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by mcdrake 300 days ago
I'm in a similar environment and found this article painfully accurate. I keep thinking my job is to solve problems and ship software...but those are clearly not the revealed preferences* of my org.

The author went from small companies to a big one. Has anyone gone the other way? I'm looking to make that shift and I'm curious how others framed their Enterprise™ experience in a way that resonates with smaller teams.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
2 comments
linkage 300 days ago
It's a tale of two cities, in my experience. Much like you, I'm sick of wasting away the best years of my life doing nothing of consequence at $ENTERPRISE and I'm willing to take a 20% pay cut at this point for a chance to actually ship things at a small company.

Unfortunately, I've found that describing what I've learned over the past three years (without any negativity) gives founders the ick. The survival skills you need in the jungle are very different from the ones you need in a zoo, and they feel I've spent too much time in a zoo.

Similarly, large companies want to hire people who understand the value of processes and hierarchies, and interviewing at these places is a challenge for those who have spent most of their career in startups.

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ido 300 days ago
> I'm willing to take a 20% pay cut at this point for a chance to actually ship things at a small company.

Unfortunately the pay cut might be a lot bigger than 20%. I've seen people have "the same job" where one gets paid $300k p.a. at FAANG and another $60k at a small company (while getting a lot more done).

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patja 300 days ago
FAANG is a whole other world from $ENTERPRISE.
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AdieuToLogic 300 days ago
> Unfortunately, I've found that describing what I've learned over the past three years (without any negativity) gives founders the ick. The survival skills you need in the jungle are very different from the ones you need in a zoo, and they feel I've spent too much time in a zoo.

Try describing where you want to be and not so much where you have been.

By that, I mean when interviewing with smaller organizations, pick out the things you have learned which would be beneficial to a much lesser funded effort. For example:

  - automated builds are repeatable
  - unit/feature/integration tests translate to lower costs
  - too many layers of management stifles progress
  - <insert other lessons you have learned here>
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AdieuToLogic 300 days ago
> The author went from small companies to a big one. Has anyone gone the other way?

I have and the biggest difference is that the larger the company, the more the problem to solve is interpersonal and/or group politics and not technical issues.

Large companies typically take a Golden Handcuffs[0] approach to retain valuable employees. Usually, this makes people who have options to leave accept more organizational bovine excrement than if the financial carrot stick did not exist.

As to how to frame the "left mega-corp to effect change" argument needs to be framed... Well, that's about it. Every smaller team I have had the privilege to work with has understood why I did.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_handcuffs

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