This is a high demand field. I definitely work for pay, but I can get this pay at a number of places (To clarify: I don't work at Netflix or Yahoo) So I want

This is a high demand field. I definitely work for pay, but I can get this pay at a number of places (To clarify: I don't work at Netflix or Yahoo) So I want additional things from my job like respect, involvement, empowerment, learning opportunities, flexibility. Generally those things are harder (though not impossible) to get in larger firms that are mired in communication weight. Speaking with zero first-hand experience with either company, Netflix probably struggles to handle those issues already, and to merge with a larger company that is trying to tighten its belt is unlikely to improve the situation. I've worked for 3 companies so far that merged with a larger, more "traditional" company, and every times there was high attrition from the engineering side as people saw various "good" parts of their job go away, from things as small as more bureaucratic procedures to as large as technology switches. I myself left one company when the new company required everyone to wear ties "because our sales people have to", despite the fact that we were in a separate site that no client would ever approach. That was 1999 and East Coast :) In retrospect, that seems a silly reason to leave a company, but it resulted in a significant pay boost and my period of greatest learning in my career. And I don't wear a tie. Now, both Netflix and Yahoo ARE tech companies, so my anecdotal evidence above may not even apply, but generally in this field demand for coders far outstrips supply, and anything that makes coders uncomfortable in large numbers can really threaten the status quo.