[alashley]

I've worked at a few small companies. At one of them, I worked with a father and son team in the office and a handful of remote contractors. Another one I worked at was a startup where I was the sole developer and worked with 3 "C-level" exployees -- a definite red flag. And at the company I work for now, there are about seven of us in the office, and its a mature and friendly environment.

I have also worked for the government and larger private organizations.

Here is what I've found from my experiences: - At smaller companies, you have more of a sense of ownership of the work you're doing. At bigger companies, some days it felt like the work I did or the progress I made didn't matter. At my current company, I have more of a sense that my work is steadily advancing the product and my daily progress really does matter.

- Smaller companies are more flexible when it comes to the technical details. At smaller companies, I feel like there is often a fail fast mentality. Whereas in some larger organizations, you have to fill out forms and documents before you can fill out forms and documents to allow you to write code.

- Smaller companies allow you to grow faster, mistakes are often more costly and thus you quickly learn not to make the same ones over and over. Bigger companies can move at a snail's pace when it comes to personal growth.