Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 168 posts

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

#51

Post by thinking_errol »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #33
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…

I came from multiple startups to a FANG and this advice is really good. Seriously, you’re going to need to relax. Also I recommend reading “corporate confidential”. I was confused initially why being an excellent engineer who could “deliver” didn’t make me shine at bigco. The book helped me get on a better path. Also relax.

I found 3 corporate confidential books on Amazon: by Susan Dephillips, by Barath Surendran and by Cynthia Shapiro. Which one do you recommend?

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

#52

Post by _y5hn »

laktak wrote: post #27

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 o…

"You are welcome to visit anytime to provide input on how we can improve our improvements-processes."

and

"Everyone got heard."

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

#53

Post by _y5hn »

Ask people around you, what would they expect from you and your role? (Remember you're new here and unfamiliar with this position and role!1)

If they don't expect much, focus elsewhere. Prepare for disappointments, but if you can keep asking and looking, there'll be no lack of opportunity later.

There may be different periods in your worklife, where you focus on different aspects of work. Don't be disappointed in yourself, but recognize different skills and tools are needed to fill the toolbox. What is important to the corporation is getting the jobs done, not fill your CV. Nobody will care if you do it right or not, but doing it wrong will hinder further development. So getting stuck in quagmire or bubble, is poor job-protection, as at some point in time things will be changed from under your feet.

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

#54

Post by rv-de »

bibabaloo wrote: post #43
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…

Some counter experiences, just based on my own annecdata. > * You, the individual, are not important. The product is important, the department that delivers the product is less important, the teams that comprise the department are less important than that, and so on. Again, accept the reality and just relax. Working at startups I have never felt less important as an individual. The product is #1 and I only exist as a…

Maybe it's that employees are some sort of cog about everywhere and test automation is also bad almost everywhere.

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

#55

Post by tarsinge »

bibabaloo wrote: post #43
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…

Some counter experiences, just based on my own annecdata. > * You, the individual, are not important. The product is important, the department that delivers the product is less important, the teams that comprise the department are less important than that, and so on. Again, accept the reality and just relax. Working at startups I have never felt less important as an individual. The product is #1 and I only exist as a…

I think what you are describing are startups past the early stage. It's the worst of both worlds IMO.

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

#56

Post by tarsinge »

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…

It's worth noting that there is a culture change in some big companies where small teams given more latitude and budget to explore innovative solution (I know because these are the teams I mostly sell to). Also Intrapreneurship is a thing too. Way better place to be in than a medium sized mono product startup to be in if you ask me.

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

#57

Post by ghaff »

fangorn wrote: post #39
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At a startup you are actively changing the world. That sounds very exciting. Can you point to one startup that's changing the world?

SpaceX?

SpaceX was founded almost 20 years ago and has 8,000 employees. That is not a startup (today) by any reasonable definition.

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

#58

Post by ghaff »

I'm not primarily a developer but from the perspective of going from a very small firm for almost 10 years to a multi-thousand person company. (I also worked for a similar order of magnitude firm in a prior life).

-- There's lots of machinery to support you in various ways. You don't need to do it all yourself. This makes it possible to do things at a scale it's often hard to do at a small company.

-- It depends on the role of course, but harnessing that machinery, coordinating, and getting the word out about anything across the company takes a lot of effort. People are specialized and it's hard to get them to pay attention to things that are not of immediate importance to their job.

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

#59

Post by sbilstein »

Like others have said, RELAX!!!

You don't need to push too hard to succeed. Not rocking the boat (too much) is more important than anything else. You can push teams to greater efficiencies, products to better outcomes, etc. but do this in a slow and methodical way. You won't get any benefit from being frustrated and neither will those around you.

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

#60

Post by kartayyar »

- Domain mastery is more important than being a jack of all trades.

- Realize you are signing up to be part of a bigger machine, and there are things you will have less control over. This is both limiting and empowering.

- Both people in small and large companies can be smart, but they are typically a different flavor of smart. Learn from them accordingly.

- You should plan to have a much longer lead in terms of getting things done if it requires a dependency on a team you don't work with frequently.

- The team you work on is far more important than the company you work for.

- Be active rather than passive about finding opportunities and projects to work on. You can easily get stuck working in a role you might not be a fit for or a manager you don't click with.

Post reply on HN