[jeffreylees]

A smaller company (especially high growth) would be my choice any day. I currently work for a smaller, high growth startup, and I prefer it a thousand fold to the experiences in industry giant companies like MS or Google. The bad would outweigh the good, to me. No doubt there is good - the name recognition on your resume, the experience on big products with big-name hitters - but no, even that wouldn't outweigh the burdens of the bigger corporate employment, at least not for me.

A smaller startup / company can get things done faster, give you more experience in potentially more areas and more types of projects. If it's a high growth company it probably will make a fairly good resume item anyway.

The only caveat is that you have said: "who wants a corporate career" -- if by "corporate" you mean larger mega-companies, than of course, your choice should be Google.