I spent most of my career at Microsoft. 14 years, in fact. I had a great run there, and there was a lot of good, and plenty of bad, like anything. I just up and left one day, so take that for what it's worth.
But I did spend a lot of time hiring, coaching, and observing junior engineers of all stripes.
At junior levels, I don't think it's about MS v Startup as much as "Big Company v Startup". As Steve Blank says, startups aren't minified big companies, they are a different species.
On balance, I still believe a bigger company is a better place for a first job than a startup. This is not a rule, but a preference.
My main reason for this is that the number one goal of a new engineer is learning to be a better engineer. On balance, this happens faster when you're in the presence of more senior folks to mentor and challenge you.
If you're doing a startup with a bunch of folks with similar experience levels, you'll learn plenty but you'll also bake in some bad habits.
A corallary, as noted here, is that a larger company pays you and let you focus on your core job role, versus "wearing many hats", which is great for someone who's got some things down pat, and not so great for n00bs.
This is a vast generalization and frankly there are some caveats here with MS in particular (and maybe others, n=1) that might get in the way, but in general I think structure is good until you're really equipped to make a run.
My first job was at a startup and I came to this conclusion when I left there 1996, and nothing in between has changed my mind.
Comments
I spent most of my career at Microsoft. 14 years, in fact. I had a great run there, and there was a lot of good, and plenty of bad, like anything. I just up and left one day, so take that for what it's worth.
But I did spend a lot of time hiring, coaching, and observing junior engineers of all stripes.
At junior levels, I don't think it's about MS v Startup as much as "Big Company v Startup". As Steve Blank says, startups aren't minified big companies, they are a different species.
On balance, I still believe a bigger company is a better place for a first job than a startup. This is not a rule, but a preference.
My main reason for this is that the number one goal of a new engineer is learning to be a better engineer. On balance, this happens faster when you're in the presence of more senior folks to mentor and challenge you.
If you're doing a startup with a bunch of folks with similar experience levels, you'll learn plenty but you'll also bake in some bad habits.
A corallary, as noted here, is that a larger company pays you and let you focus on your core job role, versus "wearing many hats", which is great for someone who's got some things down pat, and not so great for n00bs.
This is a vast generalization and frankly there are some caveats here with MS in particular (and maybe others, n=1) that might get in the way, but in general I think structure is good until you're really equipped to make a run.
My first job was at a startup and I came to this conclusion when I left there 1996, and nothing in between has changed my mind.