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Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

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Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#21

Post by akamia »

giantg2 wrote: post #3

You will probably have less freedom, less authority, and more bureaucracy. You might have a leg up when it comes to keeping your budget low. Upper management is always happy with that.

I once worked at a Fortune 50 company where keeping your budget low was something that upper management (at a certain level) was not happy with. We once built a hadoop cluster because we needed to "burn" some money (~$150k) left in our budget. In this company coming in under budget meant you didn't do a good job of forecasting your needs so you were punished with budget cuts the following year. That led to so much waste. Coming from a startup where saving a few hundred dollars/months was something to celebrate it was mind-boggling to see all of the waste.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#22

Post by fsloth »

"Corporate Confidential" by Cynthia Shapiro is an excellent book in explaining the various motivations stakeholders at a large company may or may not have.

Although the book can be considered bleak, the point is not to train you to suspect your employer, but rather point out various possibilities of politics and power play that may be going on under the surface that are not so obvious from the get go. I.e. it's a survival manual of sorts to a new and sometimes semi-hostile environment.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#23

Post by [deleted] »

austincheney wrote: post #5

Here is what it means to work at a big company: * Things work slowly, so relax. There are many people that have a hand in every aspect of a product decision. * At a startup you are actively changing the world. That’s done now. Put that completely out of your head. You are cog in a machine. Instead focus on your assigned product, help your teammates, and just learn to relax. * You, the individual, are not important. T…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#25

Post by ornornor »

soared wrote: post #18
austincheney wrote: post #5

Here is what it means to work at a big company: * Things work slowly, so relax. There are many people that have a hand in every aspect of a product decision. * At a startup you are actively changing the world. That’s done now. Put that completely out of your head. You are cog in a machine. Instead focus on your assigned product, help your teammates, and just learn to relax. * You, the individual, are not important. T…

* Things work slowly, so relax. The extent of this is hard to grasp outside of bigco. At oracle we had layoffs/reorg - no real work was done for ~7 days, and it took 3 months to figure out our new roles/responsibilities. Some people were paid $40k+ in that time period and did very little work. Things occasionally move very very slow. Twiddle your thumbs and be happy about your huge salary, don't quit like I did!

Seriously. I heard big companies were slow before but I didn’t realize the magnitude of it until I joined one. Most people where I work either only produce real work for anywhere between 40 to 10% of their time. The rest is either filled by busywork or twiddling your thumbs (depending on individuals)

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#27

Post by laktak »

If you end up in a 'bad' company you may make these experiences:

- there are feuds between companies or even departments in the same org

- decisions are not based on facts but on political circumstances

- the outcome of an analysis is often predetermined

- not the best idea/project/etc. win's but the one with the best connections

- decisions are made that are damaging to the company just to deny someone else in the org a success

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#28

Post by LordFast »

austincheney wrote: post #5

Here is what it means to work at a big company: * Things work slowly, so relax. There are many people that have a hand in every aspect of a product decision. * At a startup you are actively changing the world. That’s done now. Put that completely out of your head. You are cog in a machine. Instead focus on your assigned product, help your teammates, and just learn to relax. * You, the individual, are not important. T…

> A lot of my advice here is to just relax, but I hate relaxing.

Hit the nail on the head with that one.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?

#29

Post by goddamnsteve »

Bias. A huge deal in these corporates. You’re going to have to either learn how to navigate it or to live with it.

On the other hand, you will get a ton of exposure learning from others and knowing more people. That’s always there for sure at large organizations. Above all, a sense of being a part of a cult.

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