you enjoy and makes you happy, independently of it being in a startup, a small/medium company, or a big corporation. And that will impact your overall productivity and burnout feeling.
It depends on your own ambitions and expectations...
I have experience in startups, small companies, medium companies, and large corporations... And this comment is... I mean... If you think that people at a big corp go home at 5 every day, don't work crazy hours, don't gain as much experience, or may not get burnt out... I have bad news for you.
I'm glad I don't have to choose between the two...
"Big corp: go home at 5 every day. Nice conversations at the coffee machine about the mortgage and the leasecar. Might need to write a line of code somewhere between meetings."
Yep, I've worked at Big Corp too (a few of them) and this is why I wasn't shocked at all when huge numbers of layoffs came from BigCorps recently.
Actually, I was more shocked that it hadn't happened sooner -- especially after 2008 for example.
I worked for a large Mortgage Bank where I only did 6 weeks of work in an entire year. And, that code was shelved also. But, they kept on paying me and that is the important part, of course. 😆
100% accurate 😂
This is SUCH a good question and I've been thinking about this recently.
After I received my Computer Science degree I caught a ton of grief for not going into a product team and instead going to IT, Intel's massive IT organization to be exact. Old, slow, structured, etc. I found it to be structured, but still able to find the things described above as part of the small startup opportunity.
The back half of my career (so far) I moved to smaller companies who have lusted over selling their products to those larger corporations.
Having a mix of both on my resume has been hugely valuable. Having experience working for both small and large gives me a fantastic perspective. Building products for enterprise developers is really building products for me from a few years ago.
I completely agree with you! As someone who has worked for a very large, unwieldy and bureaucratic administration and now a much more nimble company, I can attest to the value of having a diverse range of experiences on my resume. Being able to leverage my previous experience in a large organization and apply those insights to a smaller, more agile company is so rewarding. It's amazing how much transferable knowledge and skills we can gain from different work environments.
I prefer small startups.
Here in New Zealand, startup life is not like in the US. We don't work crazy hours, environments are not toxic, and we all know the likelihood of making it big are small.
But it does give you a good sense of achievement. You get to learn and work across the business. You do move fast, and often break things.
Working on big corps, for me, gets boring fast. I want to see change happening in real time. Not in 18 months increments.
My prejudice is that big corporations are much more evil.
I'm not saying small startups can't be evil, but due to the scale of things and the nature of profit-motivation, above a certain size all corporations are unethical.
So while it's tempting to want the (perceived) security of working for Facebook or something, I'd rather be comfortable sleeping at night.
For me, it's always more fun in a small startup (especially as an IC). Now that I've been in the leadership teams for both types of businesses, I still think startups are more fun because of the pace. Still, the opportunity to make a massive impact is available in big companies.
I will still have to say startups for the lack of bureaucracy (who likes rules anyway).
I've worked in both. I've found that the stereotypes don't fit them all. And within large organizations, you can find pockets that behave like startups -- in good ways or also in bad ways.
My impression is sometimes people gravitate toward large organizations thinking they will be more secure. Perhaps the odds are better than in a startup, but security is illusive no matter where you find yourself.
my PO asked me this question 4 months ago before a layoff in our startup company. So I answered "Big corporation", after the layoff (I was not affected directly) I decided to move out and now I am working a really big corporation.
Thanks to the layoff I am now where I wanted to be
I am biased towards a small startup having spent my entire career so far working at the same company. I love the freedom I have to learn new things, develop the processes we use and try all sorts of different projects. Personally I have grown so much and learnt a lot as a self taught developer in a small team. I have also had to step up a lot and take on more senior tasks more quickly than I would otherwise have had the opportunity for.
I would say though that there is a middle ground between small startup and large corporation: small to medium enterprise where you get a lot of the same stability as a large corporation with much of the flexibility of a small startup. This to me is the optimal space to be in, you still learn a lot but you also benefit from the stability of having solid processes in place.
My preference as an individual contributor is to work for small high-velocity teams.
My needs as a 30-something cancer survivor living in the US is to work at a company with some measure of stability so I have reliable health care coverage.
I would work in a Startup for a while, to build something big and have a totally different and amazing experience.
Then I would go to a big corporation, because then I would have more time to focus on writing articles and participating more in the community.
Small startup, always. I have worked for consulting companies (small and big), large IT companies, and startups, and I'll always pick startups.
Why? Simple – less bureaucracy, and more chances to actually push features out to the users. You'd think big IT companies have everything figured out, but that is rarely the case, more often than not they are just a big hierarchy of people who don't really care and it isn't happy with their jobs. Startup companies might be messier, and might be a bit more on "fire", but at least you have more visibility of what's going on with the company, you have personally met (almost) everyone at the company, you know everyone's role, and there are no people "winging" it.
Sure, this is not a 100% rule. Sometimes you might find big IT companies that have actually figured out how to structure the company and keep things tidy, and sometimes you might find startup companies that are utterly messy.
My personal experience leads me to think that most big IT companies do not scale very well, that's why I prefer to stick with small startup companies.
Different kinds of companies have different pros/cons.
A large corporation will have process and culture in place that are not going to change. (Satya Nadella has been proactively trying to change the culture & processes of Microsoft, and has very limited success (mostly lip-service success, in my opinion). Changing culture & processes of a company is a heck of a slog!) If the culture/processes work for you, great! If the culture and/or processes rub you the wrong way, well... they're not going to change, so either adopt-or-adapt or be perpetually frustrated. The benefit of a large corporation is that it provides the illusion of job security, which can be very comforting. And usually the benefits are good.
A small startup is precarious because they are threading the fine line between burn rate and becoming sufficiently profitable to establish themselves as a small business (post-startup). The benefit is stock options which are either worthless (99% chance, because the startup folds), or retirement money (1%).
In between small startup and large corporation is: independent consultant (make yourself into a one-person LLC, and be your own boss), small business (post-startup), medium business, large business (on its way to becoming a large corporation). (If you work for a consulting company, and you are a salaried FTE... that's the same as being in a S/M/L business or Large Corporation, depending on the consulting firm.)
What I look for is: do I like the culture & processes, do I like the management, do I like my colleagues, do I like my product (or in particular, the product's codebase).
Whether to work in a small startup or a large corporation depends on your personality, skills, and career goals. If you thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment and want to be part of building something from scratch, a small startup may be the right choice. If you prefer structure, stability, and access to resources and benefits, a large corporation may be the better option.
Having done both in my career, I would always prefer working for a startup.
The single most important reason for me is visibility, in your work, on your opinions.
Another great reason would be, as an early employee you'll be able to actually influence the culture of the organization.
The largest company I've worked at had something like 7,000 employees. The smallest had about 60 when I started. So I have experienced a decent range of headcounts, but haven't really experienced the extremes yet.
From what I can tell, everyone should try working at both large and small companies.
But I think it's best to start with a larger company and then try working for a startup after at least a few years of experience with larger companies. That was the path I took.
Larger companies are typically profitable and have been around for a while. They have a lot of customers whose trust they need to keep. This means they place more emphasis on product maintenance, quality, and stability. You will work in large, well-maintained, stable codebases, guided by seasoned engineers whose job description includes mentoring you. You'll learn a lot about how to write code well and these habits will stick with you.
On the other hand, startups are new, usually unprofitable, and don't have a lot of customers whose trust they need to keep. Their emphasis is on product novelty and fast time-to-market so that they can grab themselves a customer base ASAP. You'll slap a new codebase together yourself while under constant schedule pressure and with little technical guidance. You will learn a lot of practical knowledge and get good at pushing things forward fast. In my opinion, it's better to do this sort of learning a little later in your career, after you have spent your more formative years building up good coding design habits.
Obviously these are gross generalizations and will vary on a company-to-company basis. You'll learn a lot at any type of company, but I feel that the order is important.
I really enjoyed Alvaro's comment and mostly feel similarly.
I think it's a really thought-provoking question.
I think working in a small startup environment is good because you can have your own time and work in an eco-friendly environment.
However, large corporations are the perfect place to get work stress.
Instead, they receive a salary that allows them to enjoy a comfortable life.
Just as each person has a different facial appearance, not everyone can have a common idea.
"For what" each one must choose.
Depends on the company. I would rather work somewhere that my contributions have meaning rather than getting "lost in the sauce".
I would choose a small startup because then I would feel like I’m contributing more to it.
The smaller the company, the more you matter.
in startup you build thinks and hope it sticks. In a big corporation, there is better planning pissible. big corp know we make this mobile app, and we know it will have 5000 users in the first months, that is not by chance, this is because they will drive this many customers to the app. see how this goes and then drive more users to the app or feature.
startups want to build an app, and always have it ready to handle "infinit" scale. even dough using adwords and so on, they also have the same tools to drive very controlled amount of users to the app.
i working is big tech, and in startups, I found that in a big corp, it is more about the department. a department is like a small to medium commany. and in big corp, you often have little contact with people outside your bubble.
a problem I see in big and small companies, is the lack of a vision. It is about the leadership. and if you have luck does not depend on the size of company.
I’m going to say whoever pays enough and doesn’t fuck your brain too much. I dislike that startups are seen some kind of magical place and that working there is so hyped up. Quite often conditions are bad(expected unpayed overwork, deliver perfect results fast and fill in for 2-3 different specialists and payed as an part timer) and pay is low, but hey that sweet, sweet equity option, right?
Only 1 out of 10 startups survive so that equity of company that might not exist tomorrow doesnt sound enticing. Either does fusball or free snacks. Pay me enough so i can buy my own snacks
Working in a big corp I‘d love to see how it feels to work in a smaller company, may it be start or scale up. All these processes and hierarchies can create overhead and really keep you from writing actual code. On the other hand of course it feels really secure. And for sure doesn’t mean 9 to 5. Although you may be able to get some time off in return there can be overtime. Especially if you like what your are doing and like to tackle and solve problems.
As someone who has spent their entire career working in large corporations, I can attest to the many benefits that come with working in such an environment. There is usually a clear career path, established processes and hierarchies, and a sense of stability that comes with working for an established organization. However, there are also cons that come with working in large corporations (depending on the company, not all of them are the same), such as massive layoffs, poor leadership, and a bias that is already molded into the company culture.
Given the opportunity, I would love to work in a small startup environment. The thought of being part of a close-knit team that is building something from the ground up is truly exciting. The ability to have a high degree of autonomy, wearing multiple hats, and have a direct impact on the success of the company is very appealing to me.
While working in a startup environment can be challenging, the potential for growth and personal development is immense. The ability to take risks, innovate, and pivot quickly is something that is often not possible in a more structured environment.
Whatever has smaller work load. I love smaller and more focused projects instead of large-legacy projects (for now).
Usually I like projects that I can maintain alone.
Small companies that aren't startups don't pay the best, but can be a really great additional option.
I don't know if my country have startup but exist micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Small startup
Small startup Am a dreamer and have believed anything imaginabl
Small startup. Am a dreamer and have believed anything imaginable.