I'm the head of engineering for a startup, was 3rd engineer at Eventbrite, built my own startup valued >$1M, turned down 2 offers at Google. Been doing startups 10+ years.
I do startups because I have a problem communicating my ideas in a way to influence larger organizations to do the things that interest me. Simple as that.
If I have a theory to move the needle, in a startup, I can do it, analyze it, and launch it with very little buy-in, although my impact to an industry may be less. In a BigCo, my impact on the industry may be more but the battle isn't about product-market fit, it's about corporate alignment and buy-in before I can even test product-market fit, which I just don't enjoy.
This x 1000. At the end of the day, I get joy from building things that people love. At a startup, there isn’t much in the way of making it happen if it aligns with the vision of the startup.
At a big co, you’re mostly playing bigco politics and ass kissing to climb up the career ladder.
I love startups and growth stage companies. There’s a ton of opportunities to make impact and learn new things.
You can definitely do that as a Head of Eng at a startup. It would be good to see how much freedom (measurably) the employees at your startup have in doing this (either for product initiatives or for technology choices). They certainly would have a smaller "surface area" for selling than in a BigCo (ie with committee for X or a leadership group for Y or a review group for Z) but their freedom is still limited wrt to a VP/Head of eng no?
I do startups because I have a problem communicating my ideas in a way to influence larger organizations to do the things that interest me. Simple as that.
If I have a theory to move the needle, in a startup, I can do it, analyze it, and launch it with very little buy-in, although my impact to an industry may be less. In a BigCo, my impact on the industry may be more but the battle isn't about product-market fit, it's about corporate alignment and buy-in before I can even test product-market fit, which I just don't enjoy.