Overall I agree with your point, I just wanted to add that my experience with small startup vs FAANG is that it was the opposite experience for me. Small start

Overall I agree with your point, I just wanted to add that my experience with small startup vs FAANG is that it was the opposite experience for me. Small startup involved wearing many hats, but in general was a more specialized role than FAANG. FAANG was significantly more breadth than startup (and why I’d say it’s a great experience for beginners to gain a breadth of knowledge). I could see how some teams are very specialized in FAANG however.