
Ask HN: As a fresh graduate, where should I go? Corporate or startup? - LightMind
I am currently doing my Bachelor&#x27;s Degree in Computer Science and is almost completing my studies.<p>So I have been mulling over the question above, which is to join a corporate or a startup as my first job. Will it be better to join a startup as it provides more learning opportunities? Or a corporate which might provide more prestige on my resume. My goal is to hopefully have my own startup one day.<p>So I wish to hear from you guys. What would you advice?
======
brudgers
My advice is to explore _all_ your options.

"Corporate" and "startup" are mostly meaningless in this context. When it
comes to evaluating career opportunities, what matters are the specific
details of particular job opportunities.

Bell Labs was corporate [1]. "Two idea guys who just need someone to write the
code" is a startup.

Good luck.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs)

------
codegeek
It is probably just me but I believe you should get into Corporate world at
the beginning of your career because it will make you realize some of things
that you don't want :). But on a more serious note, corporate world will give
you exposure to a lot of things that startups may not. For example, when you
work in corporate world, you will learn about red tape, bureaucracies etc that
will teach you a lot. You will get to meet tons of people working for big
companies and you can actually build a really good network.

In really big corporate companies, you will learn how different teams use
different tools, methodologies and you may have to work directly/indirectly
with many tools, processes etc. In startups, probably not so much specially
when the team is really small. For example, I saw at least 10 different
systems just for project management when in my corporate job and I probably
would never be able to compare each if not that exposure. I hated it but
that's the point. Now I know :)

I worked in the corporate world for 10+ years before I went into the
bootstrapped product mode. My best achievement in the corporate world ? The
extensive network of amazing people I met during those years. And of course, I
learned tons about what NOT to do when you have the power of running your own
company (no matter how small)

------
logn
I think a job at a large tech company would be my ideal first job. Having
worked at both types of companies, I think the level of professionalism is
higher at large corps, they know how to deal with junior level employees, the
pay will be better, and so will job stability. Starting out at your first job
involves a lot of social anxiety in a way, and I think it's easier to deal
with the boring mega-corp socialization than the dorm-like atmosphere of a
startup.

Having said that, it's important to work on projects that are impressive on
your resume. Fixing bugs is fine, but 3 years of generating graphs for
financial reports, or externalizing strings to internationalize an app will
not help your career. Startups will definitely offer you challenging projects,
but so can large corps, and often they'll let you take a bite you can more
easily chew.

Edit to add: I think an important thing is to consider, will I enjoy working
with these people and will I be able to satisfy their expectations? Especially
make sure you and your boss will get along. This along with getting impressive
projects are the most important things. But all else being equal, I'd prefer a
large corp over startup for your first job.

------
argonaut
1) All else being equal, I would go for a startup. But that's _only if all
else is equal_. What I mean is that if you have offers from top companies, and
offers from the hottest startups, you should prefer the startup. The name
recognition will be the same (I'm pretty sure any tech recruiter will have
heard of, say, Zenefits or something like that), so that's not really an
issue. The pay profile will be different, but the best time to take risks is
when you're young. Obviously if you can only get offers at mediocre startups
you don't believe in, then you should prefer top-company offers.

2) If you don't already have a big name on your resume (through internships,
for example), it may be helpful for your first job out of college to be at a
brand-name company, if only for 1-2 years.

------
ivan_gammel
I've been working in both startups and large multinationals and I'd say, you
should go to startup first. It will give you sense of the freedom, that will
stay for the rest of your life. It's important, because some independency is
necessary to build successful career. Then go to a big corp to get REAL
experience. There you'll improve your soft skills, build good network, learn
about processes and tools, that you might never heard of in startups, and that
will help you in future to scale your code and your future teams. Try both
approaches, never choose single path, and eventually you will know what you
want to do.

------
elainelu
Depends on which specific opportunity you can grow faster toward your long
term goal. Usually people grow best when they are surrounded by excellent
people and be given suitable challenges. You don't know these well until you
interview and learned about what you are supposed to do and who you are going
to work with. Learning a lot is much more important than get prestige on
resume.

BTW, to be honest, it's harder to get into a good early stage startup than get
a job at a corporate. Different requirements on how much you have learned and
how fast you can learn.

------
zerocrat
Corporate, it will buy you options by being in your resume. I am not
advocating that this will make you rich or happy.

A big plus is understanding corporate culture, as it permeates everywhere with
it's long reaching tentacles.

I am not saying this is your future, just an extra "certificate" of sorts.
Plus corporate is like a club, once you join it, moving to other corps is a
lot easier. In my experience at least.

