4 ms·

It sounds very stressful to work at a major company

• arthurjj 9y ago
  Eh. Having worked at a Defense Company, a unicorn and then a Big 5 tech company I can honestly say the work life balance is probably the best at the the Big 5. At Defense companies you're both clearly a cost center and a cog in an unfathomably large machine. Imagine a combination of Kafkaesque and Chtulhu. At a Unicorn. You learn a lot but only because you work insane hours. Also you're paid under market wages because your job is sexy.
  • oakswood 9y ago
    Very much agree here. I've done the same to a lesser extent (defense contractor, maybe a Big 15, failed startup, and then freelancing). Freelancing is pretty good in terms of work-life balance as well, although it can feel like an endless pursuit of finding projects (interviewing, selling yourself, etc)
• kbart 9y ago
  I've found the opposite to be true. In a big company you usually have a strict role and responsibilities, know what and when to do, there are established procedures for basically everything and if something unexpected happens, you know whom to call. In small, young (startup) companies you are forced to be jack-of-all-trades, take responsibilities depending on situation and there's nobody around to give an advice. Sure, it might be fun to be that-guy-who-keeps-everything-running when everything works fine, but when production server stops, you have no idea what has happened and nobody to call, all the fun ends very fast. Both ways have their cons and pros and my advice would be to try both, to see which one suits you best.