Upside: Paycheck. Near infinite runway. Career path. Resources to potentially work on crazy projects that are really risky but might have big paybacks. A l

Upside: Paycheck. Near infinite runway. Career path. Resources to potentially work on crazy projects that are really risky but might have big paybacks. A large pool of developers from which you will almost certainly find a couple with similar interests to yourself. Downside: Massive company. Massive beaurocracy. Massive politics. A lot of people only work there in the hopes of funneling money into their pockets. A lot of people only work their in order to feel good about their resume. Good chance that you will be stuck in a group somewhere getting ground under the foot of someone on a power trip. People, people everywhere and none of them are like me (well there are -- see upsides -- but they are needles in a haystack). Oddly, people see FAANG on your resume and think you are a lackluster money-digger -- especially if you stayed there a long time. /me is old enough to have worked at one of the biggest, richest companies in the world that nobody now has ever heard of (because it disappeared under a pile of accounting fraud -- did I mention the people funneling money into their pockets?)