My very first "real" job was working for a startup. I loved it until the day that I didn't. I worked with two really smart engineers, they showed me the ropes in building real software. We were collaborative and they didn't just dismiss my ideas out of hand. I learned a whole lot in 6 months, lessons I still use today. But then one morning I woke up to "the news"...our largest investor had gone bankrupt and the funding evaporated over night. We still got paid a few more months but work slowed and then stopped. Then we were told we couldn't get paid anymore and we all moved on.

I dont fault the startup for it but it certainly sucked. I've not worked for a startup since though sometimes it does feel like something I'd enjoy. On the flip side...

Currently, I work for a fortune 5 company. I work with some of the brightest people in the world on projects that move the needle every single day. Yet, the team that I specifically work on is constantly strapped for cash. Our services are used across the enterprise, we enable the company to save millions and we do it in a scalable way. But we are told that we can't have "enterprise" funding which means that we need to scrap and claw money from the people that use our services just to keep them online. There's so much politics that it gets in the way of the work and, again since were not funded, we can't hire FTEs and usually can't even get work from an agency unless its funded from "a client."

All that to say...I really, really hope that my next job has a better balance. I know that no job will ever be perfect. But I'd love to have a balance between "working with bright people who support the work that we're doing but without guaranteed funding" and "working for a soulless megacorp with infinite money that wont spend it but that offers job security."