More important than "big company" is the group of people you're working with at the big company. If you're working with some smart/motivated people and can avoi

More important than "big company" is the group of people you're working with at the big company. If you're working with some smart/motivated people and can avoid the management processes and overhead, it's a good combination of resources and autonomy. I worked in a group like this; we delivered projects and the managers stayed out of the way. They never said no to any training or software/hardware purchases. Then the bottom dropped out in 08....