7 ms·

One thing that gets glossed over a lot with startups is that often times the technical skill level is really low. If you are a young engineer and you are hopin

by birken 8y ago

One thing that gets glossed over a lot with startups is that often times the technical skill level is really low. If you are a young engineer and you are hoping to learn technical skills, be very very careful about which startup you join because you might end up at one where nobody actually has any idea what they are doing. And if you yourself are in the learning phase of your career, you might not have the experience to figure out if the startup's technical situation is great or terrible. At least one very important benefit of joining a big, reputable company is that the technical skill level will be good, the career coaching will be good and they probably will even have some sort of education pipeline set up for younger engineers to learn. I always shudder when thinking about all of the new-grads who are seduced to join startups and then spend years learning terrible habits and churning out crap and get spit out no better than they began. At minimum if you spent a couple years at a larger, reputable company you'll always have a benchmark to compare with other opportunities.

WalterSear 8y ago
> At least one very important benefit of joining a big, reputable company is that the technical skill level will be good, the career coaching will be good and they probably will even have some sort of education pipeline set up for younger engineers to learn. This hasn't been my experience, at all. The worst code I have work on has been at the biggest, most prestigious tech company that has employed me. And the best learning environment was at a startup that could only afford bootcamp grads.
save_ferris 8y ago
> At least one very important benefit of joining a big, reputable company is that the technical skill level will be good I don't believe this is a universal truth, especially since your experience at a large company is largely dictated by the specific team you work on. I've definitely worked for small startups that were far more talented than some of the technical teams I've worked on at big companies.
- vkou 8y ago
  The friction for finding a new job in a big company is often lower then quitting your startup. If you're not growing the way you want to, transfer internally. You don't lose your unvested equity, you don't have to spend 6 months re-onboarding (3 would be sufficient), you can have a much better idea of what the working environment in your new team is going to be, then going across the street to a competitor.
- birken 8y ago
  Well nothing is a universal truth, but I think my point is generally accurate. IMO a bad team at a good company is way way better than a "good" team at a bad startup where nobody knows what they are doing. At the very least the company will have lots of resources outside of your team to learn from (company-wide infrastructure and processes, tech talks, etc). I also am not saying all startups are bad, and in fact I know that many startups are full of very talented people who are certainly more talented than the average person at a big company. And it is possible, and maybe even likely, that a good team at a good startup is better learning environment than a good team at a big company. But I think the median team at a big company has a pretty good technical level, and the median team at a small startup (for example one that is just graduating from YC) is fairly bad. If you are young engineer who doesn't know any better, you are much much safer taking a job at a big company if learning about good engineering is your chief priority.
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    I agree with you with most things, but bad team is bad team everywhere, and it can ruin your life and career. It's important to recognize it and switch teams inside the company after 1-2 years if it's needed.
- AmazingAtalanta 8y ago
  Maybe a different way to think about it is not that the skill level of the team is low (because people aren't talented), but that at start-ups, you tend to have smaller teams or a lot more work is distributed across a fewer number of people. So if you are a young engineer, you might not have access to a good mentor at a small start-up. More onus will be on you to develop skills and learn things by researching and ingesting material outside. At larger companies, they can attract skilled talent with bigger salaries and they will most likely employ more people on teams. While you might not necessarily work directly with someone who can mentor you, there is more likely to be someone in adjacent teams or in other departments who you could reach out to and learn from.
raiflip 8y ago
> And if you yourself are in the learning phase of your career Also bit of unsolicited advice, never think you are out of the learning phase of your career. There are few things more frustrating than an engineer who has been working for 5 years, think they no longer have to learn, and refuse the entire team's attempts to move them from a bad idea.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sergiosgc 8y ago
This views education as something you get from your peers and/or from your employer. It's true, but incomplete. You also get education from challenges you face. In a startup, you'll be often challenged out of your comfort zone. This will force you to learn. If not from your peers, of which there may be none able to teach you, then from other sources. On the other side, in a big company, you'll be much more limited in your scope of action. You'll get very very good at tightening that specific model of screw. It is a balance between models of learning, the best position is, as ever, in the middle.
bob1029 8y ago
I absolutely second this perspective. I started out working at a very large semiconductor company and put in my time there for about 3 years before testing the waters at ever-smaller shops. We even called it the 'systems engineering bootcamp'. I feel the major advantages of working in a large corporate environment are that you will develop an inclination towards professionalism (e.g. how to write excellent emails and communicate with others) as well as a solid foundation in traditional tools and practices (e.g. SQL, manual release planning & execution, coordination of large-scale efforts, etc). By having these 'traditional' perspectives, I feel you can much more accurately and definitively identify & mitigate hazardous work efforts, as well as see certain types of risks in new technologies that others might not be aware of. I strongly feel that if I had started in a much smaller company and stayed there for too long, I would be much worse off than I am today. The big companies sound un-cool (and they may be in some cases), but they almost seem essential for rounding-out your perspective as a developer/engineer/manager/etc. Also, I occasionally miss the feeling of being part of a huge team, so I am entirely open to the idea of returning to a large corporation at some point in the future.
lambdasquirrel 8y ago
One other issue is that even at a startup that did this right, you're still in danger of learning from a smaller set of individuals. It can lend itself to group-think / inbreeding. I'm not sure that startup vs. big company is useful anymore, if it ever has been. You can be in a team in a big company that is an awful place for learning, for example.
kelnos 8y ago
Agreed. And from the other perspective, as a senior engineer at a formerly-small startup, I never had the time to properly mentor any of the new grads we hired, and I feel bad that their initial career development probably suffered because of that.
dunk010 8y ago
> learning phase of your career That should be your entire career. The statement also strikes me as quite self-aggrandising.
- umeshunni 8y ago
  Why so? Earlier on in your career, you are learning more than you're contributing and later on, you're teaching/mentoring/leading/managing more and learning less.

by birken 8y ago

WalterSear 8y ago

> At least one very important benefit of joining a big, reputable company is that the technical skill level will be good, the career coaching will be good and they probably will even have some sort of education pipeline set up for younger engineers to learn. This hasn't been my experience, at all. The worst code I have work on has been at the biggest, most prestigious tech company that has employed me. And the best learning environment was at a startup that could only afford bootcamp grads.

save_ferris 8y ago

> At least one very important benefit of joining a big, reputable company is that the technical skill level will be good I don't believe this is a universal truth, especially since your experience at a large company is largely dictated by the specific team you work on. I've definitely worked for small startups that were far more talented than some of the technical teams I've worked on at big companies.

vkou 8y ago
The friction for finding a new job in a big company is often lower then quitting your startup. If you're not growing the way you want to, transfer internally. You don't lose your unvested equity, you don't have to spend 6 months re-onboarding (3 would be sufficient), you can have a much better idea of what the working environment in your new team is going to be, then going across the street to a competitor.
birken 8y ago
Well nothing is a universal truth, but I think my point is generally accurate. IMO a bad team at a good company is way way better than a "good" team at a bad startup where nobody knows what they are doing. At the very least the company will have lots of resources outside of your team to learn from (company-wide infrastructure and processes, tech talks, etc). I also am not saying all startups are bad, and in fact I know that many startups are full of very talented people who are certainly more talented than the average person at a big company. And it is possible, and maybe even likely, that a good team at a good startup is better learning environment than a good team at a big company. But I think the median team at a big company has a pretty good technical level, and the median team at a small startup (for example one that is just graduating from YC) is fairly bad. If you are young engineer who doesn't know any better, you are much much safer taking a job at a big company if learning about good engineering is your chief priority.
- xiphias2 8y ago
  I agree with you with most things, but bad team is bad team everywhere, and it can ruin your life and career. It's important to recognize it and switch teams inside the company after 1-2 years if it's needed.
AmazingAtalanta 8y ago
Maybe a different way to think about it is not that the skill level of the team is low (because people aren't talented), but that at start-ups, you tend to have smaller teams or a lot more work is distributed across a fewer number of people. So if you are a young engineer, you might not have access to a good mentor at a small start-up. More onus will be on you to develop skills and learn things by researching and ingesting material outside. At larger companies, they can attract skilled talent with bigger salaries and they will most likely employ more people on teams. While you might not necessarily work directly with someone who can mentor you, there is more likely to be someone in adjacent teams or in other departments who you could reach out to and learn from.

raiflip 8y ago

> And if you yourself are in the learning phase of your career Also bit of unsolicited advice, never think you are out of the learning phase of your career. There are few things more frustrating than an engineer who has been working for 5 years, think they no longer have to learn, and refuse the entire team's attempts to move them from a bad idea.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

sergiosgc 8y ago

This views education as something you get from your peers and/or from your employer. It's true, but incomplete. You also get education from challenges you face. In a startup, you'll be often challenged out of your comfort zone. This will force you to learn. If not from your peers, of which there may be none able to teach you, then from other sources. On the other side, in a big company, you'll be much more limited in your scope of action. You'll get very very good at tightening that specific model of screw. It is a balance between models of learning, the best position is, as ever, in the middle.

bob1029 8y ago

I absolutely second this perspective. I started out working at a very large semiconductor company and put in my time there for about 3 years before testing the waters at ever-smaller shops. We even called it the 'systems engineering bootcamp'. I feel the major advantages of working in a large corporate environment are that you will develop an inclination towards professionalism (e.g. how to write excellent emails and communicate with others) as well as a solid foundation in traditional tools and practices (e.g. SQL, manual release planning & execution, coordination of large-scale efforts, etc). By having these 'traditional' perspectives, I feel you can much more accurately and definitively identify & mitigate hazardous work efforts, as well as see certain types of risks in new technologies that others might not be aware of. I strongly feel that if I had started in a much smaller company and stayed there for too long, I would be much worse off than I am today. The big companies sound un-cool (and they may be in some cases), but they almost seem essential for rounding-out your perspective as a developer/engineer/manager/etc. Also, I occasionally miss the feeling of being part of a huge team, so I am entirely open to the idea of returning to a large corporation at some point in the future.

lambdasquirrel 8y ago

One other issue is that even at a startup that did this right, you're still in danger of learning from a smaller set of individuals. It can lend itself to group-think / inbreeding. I'm not sure that startup vs. big company is useful anymore, if it ever has been. You can be in a team in a big company that is an awful place for learning, for example.

kelnos 8y ago

Agreed. And from the other perspective, as a senior engineer at a formerly-small startup, I never had the time to properly mentor any of the new grads we hired, and I feel bad that their initial career development probably suffered because of that.

dunk010 8y ago

> learning phase of your career That should be your entire career. The statement also strikes me as quite self-aggrandising.

umeshunni 8y ago
Why so? Earlier on in your career, you are learning more than you're contributing and later on, you're teaching/mentoring/leading/managing more and learning less.