I am currently graduating with a CS degree and interpreting this as a warning to not accept the offer from the exciting startup and instead accept the offer from the big corporate fintech company. Is there any reason I could be wrong?
I've been reading about how corpos are bad for years and my experience is completely different from what people say
My personal opinion on corpos is:
_____________
pros:
working on real and complex tech products that actually make huge $$ instead of burning VCs cash on yet another food/car/room/dating app
strong execution (it definitely doesnt feel like it is moving slowly, waiting a few weeks for simple decisions)
good $$$
way stronger brand on CV
contact with people who define industry
you can change teams and do something different, you don't have to change company because huge corpos probably do "everything" (im simplifying)
___________
cons:
your impact is small, there are hundreds or thousands of people involved
your exposure to whole development process (from getting requirements, to initial architecture, development, then just support) is small because you'll probably be thrown into existing project
___________
As others suggested - at the beginning small company / startup? where you are touching everything and doing various stuff may be very helpful to learn, but it's not like corpos are bad and you should avoid them as hard as you can
I wrote a blog about this topic: https://www.airplane.dev/blog/evaluate-startup-offers-in-a-t...
Just be pragmatic about what companies you pick, the companies I view most skeptically during the downturns are the ones that cater to startups, like dev productivity startups, or those startup credit card companies, and given the chaos in the crypto markets, those don’t look like safe bets to me either. You can always ask about the company’s run rate, profitability, and war chest. They might not show you, but that is a sign also.
Taking risks for the sake of increasing risk is a combination of naive and stupid. Increased risk taking must come with an increasing reward.
In an economic collapse and likely recession, having a stable job at a large established company would give you stability and, soon enough, capital for buying up home and basement prices.
Working at an unprofitable early stage startup will give you a couple high fives from the founders, but you'll be in constant fear of losing that paycheck. The reward must be substantially higher than a steady big-corp job in normal times, and even more so in today's job and economic environment.
> Ergo, take that startup offer. You will always have a job as a programmer.
Working at a startup does not magically make you a better programmer any more than working at a large company automatically turns you into a cog churning out Java beans.
Working at a startup has a far better learning curve and better feedback about your rate of learning compared to a large company.
Buying up capital for home and basement prices is not a part of my equation at all.
Take the safer option, weather out the recession and if you find an exciting startup you can join them with confidence that even if they fall apart you'll have the experience to find the next job much faster.
I personally would choose the one that would help me grow more as an engineer and IMHO, you can get pigeonholed much more easily at a big corp than at a startup.
You want to maximise your learning, as long as there isn't a massive salary discrepancy try to have a lengthy chat with your future tech lead and pick the one that seems better - ultimately this is the person you'll be learning from the most in the next few years.
And also, don't be scared to quit or change teams early. Don't stay longer than you have to.
You will be the first to be laid off. When everyone is competing to keep their jobs, you will have no influence. Also, fintech can be cutting edge, which is not what people spend on during downturns.
The reality is that in a turn down turn you aren't choosing among great options. In 1999 software engineers making 100k+ in 1999 (this was a lot more money back then) working for a cool startup ended up working in banks making boiler plate code for ~80k. Most of them were forced out of the industry.
If you're in a position to be making choices like you describe than there is no meaningful down turn in your industry.
A more likely outcome in the event of a serious is that in 5 years you aren't doing CS related work. Talk to people that have worked in aerospace during various periods of down turn (or any similar industry).
As usual, there's no one-size fits all advice.
I never worried about whether I wouldn’t be able to find a job.
Either way, you need to ask yourself if 6 months out you get laid off and there is no one hiring, what's your plan?
Work for a startup and you'll have an embarrassment of riches for learning opportunities. Work in finance and you'll likely need to take some initiative, and earn and deploy some political capital, to make your own.
Right now, though, it's time to be looking for a safe port above all else. If you're young and good, you won't have trouble ending up with a compelling story to tell about your time with BigCo. In the meantime you want to think about how much worrying you'd like to do about where your next check's coming from.