When I graduated, the debate was always the same: big tech stability vs. early startup risk. Google or the scrappy 10-person team in a WeWork. Most of my classmates picked one extreme or the other.
In my experience, the place I've grown the most is at a mid-stage startup. This might be a Series B or C, somewhere between 50 and 500 people, with a product that's already working.
Here's why.
Your work will actually ship. You can make impact from day one. At Perpay, new hires ship their first ticket on their first day. At a big company, you might have to spend your first few months in onboarding, getting permissions, and learning internal tooling no one outside the company has ever heard of. At a tiny startup, you'll spend it firefighting. A mid-stage company is past the "will this survive?" phase but nowhere near the "protect the moat" phase. You build something, it ships, real users touch it. The feedback loop is fast and that's where you learn the most.
Growth creates titles faster than tenure does. These companies are spinning up and breaking out new teams constantly. If you're good, you'll be leading one within a year or two - not because you waited long enough, but because there's no one else. That's not a gap in leadership, that's your opportunity. Take it.
The network compounds. The founders and early team are still in the building. You're not working for some VP who reports to a director who reports to a C-suite you'll never meet. You're sitting near the people who built the thing from scratch, and they will become your professional network for the next 20 years - future employers, future cofounders, future investors. No LinkedIn connection request compares to actually building something together.
The equity math is better than you think. While seed-stage options might be lottery tickets and FAANG RSUs have far less upside, A Series B company that's already proven product-market fit and is on a clear path to IPO or acquisition in 2-3 years? That's the sweet spot. You're not taking a flyer, you're buying in after the concept risk is gone but before the market has priced you out.
If you're a new grad in tech, I urge you to resist the pull of the obvious choices. The FAANG offer feels prestigious - and it is. The tiny startup feels exciting - and it is. But in my experience, you'll grow fast, matter more, and build the best foundation with a company that's already found its footing and is now sprinting.