I never worked for FAANG, but I have been bothered by their recruiters for years and I politely reject them every time. To be fair, not just FAANG, other househ

I never worked for FAANG, but I have been bothered by their recruiters for years and I politely reject them every time. To be fair, not just FAANG, other household name BigCorp too. Reason being is I used to work for a small company and had to do everything myself, then I moved to a bigger company and I did a fraction of stuff compared to my previous company, but for a lot more money. It was a bit of a shock and it got me thinking. So I figured the larger the company, the more corporate the environment is; you are more restricted as to what and how you are allowed to do. I don't like that, so I moved back to a smaller company for less money and never even considered working at a BigCorp again. You can make a case for both, depending on what you prefer. If you like prestige/cult/money and want that stamp on your CV then work your way up to FAANG. If you're curious, easily bored and like implementing solutions your way then work at a small company. Cool tech does exist outside FAANG. I can look back at each company I worked for and proudly talk about solutions I developed and implemented, most of which are still in use today and can be seen or used by customers/users. I'm not sure if I could have such an impact on a business working at BigCorp. Sure you don't get paid as much and you can't brag to your friends and family you work for FAANG, but it feels really good when you suggest a solution to your manager/boss, then research it, build it and implement in and they TRUST you fully to do all that. You're part of the entire process and there's a certain satisfaction with having such freedom.