[palata]

Similar experience here.

Also becoming one of the boys is not about technical ability at all: it's marketing. What you need to do to get in the boysclub will depend on the group, but I have never seen a startup where it was about being good at what you do.

Conversely, there seems to be this misconception that corporates are boring, slow, full of useless processes. But my experience is that "slow" may be another word for "healthy", and "useless processes" may be a way to call "the cool kids can't make the rules". I find it more rewarding.

And if you have a ton of energy to work on projects that you find exciting, better do it in your free time and own it. Startups are a Ponzi scheme: unless you are one of the founders, you won't get compensated for all the extra work. So make sure you "own" (or at least benefit from) it: maybe it means that you have to do it at home and never talk about it at work, maybe it means that you can do it open source in your free time, and the best is if you can do it open source at work.