Big Company or Startup - Which Is Best For New Developers?

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Hey folks, just leaving CrossFit. Um, we'll go to the comments. This is from Ezie86. It says, "Possible topic of conversation. Junior software engineer or fresh grad joining an early stage startup versus mid or largesiz company." Um, I think this is a a super interesting one. Um, I've actually talked about this in at least two other videos. Um, but there's a lot of vlogs on this channel. So, um, and I think, you know, each time I talk through topics, even if it's a repeat, there's always like other ways to explain things or, you know, stuff that might have been missed. So, uh, I'm not saying, "Hey, I've already talked about this as in I'm not going to." More just like if you thought this was interesting, if you poke around on the channel, you'll find more on this topic. Um, and I think it's a good one too because if you think about it like every uh, you know, new software engineer is kind of faced with a a situation like this, right?

I think for me as someone who went through school and had like internships and stuff at the University of Wateroo, I think a lot of us that went through that, it's almost like you're kind of pushed in the direction of going into big tech. It felt like going to a smaller company was like like unusual. And I'm not saying that is actually the case. I just mean like to me that's how it kind of felt. Um I had a lot of classmates and stuff that were you know going to Apple, Microsoft, uh I can't remember there was a couple I think AMD was a hardware company that was nearby. But anyway, like it it just seemed like going to a smaller company was sort of unusual. But um I did that a lot for my internships. So, uh before I dive into more of the details on this one, just a friendly reminder.

If uh you want questions answered, just leave them below in the comments. And uh you know, if it's software engineering or career related, I'll do my best. Uh otherwise, if you want to be kept anonymous, you can send a message to dev leader on social media. It's also my main YouTube channel. I have a uh bunch of net and carb based tutorials. I do some talks like this but more edited down obviously. Uh this is a vlog channel so the main one is polish videos. There's a podcast there and um resume reviews as well. So if you want your resume reviewed you can check out the playlist that's on that channel. Again that's dev leader. Okay. Um, so this one's actually like very relevant too for me because I have uh a gentleman from the University of Wateroo that uh I don't want to say like I'm his mentor.

I think that's too much of a stretch, but we've done a couple of calls together uh and he's asked for some perspective and the last last one we did was actually on Friday. So um you know a couple days ago and uh one of the things that we were discussing was a little bit more of an exaggeration of this. It was really around like like founding or joining um like extremely early stage startups. Uh and for those of you that aren't familiar with uh like Kitchener Waterl area in Ontario, um it's a you know university town uh techhub. That's where Blackberry or uh Research in Motion as it was formerly known uh was sort of founded. I don't know if anyone remembers the Blackberry phones. That was all the rage before the iPhone was cool. Um, you know, you needed the physical keyboard and you needed to have a BBM, you needed BlackBerry Messenger if you didn't have that.

It was you were the most uncool person. Now all those people have iPhones. Um, anyway, uh, yeah, so there's a lot of like tech startups and stuff in the area. Uh, a lot of incubators and stuff as well. So, it's it's a relevant topic for me just because we were kind of chatting through that and one of the things that's on his sort of radar from his I don't know like uh kind of like his original plan I guess if you could call it that was that you wanted to be able to get some bigger company names sort of in his on his resume build up that experience and then um sort of be able to be marketable, I guess, if you can call it that, right? Like build up the experience at these different companies, then uh obviously, you know, if they were willing to take a chance on him and he was able to prove himself there, then that would be a really good track record for him.

So, you know, I think I agree with the the philosophy. I don't think that's the only way to do it, but I think that sound logic. And then he was kind of battling with this. Well, what if there's these opportunities that are um that are different, right? Sorry, I'm I'm watch there's lights to get onto the highway right now cuz I guess it's backed up ahead and I just watched a ton of people blow through them. So, I was like, are we are we not stopping for these or what? Um, so yeah, I think, you know, he's he's one example of someone that was going through this. I think for me when I graduated, it was it was a similar thought. Um, but I was a little bit more biased that I don't think that I was super sold on on big tech companies. Come on, buddy.

You got to merge up along here. Sorry. Someone was driving in front of me, not going fast enough and uh the lane's going to end, so they need to move over. But yeah, I don't think I was super interested in big tech companies when I was graduating. All my internships were at smaller companies. Largest one I think was probably 100 to 200 people, but otherwise they were like, you know, under 20 people kind of thing. Uh mostly I think there was a company that uh if you include the other roles that weren't like software probably a little bit more than 20 under 50. So pretty small companies. Um, but I think there's I don't know maybe this it's obviously a generalization. This is the generalization that I believe many people have and I'll walk through it and kind of kind of goes like this. Um, bigger companies are going to offer this one is definitely maybe not a good generalization now.

bigger companies offer some type of stability. Um, everyone's probably rolling their eyes at that going, "What about all the layoffs?" And you're not wrong. Um, I think traditionally people have looked at the bigger tech companies as being more stable. And what I would say that is true, your let's let's uh kind of separate these concepts for a second. It's not that your job position individually is more stable, but the company itself is more stable. Right? A larger, more established company generally has less risk associated with it because if it's already profitable and it's already got momentum and it's already moving, that is significantly less risk than we're trying to get our first set of paying customers. So I do think that that's a true statement. But from an individual um you know job security perspective I think that that's uh you know very much uh more debatable now but people you know would think about larger tech companies for that reason.

Uh and then the other one is pay. Uh but of course, you know, the pay and stuff might be higher, might be more stable as well. But um you know, if you wanted to get like filthy rich from being at a big tech company, you're going to have to be there for a long time, right? Because the pay is very high most of the time, but it's not so high that it's like winning the lottery. Whereas a startup may be like that. But if it was if it was going to be like winning the lottery, don't you think everyone would do it if it was more guaranteed? So there's a risk associated with the startup part. So you can definitely be at startups that will that will hit it big. Um it's entirely possible. It's just that the statistical chance of that happening is extremely low.

And I'm not saying that to like dissuade people. I just mean literally if you look at stats of startups, most of them fail statistically and very few of them become like outrageously successful. It's not that it's impossible though. So that's something to consider. Um with larger companies, the other thing that I hear people saying too is like mentorship, right? Larger tech companies are said to attract top talent. Again, I'm I'm making sweeping generalizations here. I'm trying to characterize what I believe other people are saying about these options just for for transparency. So if big tech is able to attract top talent then if you are more a junior engineer on a team then the thought process is well hey if I'm surrounded by other engineers that are more senior than me and they are top talent then the opportunity for mentorship and being able to

learn from smart people is great right you're surrounded by very smart people so the surface area for that is uh is much much greater Again, I don't I don't think that the logic is off. I think that that's a you know, from the outside especially a fair way to try and and look at that. And then one might argue the the surface area for that kind of thing at a startup is much smaller. It's not zero, but it's much smaller because there's fewer people. So um one of the things I wanted to talk about I mean okay before I dive into a little bit more of the details I've done a very highlevel broad sweeping generalization kind of comparison between these two options. Um and I need to be very transparent that that is a huge sweeping generalization. It's not based on any data that I have.

Like I don't have stats printed out here, but these are the things that I hear other people talking about. Um, and the reality is it's not going to be there's no perfect recipe here. Um, you might try to factor some of these things in that I've talked about or some other things that we have not gone over and make a decision based on on those. And you might be right and you end up somewhere and you're like, "Hey, this is a great fit and it might be totally off, right? It might be completely off base and you're like, "Wow, like that didn't, you know, that's not what I was expecting based on the stuff that was covered in this one video." Um, but the reality is like it's your career and it's not like the first job you get is the only job you can ever have, right?

So if you end up going to a startup and it fails miserably, that sucks. But like that's not the end, right? Or if you go into big tech and you're like, "Wow, this is not what I was expecting. This feels like it's soul sucking and I'm not even surrounded by all the brilliant engineers I was promised and I'm not learning a lot. I don't like it here." Like, okay, like at least you learn, right? So, what I wanted to to really make sure that I could hit home in this video is like I appreciate a question like this because I think a lot of people go through it, but everyone's going to have different things that they're aiming for. And even if the generalizations that I was stating, even if they were accurate, there's still generalizations. And that's going to mean that there's outliers. And you may very well find yourself in a situation where it's an outlier situation.

And that's just how things work statistically. It's not the end of the world. And that's okay. So I just want to remind folks that like your journey is going to be different. Your experiences are going to be different. And regardless of what happens, like treat it as a learning opportunity. And you know, the next time you're applying somewhere or looking for your next opportunity, you'll be that much wiser about things that you want to ask about, check into before making decisions. And even that time, it's not going to be necessarily bulletproof. And the time after that, it's not going to be bulletproof. It's never perfect. But we learn more along the way. We learn about things that we want to look for. We learn about the things that we really enjoy or we don't. We change over time as well. the things that you value now versus later will be different.

So I think that it's like a constant learning thing. And I think if we keep that in mind um you know it's I I I just want to say like it will reduce the the likelihood of of being disappoint disappointed or caught off guard. That's what I would say. I just need some water. Sometimes I realize after CrossFit when I'm talking like the words don't want to come out cuz my mouth like won't open. Um the one area that I wanted to spend a little bit more time on is around the um the mentorship part because I I think it's very interesting that and I think it's good, right? People are like, "Hey, if I'm going to be doing this kind of stuff, I want to make sure that I'm I'm growing and learning in my career." And I think this is great, right? I think people that focus on this and they want to kind of make that a core part of their career, like hell yeah.

Because what you really don't want to find out is after like 5 8 years, you're like, hm, like I haven't really been challenged. I haven't really been learning. I've just kind of been doing the same old thing. It's not that you're not going to be better at that same old thing, but it'd be nice. Oh man, that's a that's quite the merge. I don't know if you saw in the if it caught it in the camera the van that just was passing, but that was that was a merge. uh if they needed to touch their brakes while they were doing that, I would have run right into them. Um so I think that it's great that people want to prioritize learning and growth and then they come back to this decision of like well where am I going to have the best opportunity for that? It seems like from when I talk to people, the bias is towards um or in favor of big tech or larger companies.

And I've already said it, the the the logic seems to be, hey, if there's more people there and they're employing top talent, it means statistically there is more top talent to be around. I don't disagree with the sort of approach to that logic. But um what I wanted to say is that um I think that there's a very big difference between people that are good at their craft and people that are able to to coach others in their craft. Ideally, like in my opinion, in order to become more and more senior as a software engineer, not only do you need the technical stuff, like I feel like that's a given, but you absolutely must be good at mentoring and coaching others, right? I'm not in charge of every promotion, obviously. Uh I have absolutely seen individuals that are very talented technically and they hold senior or above positions and they are awful at coaching and mentoring others.

Absolutely awful. And I'm stating that because what I'm trying to say is just because someone, you know, I've literally seen people in higher up positions that are very good at what they do technically, but they're not good at the coaching and mentoring part. So, if you want to be surrounded by top talent, you might be surrounded by some individuals that are very good at what their specific craft is, but they're not good at coaching. They're not good at mentoring. I gave an example of this to my CrossFit coach the other day and I mean no um I don't know like not meant to be rude or anything. uh he he is a great coach and I think what makes him great is that he is able to explain things and I was explaining to him that I've only ever had one uh like uh weightlifting

coach before and incredible weightlifter extremely strong amazing technique just like you know he's a smaller human being like I'm a very small human being uh but you know he was a smaller guy but just like he's one of the strongest people I've ever seen pound-for-pound like in person in my life. It's just it's like remarkable. And when I saw like I had seen him at my gym for years and years and years and then he became a trainer there and I was like, "Oh, like commercial gym trainers, no thanks." But I saw him coaching and I was like, "I need to get coaching from this guy." like he's clearly like he's got to be an amazing coach because he's so good and uh and he wasn't a good coach. Really like the guy, amazing lifter, just not a good coach. Now he's been doing that for for years now, like I don't know, probably over 10 years now.

But I feel like at the time he was new to coaching. So I think that he struggled with, this is just my observation, like he was very good at what he did, but he struggled to be able to to help guide other people through that. So I wanted to give you a comparison where I'm like, "Hey, look, this guy's amazing at his craft, but as a coach, as a mentor, I don't think so." And it's not that he can't get better, and I'm sure he has, but my experience working with him was that he's not good at the coaching part. So again, you might be sur at larger tech companies, you might be surrounded by more technically talented people that have a track record of being technically talented. Doesn't mean they're going to be good coaches and good mentors. Some might be, and that's awesome.

The main point around the coaching, mentoring, big tech versus startup thing I wanted to call out is that um when I've talked about this in other videos, I've stated like I've never had an official like mentor and it's one of the things I feel like I hear people talking about a lot like you know you got to get a got to get a mentor, got to get this, got to get that. It's like the only way. And um I think it's great if you can, but like I've never had one. I said the closest in the other videos I said the closest thing I've had to that was um like not on the technical side, not an engineering manager, but my HR director at the startup I was working at, she would be the closest thing. And I don't mean to say that to like, you know, to say like to minimize her, right?

I just mean That's probably the only sort of mentor I had. Um, and even so, like not on I would argue not on managing engineering teams. She just had like from a people, you know, HR perspective. I think she just had a really good way of uh of working with people and that's awesome. But I had a tremendous I and what's a good way to say this too? Um sometimes I like I want to be careful about how I say things because it's easy to take it out of context obviously. Um, but if I were to compare my 8 years at a startup in terms of learning and growth compared to my just under 5 years of growth and learning at Microsoft, I personally feel like I was going at warp speed in terms of learning and growth for eight years straight. at a startup and then hit a brick wall of learning and growth at a company that was larger like that dramatic.

Um, that's not to say that I haven't had new interesting challenging experiences, but like um I had interesting challenging experiences every single day at a startup or became a small company, right? Um, and had to solve those interesting challenging things like multiple times a day. Whereas at a larger company, I feel like, sure, there's, you know, different sets of challenges and stuff, but the time scale is just completely different. Um, or I feel like I'm solving I'm working through challenges that I don't feel like are moving me forward as a as an engineer from like an engineering perspective or a manager perspective. Um, it's almost like I'm learning how to solve problems that are part of like the system and not like I don't know like a foundational thing. And I'm saying that not to, you know, not to discredit Microsoft or anything like that. This might just be the nature of me personally, how I approach learning and growth and the environments that I'm in.

These are very very different environments that I'm describing. And I've uh I will tell you firsthand that the people that I still talk to that are at the company I was at, it's grown significantly, right? Like when I left it was like 250 people. I think it's doubled since then at least. You know, they they went public right after I left. They got back to private like a year after that. They've grown like doubled in size. It's a it's a very very different company than when I was there. And some of the individuals I talked to still, I think they're now experiencing that same thing where they're like, "We move so slow or the types of challenges we're we're solving for. They seem like the wrong challenges." It's like it's almost like self-imposed friction. And it's like, how do we get rid of the friction? And it's like, well, if we didn't put it there in the first place, this would be better.

Um, so I I just feel like it's absolutely possible to learn a tremendous amount at a startup, but I think it's about being surrounded by the right people at a startup as well. So, I don't think you get it for free. I don't think every startup's like this. But I think if you're at a startup, you have to acknowledge it's going to be fast-paced. For me, what I've learned about myself is like under pressure when things are fastpaced, like that's when I'm that's when I'm going really well. Um I don't think anyone likes being stressed out, but uh I think when the pace is fast for me, that's when I perform best. So that worked well for me. Knowing that in hindsight, I'm like, "Yeah, no wonder it feels like some things at a larger company feel like walking through molasses, right? It's sort of the reality of some things." But it's going to be a different fit for everyone.

So, I wanted to talk about that mentorship versus learning opportunity thing because I felt I had insane like in a positive way growth and learning opportunities at a startup. Um, there's going to be things that you're forced to learn that you just would never need to spend time at a larger company on. But I think that they're for me they felt like very valuable things. You might not feel that way. Like I got to learn about how we have to come up with roles for the engineers and levels for the engineers. I got to learn about how we scale our code base from being like we just have to keep pumping out features even though it's a pile of in terms of code structure to like we got to do something about this now. Um, and you know, having those conversations about rewriting versus refactoring. Like we got to see uh some insights into the sales and marketing to understand more about how the business is operating.

Like there's tons of stuff, tons of stuff. And you may never have to have that exposure at a larger company because it's just so far removed from what you're doing. But I got to see a lot more of the business and just a lot more pieces come together that gave me an appreciation for where they come from. And that's why like for me personally, I've always felt like, hey, someday I would like to run my own software company. And Magnet Forensics, where I was working before, was not my company, not by any means. But I got to see a lot of how the pieces came together. I got to see a lot of what worked really well and a lot of what didn't. And those learning experiences for me will be invaluable when it comes time for me to do my own thing because I got to see how it worked for someone else.

So, I just wanted to say that uh you know, every one of these situations is going to be different. I think those are some factors to consider at larger companies versus startups. But because the situations are going to be so different, like it's really hard to say. So, it's probably all over the place and you're left watching going like, "So, which one then, man?" I don't know. I don't know the answer. Um, I've done both now. And I would say that the from a personal satisfaction perspective in terms of career growth, actually climbing the career, like big tech will make sense because I never cared about that stuff before. Um, but I think in terms of me actually feeling like I'm growing as an individual, like what I would call real experiences versus like experiences on paper for promotion um, startup hands down. That's my take.

Curious to hear from you folks if you had different or similar experiences, but let me know in the comments. I hope that this was helpful in some way and I'll see you next time. Take care.