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Comment by latch | Hacker News Reader

Its funny, my advice would be the exact opposite. Don't join a big company if you are the kind of person who's ethusiastic and ambitious about what he or she does. It'll more than likely crush you. It'll feel like you're back in 2001, your co-workers will likely be average to poor, you won't have a choice in technology, you'll notice that being a shill is more important than being good.

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I worked for a startup where it felt like I was being crushed. Most of my co-workers and people running the company were average to poor, we didn't have a choice in technology and I saw a person who downloaded porn all day, was barely at the office and was caught with child porn on his computer promoted to senior management.

That's not a good enough reason. I worked for a large company and know others who work for large companies and find the work very rewarding.

The choice of what experiences will best suit you on your way to starting your own company is more personal than black and white comparisons. Not all big companies are evil empires designed to crush you (e.g. Google) and not all startups are rosy playgrounds for engineers.

In the end, as expressed by several people here, it's a personal choice that has to fit your own values and which experiences you want.

Not all big companies are evil empires designed to crush you (e.g. Google)

Google is "designed to crush you"? Hmm.

Well, maybe not "you", but definitely your privacy.

I think that was meant as Google is an example of a company not designed to crush you.

I think he meant it the other way (not clearly expressed).

Startups have larger variance. So, if you're unlucky, you have a possibility of doing much worse than average, as with for example child porn man.

So the key is then, presumably, to somehow try to make sure you get one on the correct end of the spectrum. Starting one yourself probably helps with this.

I've known several people who've found that moving department at a big company makes a massive difference to their overall experience (I've seen it go from bad to good and good to bad).

Your coworkers and (possibly more importantly) your managers, are critical determining factors in how it all works out for you. Probably more so than whether you have a choice in technology, etc.

Agreed on the importance of good management. Something I read recently, but resonated with me.

People don't leave companies, they leave managers.

More precisely: people join companies, but leave managers.

There are good and bad managers at both small and large companies. One advantage of going to a small company is that you're more likely to get to meet the exact manager you'll report to during the interview process. One disadvantage is that there is a much wider range of how good a manager they are, because they probably have fewer peers to compete with. Managers take a lot of flack, but to manage teams at a big company like Google or Amazon you probably have to be at least decent at what you're doing, whereas at a small startup you might just be the person who got there first.

Years ago, I was hired to work at a small tech startup. After a few weeks, the CEO met with me and said it seemed to him that I didn't have a lot of respect for the opinion of my manager (who had never managed anyone in a tech company before, and never done any development themselves.) I told him straight out, no, I didn't respect their opinion - I didn't think they were qualified to be a manager. (Needless to say I didn't stay there very long.)

Teams vary pretty heavily too. I like the team of 12 in my large company, but a few other guys who started around the same time as me hate the people they work with. That makes a huge difference in your day. At a startup, there are 5-25 people and that's it. At a big company, groups and departments have their own cultures and job functions.

I would say that you should join a big company while you're still trying to figure out your ass from a hole in the ground. People mature at different rates and if you've come out of school and need a few years to figure life out, all the reasons pointed out in the article are quite valid. Mostly it's no different than an extension of going to school. And if it's as soul-sucking as you indicate, that will provide even more motivation to take what you know and make a hasty exit when the timing is right.

Best of all... while you're still young and dumb enough to abuse your body and get away with it, you can put in your 8 hours at the big company, come home, and put in another 8 hours at your own startup before life and its varied responsibilities catch up with you. And the whole "cash" thing shouldn't be overlooked either. While it's great to have a ramen-profitable startup, nobody should literally live on ramen.

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