Which job offer should I take? Dilemma [duplicate]

Question

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What are the biggest differences between working for a small company and working for a mid-sized or large company?

Right now I have two available job offers and I'm having a hard time making up my mind.

Company #1, let's call it SmallLLC is a fairly small privately owned company with only 12 developers. They are fairly relaxed, most guys are young and there is virtually no hierarchy. They use lots of cutting edge tech but pretty much ignore industry practices such as Agile and TDD. There is lots of cowboy coding going on and they are very practical and pragmatic.

Comapny #2, MegaCorp is a big multinational corporation which has branches in all major countries and this branch alone has around 200 employees or so. They have a strict hierarchy established. They use lots of old school technology (if you can call .NET 2.0 old) and shun lots of new tech, but they enforce good practices like Agile and TDD.

Both companies offer the same amount of money. I am not sure which offer to take. On one hand, it's nice working in a small company in that your colleagues gradually become your friends and there is very little pressure. Plus, I'd get to work with some nice tech.

On the other hand, in bigger companies you often enjoy a greater level of protection and there are procedures in place to ensure everything goes according to plan at all times. While it sucks that I won't get to use shiny new toys, I'd finally get to learn Agile and TDD (I've never seen anyone implement them successfully before) and I'd also learn a lot about development cycles and how big projects are managed.

I'm inclined to take the offer in the bigger company as I think it would benefit me more in the professional sense.

What would you do?

Answer 1

Big companies do pay more, if you look at some of the online salary surveys, so it would benefit you in the professional sense that way.

Answer 2

Go to Megacorp. It will look great on your resume, and there will always be another startup/small company opporutnity. Stay there at least 2 years (4 is better). You'll be a much more desirable hire after that experience.

Answer 3

In the absence of any other strong factors, pick the company with the stronger development team, or the manager you like best. In the end, the people you work with are going to impact the quality of your work life more than anything else.

If you want to be really aggressive with "moving up," then pick the team with the manager you think will move up first. A crude way to gauge that: Divide the number promotions he got by the number of years he's been in the workforce. A higher number is better.

Answer 4

I wod choose the large Co.if you do well you can be promoted. This smaller firm is most likely dead end.

Answer 5

Choose the one where you will learn more. Getting an upstart company to follow practices you favor will be an interesting experience for you. On the other hand, the been there done that see how we do it the right way, has pay-offs as well.

I'd say find the one with the best single developer who is willing to let you learn from them.