Ask HN: Startup or Big Company?

[tiamaty]

Hi, I am a data scientist and software developer who has received two job offers from two wildly different companies. The first (http://www.analytics2go.com/) is an american startup located on Brazil (I live here) that aims to develop data driven solutions for small-medium sized companies and the second one is the largest retail company in my country. Both positions (at least on paper) are to do the same job, research and modelling of solutions for the companies problems (in the startup the focus are on the clients). Financially the retail offer is better by about 50%. A somewhat important detail is that the retail company is located in the biggest city here in Brazil while the startup is in the countryside in a very small city... The question is, for someone like me that will finish his PhD in the next two years and aims to get a job in a tech company in the future (Amazon, Google, IBM...) which one is the better path ? Is retail badly seen by tech companies ? Will the experience in one be worse than the other ?

Cheers

[mswen]

Big company. Large retailers have lots of data and the ability to act on your analytical insights. Fifty percent more money is significant and you should discount any promises or grants of equity from the start-up. Equity in start-ups is far from assured and will often be subject to dilution, vesting periods and other constraints even if the start-up succeeds. And, in a couple years when you are considering moving to another job for better money and more interesting problems being already located in a very large city means greater ease of connecting and finding that next position.

[tixocloud]

Context: I have worked for startups and large companies in data roles.

For startups, things move much faster but there might be less of a defined process on what to do. You'll be learning how to deal with ambiguity but also have the opportunity to establish leadership and set the direction.

For large companies, there have vast amounts of interesting datasets to explore to but depending on where they are at with their data journey, it might require significant amount of time for cleaning. Everything you propose might require approvals, consensus depending on the structure of the organization. They also have vast financial resources to spend on new technology so if you are thinking about the tech giants and if you can develop expertise in them, it might be a path there.

Based on your aim to get into a tech company in the future, I would lean slightly towards the large retail company given a stronger brand name.

[nik736]

It's simple: Go with the bigger company unless you have a reason to accept the 50% paycut. Industry is not a problem, what counts is that you learn stuff and have something to show.

[jenniT34]

It depends what you are looking for. Big companies use blogs to talk about technical problems or events, such as twitter. Small companies tend to have the best blogs in order to attract more people to use their product. .

[franzwong]

It depends. Even good companies have poor positions, teams, managers and systems. Prepare to switch if you think they are not suitable for you.