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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?

#91

Post by bentcorner »

katzgrau wrote: post #82
lunias wrote: post #72

Remember when you used to ask your Mom / Dad, "Why?" and they'd respond with, "Because I said so." It's like that, but subtly more infuriating because it's never a single identifiable person saying "no" that could be spoken to, understood, and reasoned with. The answer that you'll get at a big company is, "because that's the way it is".

Having worked at Big Co and then on my own company for years, this is exactly what I was thinking. You'll lose professional autonomy in exchange for a good salary, job security, and resume bling. And you probably won't have to work as hard or as often (again, probably).

Depends on where you go. I work at a BigCo and IMO if you see a "because that's the way it is" and you don't like it, you can change it if you can justify the change.

Everything has tradeoffs and sometimes the cost to change something is higher than the benefits gained, but the people I work with are always willing to listen.

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

#93

Post by bobbytherobot »

katzgrau wrote: post #82
lunias wrote: post #72

Remember when you used to ask your Mom / Dad, "Why?" and they'd respond with, "Because I said so." It's like that, but subtly more infuriating because it's never a single identifiable person saying "no" that could be spoken to, understood, and reasoned with. The answer that you'll get at a big company is, "because that's the way it is".

Having worked at Big Co and then on my own company for years, this is exactly what I was thinking. You'll lose professional autonomy in exchange for a good salary, job security, and resume bling. And you probably won't have to work as hard or as often (again, probably).

"you probably won't have to work as hard"

For me, it was a question of: do I put in 40% to get 90% completed, or do I put in 150% to get 99% completed?

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

#94

Post by ensiferum »

You didn't mention your role and I expect the experience to be somewhat difference depending where you end up in the hierarchy. Generally I'd say that the higher you are the more bullshit and bullshit work there is.

* In big corp there are a bunch of people who are actively just making a living and career out of shit talking and being in the right spot of the machinery doing very little actual work.

* There can be lots of redundant work and other inefficient waste. For example double/triple bug/task tracking systems, several different repositories with half assed mirrors etc.

* There are "gate keepers" who have been at the BigCorp for a hundred years and have managed to put themselves in a position where they get to act as the gate keeper of access to some resource. Examples are some "enterprise" level CVS tools like ClearCase where there's some "merge/release manager" who gets to do branches and merges and releases etc. These people will vehemently resist any change to make these processes more efficient. (see the point about efficiency)

* Some people exist in the organization just to make a career using whatever means possible including bullying, politics, (passive) aggression towards others (trying to sabotage their work, take credit for it), ass kissing, nepotism etc.

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

#95

Post by bengale »

BenderV wrote: post #63

Lots of people are arguing really valid points. I recently switched to a Big Co after 4 start-ups - so I get /it/. I'm just wondering what part is due to inefficiency creeping in VS due to the size of an organisation. Point being: what about SpaceX, Tesla or Stripe ? Are they also slow ? with politics and no transparency & co ?

I'd love to read some studies on this to be honest. My guess would be that a certain size its impossible to not have the kind of bullshit this thread is full of.

I'd wonder if it's a related to the age of the company though, or maybe the speed of growth. It's always felt to me like a company seems to hit a critical mass of, shall we say less than productive people, that then work together to hire more people like them and drive out people that want to make changes. Then it just snowballs.

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

#96

Post by danck »

Once when I was frustrated with my current Job at a large corporation, an experienced friend told me the secret.

He said, they'd value "predictability over excellence".

Meaning, talk about your goals, give an estimation and arrive exactly on point. It doesn't matter if it's your personal project or projects/processes where you take the lead.

Being faster than estimated, or finding a better way and switching while your doing it will not be appreciated.

This really unlocked a lot of success and explained many glass walls i've been running into before.

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

#97

Post by awinder »

bentcorner wrote: post #91
katzgrau wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at Big Co and then on my own company for years, this is exactly what I was thinking. You'll lose professional autonomy in exchange for a good salary, job security, and resume bling. And you probably won't have to work as hard or as often (again, probably).

Depends on where you go. I work at a BigCo and IMO if you see a "because that's the way it is" and you don't like it, you can change it if you can justify the change. Everything has tradeoffs and sometimes the cost to change something is higher than the benefits gained, but the people I work with are always willing to listen.

Yeah, same experience. You can't change all of the things but you can change like 1 thing at a time that's really peeving you off, iff you have a good reason & can make a good argument & it's worth your time & effort.

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

#98

Post by LockAndLol »

Watch Office Space [0]. It'll teach you everything you'll ever need to know about big corps.

There will be office politics, somebody will always either be too hot or too cold in the office, connections will be much more important than talent... yeah, especially that last one. If you want to get anything done in a big company and have any sort of leverage anywhere, connections, connections, connections.

You might get a meek yearly review just because someone in your echelon has cozied up to somebody in a higher echelon and wants a raise.

There might be a company-wide call for product-ideas with the promise of leading your own team should your idea be selected. To be fair, that does happen but the best ideas will be rejected by the committee and then resubmitted as their own.

Whichever company you pick, read the glassdoor reviews and look for stories on reddit and HN. I don't have any links handy but over the years there have been quite a few on reddit about the company structure in GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft). These pictures [1] remind me most of those.

[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804 [1]: https://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2011/7/5/organizational-char...

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

#99

Post by mcculley »

lunias wrote: post #72

Remember when you used to ask your Mom / Dad, "Why?" and they'd respond with, "Because I said so." It's like that, but subtly more infuriating because it's never a single identifiable person saying "no" that could be spoken to, understood, and reasoned with. The answer that you'll get at a big company is, "because that's the way it is".

That's well put.

I did some contracting work for a very large organization last year. It was my first experience trying to navigate the rules inside such a large organization. The interaction that I found most amusing is that I would ask for something that would require crossing an organization boundary and the immediate response would be, "No.", followed shortly by, "Wait, why do you need that?" This happened several times and was just part of the dance required to find the right person to sign off on my plan.

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

#100

Post by manquer »

sheepybloke wrote: post #83
fangorn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX?

Are they though? They're almost 18 years old at this point, so I feel like they don't really count as a startup.

How old and how large has really nothing to do with being a startup or not . It just means a fledgling business whose revenues are expected to change rapidly and is developing a product/ business .

This is in contrast to stable or blue chip like companies who have stable revenues and their product lines are very well established.

The distinction is important for two groups of people .

a) investors - Risks and rewards are fundamentally different , therefore valuation methods are also different t you would use something like a Discounted Cash flow for stable corp you might look at IP, ARR , DAU or any number of other metrics for a startup whose revenues are not stable enough to use DCF etc

b) employees - change or innovation is far more deeply grained culture in startups , What worked yesterday may not work today, that requires different mindset to be successful at

Amazon , Uber are still startups despite what you think about their sizes , ages and current revenues . Building a AWS is only possible if you can completely rethink what is that you sell .

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