The small company/startup is a techbro dream of larping as some 10x developer/hero developer — it is debatable if these myths are constantly shilled by corporations to exploit the devs even more.
Here's my job advice if you're non-FAANG tier:
Never work in a small company with flat hierarchy. Doing so means you will (most of the times) have no path advancement, legal protections, scapegoating, and context switching.
Not all small firms are bad, and not all large corps are good, but you will see the constant patterns, with varying level of severity depending on your particular company.
The generalist ranking tends to go like this in big corp/contract jobs:
Dev[1], Dev[2], Dev[3], Manager[1], Manager[2]
In a flat hierarchy, it goes like this:
Dev
Senior Dev
Boss
Bureaucratic jobs force you into one domain without wearing many hats. Context switching is extreme in small firms and does not build skills with constant firefighting.
The red tape can sometimes make you less efficient, but it also protects you legally, mentally, physically, and skill wise.
Many small companies have poor pay and pays even worse than entry level contract workers, and are unstable.
Vast majority of startups/small firms never go anywhere.
In fact, because they are desperate for cash, they will kowtow to every unreasonable client demand, expanding workload without hiring new staff, this directly leads to unmanageable architecture (usually a mess of insecure 2010 frameworks, BOLA APIs, bad configs).
To increase their perceived value and to look 'modern', they will picot to as many as wildly different fields as possible, like a former web app dev (literally me) could find himself working with IoT, 3d modeling, phone apps, VR, game engines, etc, and superficial features like language, font adjustment, light/night mode, UI animations.
Do not think because the company is small, you will have a low workload, small firmd create many apps and features simply because the client demands.
It is also common for small firms to force 'ownership' on devs, which means if you can't go to work, you will not live a moment of peace. A bus factor of 1!
Small firms lack roles like legal writers, dedicated QA, customer support, operational coordinators, testers etc.
I have worked at both types:
In contract, if you show up on time, follow orders, you are basically guaranteed promotions
In small firms, you do everything, incl. writing legal text, getting hospitalized (mine doesn't even provide bug sprays for field app tests) without rewards
While politics play a role in both, small firms often lack promotions at all, and because the hierarchy is flat, it is very dependent on your standing with the CEO. It's also top-down, but without the advantages of a structured hierarchy.
My incident involved a severe and rapid case of Cellulitis caused by extremely aggressive pest bites over two hours. Within just 24hrs, the pus were leaking to the ground — I was hospitalized for 4 days, hooked on IV antibiotics, and an extremely clumsy recovery with daily clinic visits.
During my hospitalization, I had my communication apps bombarded with "we have to do the deadline" before they capitulated and gave in to my doctor's papers.
Stay away from startups.
Here's my job advice if you're non-FAANG tier:
Never work in a small company with flat hierarchy. Doing so means you will (most of the times) have no path advancement, legal protections, scapegoating, and context switching.
Not all small firms are bad, and not all large corps are good, but you will see the constant patterns, with varying level of severity depending on your particular company.
The generalist ranking tends to go like this in big corp/contract jobs:
Dev[1], Dev[2], Dev[3], Manager[1], Manager[2]
In a flat hierarchy, it goes like this:
Dev
Senior Dev
Boss
Bureaucratic jobs force you into one domain without wearing many hats. Context switching is extreme in small firms and does not build skills with constant firefighting.
The red tape can sometimes make you less efficient, but it also protects you legally, mentally, physically, and skill wise.
Many small companies have poor pay and pays even worse than entry level contract workers, and are unstable.
Vast majority of startups/small firms never go anywhere.
In fact, because they are desperate for cash, they will kowtow to every unreasonable client demand, expanding workload without hiring new staff, this directly leads to unmanageable architecture (usually a mess of insecure 2010 frameworks, BOLA APIs, bad configs).
To increase their perceived value and to look 'modern', they will picot to as many as wildly different fields as possible, like a former web app dev (literally me) could find himself working with IoT, 3d modeling, phone apps, VR, game engines, etc, and superficial features like language, font adjustment, light/night mode, UI animations.
Do not think because the company is small, you will have a low workload, small firmd create many apps and features simply because the client demands.
It is also common for small firms to force 'ownership' on devs, which means if you can't go to work, you will not live a moment of peace. A bus factor of 1!
Small firms lack roles like legal writers, dedicated QA, customer support, operational coordinators, testers etc.
I have worked at both types:
In contract, if you show up on time, follow orders, you are basically guaranteed promotions
In small firms, you do everything, incl. writing legal text, getting hospitalized (mine doesn't even provide bug sprays for field app tests) without rewards
While politics play a role in both, small firms often lack promotions at all, and because the hierarchy is flat, it is very dependent on your standing with the CEO. It's also top-down, but without the advantages of a structured hierarchy.
My incident involved a severe and rapid case of Cellulitis caused by extremely aggressive pest bites over two hours. Within just 24hrs, the pus were leaking to the ground — I was hospitalized for 4 days, hooked on IV antibiotics, and an extremely clumsy recovery with daily clinic visits.
During my hospitalization, I had my communication apps bombarded with "we have to do the deadline" before they capitulated and gave in to my doctor's papers.
Stay away from startups.
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