A large company generally has more money. I work for a faang, and appreciate that it doesn't take much to spin up big ec2 clusters as personal sandboxes, get li

A large company generally has more money. I work for a faang, and appreciate that it doesn't take much to spin up big ec2 clusters as personal sandboxes, get licenses for pricey productivity software, fly out to conferences, or take costly risks. If you're creative, you'll find niches of freedom in a big company (flush with cash) that is hard to imagine in a small one. You could feel like a cog in the machine, but that's a matter of perspective. Your team's goals can be subsumed under the obscure goals of the entire company and you may feel distant from an actual impact, but you can choose to view your team as a machine, and not a cog, with its own set of constraints. In a way, even if I don't comprehend the 'why' of a certain goal, I will take it as a given, and still find it fulfilling to problem-solve my way towards it. I don't get why so many people insist on being able to influence goals, directions, etc of their company. I say give me a puzzle to solve, and if it's fun, I won't dwell on the 'why' for too long. It may seem apathetic. My passion doesn't have to be visible all the time.