So, I've worked in both Big Tech and smaller companies. I wanted to go in to Big Tech when I did (joined Amazon in 2018 and left for a smaller company last month). As you can see, I clearly did want to leave for another company, but a huge part of that was a 50% TC raise from a smaller well known company. My experience is that team is everything. A good team at a Big Tech company is pretty cool. You have a lot of resources and support, but you do need to learn to navigate the bureaucracy. Sometimes finding the answer for integrating with an internal system can take longer than just pinging someone on the team like you might do at a smaller company, because they're serving to 100s-1000s of internal teams. You tend to have more autonomy at smaller companies. You also tend to spend more time actually coding at smaller companies, as there is less bureaucracy and fewer roadblocks (granted, much like safety regs, these roadblocks are often written in blood, so they can definitely be a good thing.) I really liked my experience in Big Tech. I would 100% consider going back to the same or another big company at a higher level if circumstances aligned. Small companies that put engineering first are also great places to learn, grow, and get a raise as well.

Wow this is really insightful. Thank you! I do wish I had joined a smaller company for my first job so that I would be able to learn and grow more. I love my current firm but there is a lot of things that I have learn about the business aspect of the firm before I can understand the projects. I see a lot of people posting about their moves from big companies to smaller companies to make more of an impact and that does sound fulfilling,