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It's not all about money. Smaller companies, while yes, are gambles they often are a more enjoyable place to work. You get a larger sense of ownership of your a

It's not all about money. Smaller companies, while yes, are gambles they often are a more enjoyable place to work. You get a larger sense of ownership of your area, have more responsibility than a large company generally gives you, and you have more potential for positive influence. These all lead to a higher satisfaction in life than just what the $benjamin's$ can give you. If you're fresh out of school, you get more experience in a year than that crappy little project you'll be given at a large company and be chained to for four years. Startups are a financial risk, but if it has a good culture, it can be a very rewarding place to work, which often leads to greater happiness. Negatives exist: sometimes longer working hours, more demanding, less mentors/senior people to learn from, and when the culture is bad; it is really bad.

dragontamer 11y ago
Or you can just find companies that have good culture, if that's what you're looking for. That's ultimately the most important thing in my eyes: workplace culture. Do they respect my time? Both my at-work time and my off-work time? If so, that's 80%ish of the culture that I need.
- bluejekyll 11y ago
  True, but it's hard to find that in large companies, based on my experience. Too much middle management can create lots of pictures political maneuvering and backstabbing. My guess is that politics increase as performance of the company goes down. When things are good it's great, when things are bad the knives come out.
JimboOmega 11y ago
I haven't gotten piles of these offers that are "double" what I'm making at a startup. I don't think working for a startup automatically qualifies me for a 2x salary at Google. Over my career I've gone to progressively smaller companies and made progressively more money. Let's be honest, there aren't that many big companies that are known to be great places to work generally (like Google). And if you don't do well at your interviews with the small number of "cool" big companies... It's not such a straightforward tradeoff. And by the way - my last startup before my current one was one of those "really bad" situations. It was a startup trying to run itself like a big company - more executives than devs.
bmj 11y ago
If you're fresh out of school, you get more experience in a year than that crappy little project you'll be given at a large company and be chained to for four years. I had the opportunity to work at several start-ups (on the east coast) during the first DotCom bubble in the late 1990s/early 2000s. It was generally a good experience for several reasons. First, I didn't have a software background/degree, so it gave me a chance to cut my teeth and the learn from good mentors (perhaps I was lucky in this regard...my first employer was started by two late 30-somethings). Second, given what I was doing right out of school (running a small climbing gym), the pay, while still under market rates, was a fortune compared to what I was making. Nearly 15 years later, I have no interest in taking another job at a start-up. I work for a fairly stable company, doing interesting work, with lots of flexibility around when and where I do that work. I do, however, appreciate the experiences I had when I was willing to take that risk.
- cornholio 11y ago
  That's quite a typical retirement/investment strategy: when you are young, you can take high risks that might pay-off in the long run and if they don't you still have time to rebuild. When you approach retirement, you should move your money into low risk investments because you will need them soon. I's the same when investing time in your career development.
seivan 11y ago
Smaller companies also have better hiring. I look at the apps from some of the larger corporations in Sweden. It's like the digital version of faecal matter. They pay 2x complete with benefits and insane pension, yet they seem to produce the worst shit they can get away with mostly because they have some sort of a monopoly or access. The people in charge of both tech and hiring are not Engineers, thus only paper good will make it in. Some might be whiteboard good I guess if they do that. Been reviewing apps from large Swedish corporations and quite frankly it's sad. I'm forced to use some of them like banking and phone. Telia has an iOS app that is essentially a broken website in a WebView. They pay a ton of money for that either by consultants or in house.

dragontamer 11y ago

Or you can just find companies that have good culture, if that's what you're looking for. That's ultimately the most important thing in my eyes: workplace culture. Do they respect my time? Both my at-work time and my off-work time? If so, that's 80%ish of the culture that I need.

bluejekyll 11y ago
True, but it's hard to find that in large companies, based on my experience. Too much middle management can create lots of pictures political maneuvering and backstabbing. My guess is that politics increase as performance of the company goes down. When things are good it's great, when things are bad the knives come out.

JimboOmega 11y ago

I haven't gotten piles of these offers that are "double" what I'm making at a startup. I don't think working for a startup automatically qualifies me for a 2x salary at Google. Over my career I've gone to progressively smaller companies and made progressively more money. Let's be honest, there aren't that many big companies that are known to be great places to work generally (like Google). And if you don't do well at your interviews with the small number of "cool" big companies... It's not such a straightforward tradeoff. And by the way - my last startup before my current one was one of those "really bad" situations. It was a startup trying to run itself like a big company - more executives than devs.

bmj 11y ago

If you're fresh out of school, you get more experience in a year than that crappy little project you'll be given at a large company and be chained to for four years. I had the opportunity to work at several start-ups (on the east coast) during the first DotCom bubble in the late 1990s/early 2000s. It was generally a good experience for several reasons. First, I didn't have a software background/degree, so it gave me a chance to cut my teeth and the learn from good mentors (perhaps I was lucky in this regard...my first employer was started by two late 30-somethings). Second, given what I was doing right out of school (running a small climbing gym), the pay, while still under market rates, was a fortune compared to what I was making. Nearly 15 years later, I have no interest in taking another job at a start-up. I work for a fairly stable company, doing interesting work, with lots of flexibility around when and where I do that work. I do, however, appreciate the experiences I had when I was willing to take that risk.

cornholio 11y ago
That's quite a typical retirement/investment strategy: when you are young, you can take high risks that might pay-off in the long run and if they don't you still have time to rebuild. When you approach retirement, you should move your money into low risk investments because you will need them soon. I's the same when investing time in your career development.

seivan 11y ago

Smaller companies also have better hiring. I look at the apps from some of the larger corporations in Sweden. It's like the digital version of faecal matter. They pay 2x complete with benefits and insane pension, yet they seem to produce the worst shit they can get away with mostly because they have some sort of a monopoly or access. The people in charge of both tech and hiring are not Engineers, thus only paper good will make it in. Some might be whiteboard good I guess if they do that. Been reviewing apps from large Swedish corporations and quite frankly it's sad. I'm forced to use some of them like banking and phone. Telia has an iOS app that is essentially a broken website in a WebView. They pay a ton of money for that either by consultants or in house.