A startup is an early-stage venture that’s in search of a profitable business model and that can be scaled up rapidly as demand for the product / service grows. Another major consideration is company size.
The biggest difference between a job at a startup and a job at a bigger, more traditional company is the rate at which things change. At a large corporation, you might do the same set of tasks for several years. But at startup, your role and responsibilities will evolve frequently, even multiple times a year. Within six months, you might be doing something significantly different from the role you were hired to do.
For those doing early career path planning and knowing they want to do both a startup and a mature company at some point, there’s always the question of which should come first.
Will candidate from stable company be able to transition to startup life. Not that it’s impossible, but it’s something to consider. For these candidates, I suggest to explain ground zero work they may have done at their companies to demonstrate they can handle ambiguity and take risks. Startups are risky because most of them fail. But, if they succeed and you have stock options, you can make a lot of money.
Conversely, someone with a lot of startup experience may have a hard time adjusting to a mature company. Whether a candidate with only startup experience can handle a slower pace or won’t know how to navigate a complex organizational structure that requires good judgements. They may have to sacrifice title and maybe some salary.
There’s no right or wrong place to start. A lot depends on how you define your skills and how willing and patient you are in either case to adjust. Much can depend on who hires you and their management philosophy. Probably this is the most important question to ask yourself, “What skills do you want to add to your skillset? Will the role allow you to hone skills you already have or add new ones?”
For both companies, entry level jobs are somehow similar but there are lots of pros and cons. Let’s discuss in detail.
Startup:
- There is more ownership and broad scope of projects since, many projects are ongoing and one has to look into multiple work and process, and sometimes individual is responsible for single project to complete.
- If you are new grad, startup might be the best suit for you to figure out your interest because you get to work in different projects with different technologies with full ownership. You have to explore everything by yourself because of limited mentorship, which increases your leadership skill along with problem solving capability.
- If company is growing then people grow with company, because they are always looking for positions in higher level.
- At startup, every roles matters and you can see that you are creating new feature that was not there before. Every problem is an opportunity for you to step in and add value.
- No structure or best practices are pre-defined so sometimes it’s hard to start and continue work. You’ll have the opportunity to experiment. It allows you to grow your skill set and try new things.
- Requirements can be ambiguous and lots of re work need to be done because of less number of experts.
- Difficult to implement and follow processes, because of direct involvement of investors.
- Brand is new to everyone in startup. so less attention for others.
- Risk to work with startups because of unstable funding.
Established Companies
- Brand recognition could be huge. for any company saying we have ‘X’ engineers from ‘XYZ’ mnc company would be proud thing for any other startup or big company.
- Bigger company attract the best engineers and provide very good mentorship.
- in bigger companies there are clear direction, roadmap and defined process and structured working Environment, so that everyone can focus only on their productivity.
- Exposure to success at scale.
- More stable than other, which actually have higher value. you might make less little money out of big company.
- Individual is surrounded with very good team around to resolve the dependency if there is any. Leadership skill developed naturally. Mentorship and role models are there.
- Brand name is another attraction for bigger companies.
- Slow movement: At a large corporation, you might do the same set of tasks for several years, until someone above you retires or gets a promotion.
- There is narrow scope of role.
Remember, you will not work for one company your entire life until it’s your own company 🙂 . Don’t get too comfortable and just stay where you are. Try to get varied experience in different disciplines at both big and small companies. Your life will be richer and your career path will take you anywhere you want to go.
