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Comment by jsinai | Hacker News Reader

> Most importantly, you will learn significantly faster than if you worked at a large company.

Having worked in two early stage startups and at big tech early in my career, this depends entirely on your experience level and on the engineering team’s. At a big tech company you are far more likely to work with highly experienced engineers and learn from the best then at a startup. That being said, it depends completely on who they have hired before you or on your own experience level (especially if you are employee #1). My advice is to meet the engineering team and make sure that you have a good opportunity to interact with them during or after the interview process.

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Having worked in 2 startups, almost all I've learned I did myself.

Finding people more talented/experienced than you is hard in startups, and there's this really bad tendency to build everything as a prototype, while very rarely you get to convert something to a stable product.

So while you get to practice on possibly a broad array of topics, you rarely get to get beyond the beginner level / learn the best practices for it.

In the long run, this can be really disruptive for your career if you don't take the time to practice on your own.

I agree with your sentiment. At university, I learned computer science. At my first big-tech job, I learned software development. In my startup, I learned how to run a business. All along, you're learning, but the skills you learn are not the same. Having a strong base of software development methodology was a huge boon in a startup where you have to make compromises.

I've worked at both, as a general rule I find you learn more at a startup because most learning happens by doing, and in a startup you are the one that will have to be doing whatever, even if it is outside your comfort zone. In a big tech scenario they generally only want you to be doing what is in your comfort zone, that is what you are there for - you are the best at making X widgets, make X midgets all day long - don't dare to look over at the Y Widgets code MR!

In really big tech this can be mitigated sometimes because projects may be split out of the company at large, and these little moonshot projects might function as a startup within the larger ecosystem.

Since there's no barrier to start a startup, there will always be companies at which the growth will be slow.

A good startup with strong engineering team and fast shipping cycle will provide with way more learning opportunities than FAANG.

Personally, I think for a fresh grad going to an early stage startup or to FAANG is a close call in terms of value. 1.5-2 years at FAANG gives a good boost to the resume to pursue better opportunities later, while 1.5-2 years at a startup can provide more learning and potentially some upside already. At that stage there's time to take chances either way. A close-to-IPO company is also a viable option.

My goal in the article was not to say startups are bad (or good), but rather to provide insights so that people can make more informed decisions.

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