One of the biggest decisions you’ll make in your career is the type of company you work for. If you’re in the tech industry, this often involves the daunting decision of deciding between a startup and a large established company.
How do you determine which path aligns best with your background, career aspirations, and lifestyle preferences?
Keep reading to uncover the key advantages and potential pitfalls of working for startups and large tech companies and gain insights to help you choose the best career path for your unique situation.
Benefits Of Working For A Startup
While every startup is different, here are some of the perks that often come with the territory:
- Greater impact and visibility: Startups typically provide you with exposure to the entire business, offering learning opportunities across various functional areas and allowing you to make a greater impact.
- Rapid growth opportunities: You’ll likely have the chance to take on more responsibility quickly and potentially advance faster than at a large company.
- Agility and innovation: Startups tend to have less bureaucracy, making it easier to turn your ideas into reality.
- Potential for equity: Many startups offer equity packages, providing you with skin in the game and the potential for a significant upside if the company takes off.
Cons Of Working For A Startup
Although startups can be exciting places to work, they’re not without their trade-offs:
- Wearing multiple hats: You’ll likely juggle multiple roles in a startup, which can lead to additional stress and potential burnout.
- Work-life balance struggles: The fast-paced, “always on” nature of startups can lead to long hours and limited free time.
- Compensation trade-offs: Startups tend to offer lower base pay compared to more established tech companies. Although they often offset this with alluring equity packages, this means little if the company doesn’t succeed.
- Uncertainty: The future of your role and the company can often be uncertain, which can feel uncomfortable or scary. Startups have a higher failure rate, which means there’s always a possibility that your job is at risk.
Benefits Of Working For A Large Tech Company
Working for a large tech company can be advantageous. Reasons include:
- Defined role: You’ll likely have a clear job description and responsibilities.
- Structured career growth: Large tech companies often have established career paths and specific promotion criteria.
- Higher base pay: Large tech firms usually offer competitive base salaries.
- Robust benefits and perks: Big tech companies often provide extensive benefits packages that startups can only dream of.
- Stability: Established companies generally offer more job security, although the COVID-19 pandemic taught us this isn’t always the case.
Cons Of Working For A Large Tech Company
Here are some potential drawbacks of working for a large tech company:
- Limited scope: You may feel like a small cog in a big wheel, with less visibility for your individual contributions.
- More rigidity: Large companies often have established processes that can be slow to change. For example, it can be challenging to get approval for remote work.
- Slower career advancement: Larger companies tend to have more rigid advancement processes that operate on an annual basis.
- Bureaucracy and red tape: Decision-making processes can be slow and complex at large tech firms.
- Lots of cooks in the kitchen: Projects often involve multiple teams, which can significantly slow down progress.
How To Decide Between A Startup And A Large Tech Company
Now that we’ve explored the potential advantages and drawbacks of startups and tech companies, let’s discuss strategies to help you determine which environment is best suited for you:
1. Take an inventory of your lifestyle.
Begin by clarifying what’s important to you in your career. You can think of this as being like taking an inventory of your lifestyle and seeing how this next job will fit into it. For instance:
- How many hours per week would you like to work?
- What is your minimum acceptable base pay?
- Are you open to taking risk, such as trading a lower base pay for more equity?
- How much job stability do you require?
If you have other people who will be impacted by your decision, be sure to involve them in the process.
[Read: What To Look For In A Job: 9 Factors To Consider]
2. Reflect on your career goals.
You also want to consider your long-term career objectives and how this potential path aligns with them. Ask yourself:
- Will this move you toward your goals (even if not in a perfectly straight line)?
- How does this opportunity fit into your overall career plan?
3. Conduct informational interviews.
You can use LinkedIn to identify and request an informational interview with people who already work at the type of company you’re interested in. These conversations can save you considerable time and energy and ensure you don’t pursue a company that doesn’t align with your needs.
Here are sample questions to ask during these informational interviews:
- What’s it like working at a [startup/large tech company]?
- What’s your favorite part of working here?
- What do you wish you had known before you started?
- What advice do you have for someone wanting to work for a [startup/large tech company]?
- Are there any other questions I should be asking you?
- Who else do you recommend I speak with about what it’s like working at a [startup/tech company]?
These questions are just a starting point. If there are specific aspects that are particularly important to you, be sure to inquire about them during your conversation
4. Consider mid-size companies.
Although this article primarily focuses on startups and large tech firms, don’t overlook mid-size companies. They can offer a fabulous balance between the dynamism of startups and the stability of tech giants.
Some key advantages of working for mid-size tech companies include:
- Broader exposure and visibility: Mid-size companies often provide more opportunities to take on diverse responsibilities compared to large corporations, without the overwhelming workload that can come with startups.
- Greater flexibility: Mid-size companies typically offer more adaptability than large companies while still maintaining established processes and systems.
- Improved work-life balance: Achieving work-life balance can be easier at a mid-size company than at a startup, though you may need to juggle more responsibilities than at a larger organization.
- Competitive compensation: Mid-size companies often strike a balance between solid base salaries and decent equity packages.
- Relative job stability: While not as secure as some larger firms, mid-size companies tend to offer more stability than startups.
5. Apply A/B testing to your job search.
You might find it helpful to apply A/B testing principles to your job applications. Submit applications to a variety of companies, track the results, and analyze where you receive the most positive responses.
Do you get more responses from startups, large tech firms, or mid-size ones? This approach will help you identify which types of companies are most interested in, and receptive to, your qualifications.
Do Startups Or Big Tech Companies Pay Better?
Compensation can vary dramatically across the tech industry. Big tech companies tend to offer higher base salaries, while startups can often offer a larger upside from equity if the company is a success.
Levels.fyi can give you a sense of the typical total compensation package, including base salary, stock, and bonus.
Is It Better To Work At A Startup Or A Big Tech Company?
Only you can decide whether it makes sense for your career, ambitions, and lifestyle to pursue a role with a startup or a large company. Consider factors such as your risk tolerance, ideal company culture, and long-term career goals.
Additional factors to consider:
- Startups tend to offer more impact and visibility, with faster advancement opportunities, while large companies tend to have more defined roles and career paths.
- Work-life balance will depend on the specific company, but startups often require you to wear multiple hats, which may lead to additional stress and potential burnout.
- Large companies often have additional bureaucracy and red tape, which can impede innovation.
- Big tech companies tend to offer larger base salaries, while the equity associated with startup roles can pay off if the company is a success.
- Startups have a higher failure rate, while big tech companies generally offer a greater sense of stability.
Is It Hard To Get A Job At A Tech Startup?
Your background, experience, and ability to market your strengths and talents will all impact how difficult it is to get a role with a startup.
Your ability to secure a position will also depend on the popularity of the company and whether you’re willing to put yourself out there. It will be far more challenging to land a job with a rapidly growing startup with household name recognition than a smaller organization that’s less well-known.
Is It Hard To Get A Job With A Large Tech Company?
It can be challenging to land a role with a tech giant that has more name recognition, since so many people apply to the same big names.
As a career coach, I often hear the same dozen tech companies mentioned as target employers (for example, Apple, Meta, NVIDIA, and Google). Expanding your search beyond these tech giants can result in a better chance of landing a role, since there are fewer applicants to compete with.
Final Thoughts
I hope this article makes it a bit easier to choose whether your next role should be with a startup or a tech giant (or even a mid-size company!). Remember that your next job won’t necessarily be your last one, and it’s totally okay to work for a variety of companies throughout your career. You’ve got this!
