In my experience at smaller companies you get treated better, you are a more significant factor to the overall success of the company and there is very little corporate crap which often has silly requirements that get justified by a mystical word of being "professional", which often actually seems to achieve the opposite of treating adults as bunch of kids that need to be managed and controlled :)
Though I know it also can go very bad for people in small companies that have mini dictators in charge.
By definition every company has a dictador. They might be "benevolent" and willing to delegate their power to some degree, but at the end of the day, they have the final say.
After all of the above though, I would put 2-3 years in at a FAANG and then do whatever the heck I want.
(First time I heard of it; had to look it up)
It's an odd collection, the others are tech giants yet there's no microsoft and netflix thrown in. Netflix is big but it's not Apple big.
Judging by http://enwp.org/Largest_companies as of right now, the order should probably be AGMAF (Apple first) instead.
edit: and they are ahead of google in market cap again. Been going back and forth for the last little while.
This seems hard to keep accurate.
Funny, it seems to have been coined in the US but I think I have seen it more in UK news sites.
You gradually accumulate authority and responsibility over time. Payrises happen when you manage to convince the owner you need more money, rather than on a HR-managed pay scale. Eventually you'll get a new job title that reflects your current role.
At small companies you are working your ass off, and sometimes you'll get something in return - but mostly you'll just get a thankyou from some C-level or founder dude.
At FAANG I was getting a decent salary raise year after year (and a bigger bump through a promotion).
Of course they say it was 10% because of the way they take stock into account.
Not totally unfair, but still a kick in the pants when the bonus runs out and you see a thousand dollars a month less in your bank account.
Seconded. At least at big companies, they have defined procedures for promotions and departures (if for no other reason than to cover themselves legally). In small companies things can end up as unpredictable as middle-school politics (and about as mature).
As a contractor you have essentially already taken a deal where you get paid a premium but have no expectation of career growth.
If you have no expectations of career growth at work then big companies are fantastic.
My point is you have self selected into a group that doesn't expect career progression at work in the typical sense.
Surely that influences what you consider a "better" workplace?
> It's what I saw how employees were treated.
A big company can be "nice" and yet incredibly soul crushing.
I've had years of productive work thrown away over politics.
That's far more damaging, personally, than having to work some overtime or being under a bit more day to day stress.
It's not really a question of big and small. Most companies are badly managed (or I am very unlucky). I found in big companies they at least know that making basic efforts to keep employees happy is profitable long-term.
Pretty much.
You can end up in a spot where you can grow fast.
Or you can end up stagnating for years (me).
I've mostly worked at large (>10k people), though not necessarily hot, tech companies with established tech ladders.
Now I'm working at a small (<500 people) SaaS company in a non-tech sector. While there are definitely some perks (including, oddly, better pay) I have some concerns directly related to the size of the company and the lack of a ladder:
First, lack of opportunity for specialization. People who reach the top of tech ladders are often genuinely capable specialists in some sub-discipline. One has to specialize to develop mastery. When done well, a tech ladder provides a useful framework within which to cultivate mastery.
The question becomes, how do you develop (transferable) mastery in an environment that isn't organized to exploit it? Partly I'm hoping that as the company grows, I can grow my skill set towards and expertise that the company will be prepared to use.
Second, when the company is small enough, it's still possible for founders/execs to interfere with even relatively mundane technical decisions. Now, I think the people I work for are quite competent, and I actually have gotten to know them (which wouldn't happen at a big company). I'm just saying that for small companies it can be hard for those at the top to let go of control and switch to a more delegated mode of decision making.
EDIT: fixed formatting
I have no idea how to solve this problem, but the fact that you wrote about articulated it makes me think I'm not alone in my experience.