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I am a 27 year old programmer and have worked for two small companies ( < 20 employees ) and for one company of 200+ employees. The only thing I can say about w

I am a 27 year old programmer and have worked for two small companies ( < 20 employees ) and for one company of 200+ employees. The only thing I can say about working for the large company is that it felt like breathing through a straw. Go work for a small company or as Paul Graham suggests, go start up your own. Leave the big companies for the burnt-out folk with kids and debt.

caudicus 19y ago
As another 27 year old programmer, I 100% agree. The only real benefit I think I derived from working at a company (both large and small) is getting a good idea of what works and what doesn't work for large scale projects (which I wasn't exposed to in school). And even that lesson was learned pretty quickly, within 3-6 months. All returns were diminishing exponentially from that point on. That same lesson could be learned in the same time frame in a start up - you'd just end up with some throw away code after a pretty short period of time, which isn't a big deal at all when it comes down to it.
fendale 19y ago
I am also a 27 year old programmer working for a very large company well over 10K employees. Unfortunately, doing well career wise is more about politics than programming. I have never worked for a small company so I cannot comment on that, but I hope for sure that there is something better than what I have experienced so far! Just have to pull my finger out and get out of there, or start some sort of startup ...
- jamiequint 19y ago
  if you're serious about getting out check out some of the jobs we have up at http://snaptalent.com/ads.html http://snaptalent.com/ads.html There are some YC companies on there, but also some other really cool startups.
  - fendale 19y ago
    I can't see any ad's at that URL ... maybe something is broken? One thing thats kept me in my big company job is that I am in a part of the UK where there isn't a massive choice of places to work - there are other big companies, but few if any startups :(
    - danw 19y ago
      Where in the UK are you? You can always quit and move if theres nothing available
      - fendale 19y ago
        I am in Belfast - Don't really want to move, I have a lot of friends here that would suck to leave behind! Lots of American investment is hitting Belfast these days, so there are a reasonable number of IT jobs, but they tend to be big companies or bigish companies outsourcing to here, so the work isn't the best. Don't get me wrong, the company I work for is good despite its size, but like many here I wanna start my own thing - I will keep mulling/hacking on my ideas until I get something that seems good enough to release ...
        jamiequint 19y ago
        We don't have any UK jobs at the moment so for now we've made our ads magically disappear when hit from any non-US IP addresses, we'll be out there soon though :)
        hollerith 19y ago
        Users from non-US IP addresses never want to apply for US jobs?
        LogicHoleFlaw 19y ago
        I'm in St. Louis and still don't see any ads on that page. I checked and NoScript and AdBlock are both whitelisting you, too. (What a curious thing! I'm trying to get more ads in my browsing experience! Who'da thunkit.)
  - joshwa 19y ago
    I was actually wondering if there was a page where I could just view the list of jobs being advertised on SnapTalent... seeing as it's a self-selecting group of advertisers, that has very high value to me. Feature Request: Show me the company, job title, and city, please?
KB 19y ago
I'm 26 and just passed my fifth year at a very large company (18000+), with four years in IT and the past year in Software Engineering. I've been looking for an oppurtunity at a smaller company, since my current one is stifling my ability to learn and be productive. The issue I'm finding is that small companies are typically looking for someone with more experience than I could currently offer. Has anyone else come across this issue? It seems to me (and others where I work) that we have to somehow pay our dues and get experience at a large company before we gather enough experience to become valuable assets to smaller companies.
- pg 19y ago
  One route you could take would be to look for a startup with young founders. They won't insist on experience, because they don't have it themselves. Another would be just to look for a good startup. All a good startup cares about is how good you are, not how many years it took you to get that way.
  - KB 19y ago
    Its also possible I haven't been looking in the right places either. From what I've noticed, its hard to pinpoint jobs at small companies since they don't seem to advertise as much as the larger ones. However, Jamie from snaptalent was nice enough to email me and pointed me to their job ads page. Unfortunately there's only one company on the east coast listed so far, but I'm hoping once they get rolling with more job ads that my chances for finding a small startup or company to work for will increase.
    - jamiequint 19y ago
      We (over here at snaptalent) just put up joinstartups.com We'll keep this up to date with all the startup jobs (and only the startup jobs) from our network
    - Xichekolas 19y ago
      You can also try: http://jobs.37signals.com/ http://jobs.37signals.com/ (usually webapp jobs) http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com/ http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com/ (not always small companies)
JoeProgrammer 19y ago
There are small companies like one of the startups our host sponsors, or like those Joel Spolsky runs, and then there are those which languish under the them of a boss who is living a good life while 1 to 5 or so programmers slave over ancient technology and insane customers. So qualify your employer carefully before you go to a small company. In particular, if they are using old technology, run away, nothing they do or say can be trusted.
- Xichekolas 19y ago
  > boss who is living a good life while 1 to 5 or so programmers slave over ancient technology and insane customers I find this is most often the case with small companies that aren't run by programmers or ex-programmers, although that isn't always a hard and fast rule.
eddiepunchclock 19y ago
yet another 27 year old programmer hear. i've worked for google for the past 3 years. after saving up a bunch of money and working with a lot of very smart people on two very different projects, I'd have to say I'm happy I chose to work for a company :) That said, there is no substitute for being able to do exactly what you want. I get my kicks in that regard programming on my own (reading SICP, toying with scala, etc). But guess what, at a good company, so does everyone else. My smart co-workers all have interests in and out of work, and just being around them and talking to them day in and day out (while eating really good free food) is a great way to learn a lot and get pointers to places to start learning more on your own. We're not all brain dead code monkeys, believe it or not. Ultimately though, the money I've saved will afford me the opportunity to strike out on my own. I certainly don't knock small companies, or starting your own. I just think large companies (OK, at least google) can be a great way to start your career before moving on to other stuff.
sofal 19y ago
I'm having a very similar experience working for a large corporation and I've made plans to extricate myself and go back to grad school. I'd be careful about associating "kids" with people who are burnt-out or who just want to crawl into their little corner as a faceless cubicle dweller. I'm 26 and have a wife and an 11 month-old son, both by choice. There is joy and fulfillment to be had in a family that commercial success cannot replace. It's interesting to see how many people assume that it's not possible to have a family as well as a stimulating and challenging career. Do not make these assumptions. I will prove them wrong.

caudicus 19y ago

As another 27 year old programmer, I 100% agree. The only real benefit I think I derived from working at a company (both large and small) is getting a good idea of what works and what doesn't work for large scale projects (which I wasn't exposed to in school). And even that lesson was learned pretty quickly, within 3-6 months. All returns were diminishing exponentially from that point on. That same lesson could be learned in the same time frame in a start up - you'd just end up with some throw away code after a pretty short period of time, which isn't a big deal at all when it comes down to it.

fendale 19y ago

I am also a 27 year old programmer working for a very large company well over 10K employees. Unfortunately, doing well career wise is more about politics than programming. I have never worked for a small company so I cannot comment on that, but I hope for sure that there is something better than what I have experienced so far! Just have to pull my finger out and get out of there, or start some sort of startup ...

jamiequint 19y ago
if you're serious about getting out check out some of the jobs we have up at http://snaptalent.com/ads.html http://snaptalent.com/ads.html There are some YC companies on there, but also some other really cool startups.
- fendale 19y ago
  I can't see any ad's at that URL ... maybe something is broken? One thing thats kept me in my big company job is that I am in a part of the UK where there isn't a massive choice of places to work - there are other big companies, but few if any startups :(
  - danw 19y ago
    Where in the UK are you? You can always quit and move if theres nothing available
    - fendale 19y ago
      I am in Belfast - Don't really want to move, I have a lot of friends here that would suck to leave behind! Lots of American investment is hitting Belfast these days, so there are a reasonable number of IT jobs, but they tend to be big companies or bigish companies outsourcing to here, so the work isn't the best. Don't get me wrong, the company I work for is good despite its size, but like many here I wanna start my own thing - I will keep mulling/hacking on my ideas until I get something that seems good enough to release ...
      - jamiequint 19y ago
        We don't have any UK jobs at the moment so for now we've made our ads magically disappear when hit from any non-US IP addresses, we'll be out there soon though :)
        hollerith 19y ago
        Users from non-US IP addresses never want to apply for US jobs?
        LogicHoleFlaw 19y ago
        I'm in St. Louis and still don't see any ads on that page. I checked and NoScript and AdBlock are both whitelisting you, too. (What a curious thing! I'm trying to get more ads in my browsing experience! Who'da thunkit.)
- joshwa 19y ago
  I was actually wondering if there was a page where I could just view the list of jobs being advertised on SnapTalent... seeing as it's a self-selecting group of advertisers, that has very high value to me. Feature Request: Show me the company, job title, and city, please?

KB 19y ago

I'm 26 and just passed my fifth year at a very large company (18000+), with four years in IT and the past year in Software Engineering. I've been looking for an oppurtunity at a smaller company, since my current one is stifling my ability to learn and be productive. The issue I'm finding is that small companies are typically looking for someone with more experience than I could currently offer. Has anyone else come across this issue? It seems to me (and others where I work) that we have to somehow pay our dues and get experience at a large company before we gather enough experience to become valuable assets to smaller companies.

pg 19y ago
One route you could take would be to look for a startup with young founders. They won't insist on experience, because they don't have it themselves. Another would be just to look for a good startup. All a good startup cares about is how good you are, not how many years it took you to get that way.
- KB 19y ago
  Its also possible I haven't been looking in the right places either. From what I've noticed, its hard to pinpoint jobs at small companies since they don't seem to advertise as much as the larger ones. However, Jamie from snaptalent was nice enough to email me and pointed me to their job ads page. Unfortunately there's only one company on the east coast listed so far, but I'm hoping once they get rolling with more job ads that my chances for finding a small startup or company to work for will increase.
  - jamiequint 19y ago
    We (over here at snaptalent) just put up joinstartups.com We'll keep this up to date with all the startup jobs (and only the startup jobs) from our network
  - Xichekolas 19y ago
    You can also try: http://jobs.37signals.com/ http://jobs.37signals.com/ (usually webapp jobs) http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com/ http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com/ (not always small companies)

JoeProgrammer 19y ago

There are small companies like one of the startups our host sponsors, or like those Joel Spolsky runs, and then there are those which languish under the them of a boss who is living a good life while 1 to 5 or so programmers slave over ancient technology and insane customers. So qualify your employer carefully before you go to a small company. In particular, if they are using old technology, run away, nothing they do or say can be trusted.

Xichekolas 19y ago
> boss who is living a good life while 1 to 5 or so programmers slave over ancient technology and insane customers I find this is most often the case with small companies that aren't run by programmers or ex-programmers, although that isn't always a hard and fast rule.

eddiepunchclock 19y ago

yet another 27 year old programmer hear. i've worked for google for the past 3 years. after saving up a bunch of money and working with a lot of very smart people on two very different projects, I'd have to say I'm happy I chose to work for a company :) That said, there is no substitute for being able to do exactly what you want. I get my kicks in that regard programming on my own (reading SICP, toying with scala, etc). But guess what, at a good company, so does everyone else. My smart co-workers all have interests in and out of work, and just being around them and talking to them day in and day out (while eating really good free food) is a great way to learn a lot and get pointers to places to start learning more on your own. We're not all brain dead code monkeys, believe it or not. Ultimately though, the money I've saved will afford me the opportunity to strike out on my own. I certainly don't knock small companies, or starting your own. I just think large companies (OK, at least google) can be a great way to start your career before moving on to other stuff.

sofal 19y ago

I'm having a very similar experience working for a large corporation and I've made plans to extricate myself and go back to grad school. I'd be careful about associating "kids" with people who are burnt-out or who just want to crawl into their little corner as a faceless cubicle dweller. I'm 26 and have a wife and an 11 month-old son, both by choice. There is joy and fulfillment to be had in a family that commercial success cannot replace. It's interesting to see how many people assume that it's not possible to have a family as well as a stimulating and challenging career. Do not make these assumptions. I will prove them wrong.