1) You almost always will own a larger chunk of the core product, and it's easy to point your finger to details that you played a big role in figuring out.
2) At good (small) startups, the transparency is enough so that you have trust in your leadership and understand how big decisions are made. At big companies, it's generally far more convoluted.
3) You gain a skillset outside of proprietary internal tools. This is often overlooked, but if you get used to the internal tools at your company, it means your skills are not nearly as transferrable if you used other industry standards. This makes you more valuable for other jobs.
4) Startups can be a great way to broaden your horizons and jump into a new industry.
5) There are things you will learn building a startup that you really probably won't learn much of at a big tech company. The decision to go to a startup isn't just a compensation risk tradeoff. Examples: you are typically exposed to vastly different parts of the company much more, and you more often learn how to build things from scratch.
Cons:
1) Salary expectations honestly need to be lower, and you need to be excited about the job despite this. There are lots of comments here about this.
2) Benefits and perks are less, but I typically don't consider this as big of a deal as most people. But, it's pretty objectively better at the bigger well-known companies.
3) Company culture can vary tremendously, and there isn't a great way to know much about this without actually working there. OTOH, you can learn a lot more about the culture of the big companies because there's a better chance you know people there =).
4) The stress levels are generally higher at startups. Similarly, achieving a good work/life balance is definitely harder.
I've honestly always felt that human connections play a decent role in helping a person figure out what they want to do. If their social and/or professional bubble isn't into startups, then you already have quite a mountain to climb, even if you think they would love it (and even if they seem to be genuinely considering it).
1) You almost always will own a larger chunk of the core product, and it's easy to point your finger to details that you played a big role in figuring out.
2) At good (small) startups, the transparency is enough so that you have trust in your leadership and understand how big decisions are made. At big companies, it's generally far more convoluted.
3) You gain a skillset outside of proprietary internal tools. This is often overlooked, but if you get used to the internal tools at your company, it means your skills are not nearly as transferrable if you used other industry standards. This makes you more valuable for other jobs.
4) Startups can be a great way to broaden your horizons and jump into a new industry.
5) There are things you will learn building a startup that you really probably won't learn much of at a big tech company. The decision to go to a startup isn't just a compensation risk tradeoff. Examples: you are typically exposed to vastly different parts of the company much more, and you more often learn how to build things from scratch.
Cons:
1) Salary expectations honestly need to be lower, and you need to be excited about the job despite this. There are lots of comments here about this.
2) Benefits and perks are less, but I typically don't consider this as big of a deal as most people. But, it's pretty objectively better at the bigger well-known companies.
3) Company culture can vary tremendously, and there isn't a great way to know much about this without actually working there. OTOH, you can learn a lot more about the culture of the big companies because there's a better chance you know people there =).
4) The stress levels are generally higher at startups. Similarly, achieving a good work/life balance is definitely harder.
I've honestly always felt that human connections play a decent role in helping a person figure out what they want to do. If their social and/or professional bubble isn't into startups, then you already have quite a mountain to climb, even if you think they would love it (and even if they seem to be genuinely considering it).