[Closi]

I disagree - It depends on your career aspirations, your skillset, the company, and the type of software you like making.

If you are a great communicator and have a great ability to just 'get stuff done', you might be a superstar in 1 & 3, and you might find working in bullet point two highly frustrating.

With number 2 you are more likely to be working on a tiny part of a larger application.

My brother went from bashing out big scrappy functional software with lots of client interaction (option 1 or 3) and moved to a bigger product organisation where he is suddenly working on a team building a microservice for a larger application, but doesn't feel like he is making the same direct impact (i.e. it can be more satisfying to make 10 people's jobs 10% easier compared to than making 1 million's peoples jobs 0.1% easier). He would rather build some scrappy tools that gets the job done than build highly refined software, just because the scrappy programming to meet an end is more satisfying to him (and is generally the bit where you can build fast value!).

[ted6767]

I would also add career longevity and security. I work at a number 3, I wrote and maintain all the logistics stuff. Every product they sell goes through my code to package parts, put it together and get it out the door. Average time working here is measured in decades not years. It would take a new person roughly a year to figure out what's going on. It's incredibly complicated cash cow that complies with a slew of national and international regulations related to health care. I know more than I ever want to about HIPAA, international equivalents and transportation of hazardous and infections goods.

I wouldn't mind switching to #1 and doubling my paycheck but for now I could float here until I die, and many do.

[granshaw]

How’s the workload?

[killjoywashere]

Labcorp?

[Supermancho]

As a software developer, I rather work at a company that sells billions of dollars in merchandise, with a huge amount of software to maintain doing that and endless middle management ideas to build on (most of which won't amount to anything). Job security. Lots of opportunities to move around and nobody needs to know how the reference was about all the s-shows, when you go somewhere else.

[chii]

> (i.e. it can be more satisfying to make 10 people's jobs 10% easier compared to than making 1 million's peoples jobs 0.1% easier)

i think in this case, it's got nothing to do with the impact, but to do with the intimacy with the users. This has more to do with the organization rather than the category outlined in the OP.