Startups vs Big Companies

Sounds like you want to be a consultant, or like you said, at a startup. It's a tautology, but working for a big company makes you better at working for big companies. And startups are biased against corporate/enterprise developers. If you've been there a while, you may need to compromise on some level.

What are the advantages of being an employee of a startup vs an employee of a big corporation, besides working with smart people?

From your context description it sounds like you need some extended holidays to put things in perspective.For me, the biggest difference is that processes in a big co are designed for any single individual to be replaceable. As a consequence, everything is bigger than you and slower to change even if for the best. This is exactly what you're trying to achieve in a successful start-up as it starts with everyone being irreplaceable (to some extent) where you can make a fundamental differen

Spend a few years in big corp, and you will miss working in startups - the grass is always greener on the other side !

If you think the glory of the big co awaits you, you'll be sorrily dissapointed. I worked for one of the companies listed, it was a shit show. Stick with startups. Do what you love. The only way to solve real problems is to be close to them. And most likely Big Co will put you near a black hole that will swallow you up.

Having worked at startups for last half a decade this would be my dream place.> Is this how it's like at all large companies?No.> What should I do?Find another (startup?) job.Because it doesn’t look like that place will change and I’m pretty sure they have good reasons.

Sounds like the startup environment (I'm talking 1-8 employees) would be a better fit. I too interned at a big company. Don't let it ruin the industry altogether!

don't take that "startup" job; stick with the bigger companies

counter point: after working for small owner-run companies where the owner took everything personally, I will forever only work in big tech.The owner ran the show and was emotional. Every time a competitor launched something new, they would change course and race to copy them. Ended up delivering nothing and eventually laid off after 1.5 years.At a big company, everyone is spending someone else's money and the people at the top realize they can't (and shouldn't!) change cour

Very similar experience. Burnt out at BigCo, started looking at startups last year. After a few interviews realized this will again be the same ending just a different storyline.I am now working for a much smaller company (less than 200 people). Have direct impact on the bottomline so can see my usefulness very easily. Minimal bureaucracy and fight for visibility. And sane hours, most people have families so the balance automatically shows. And compensation is competitive. So far, am very hap