Haven't posted on devrant for quite a while but I need the community's input on a decision I have to make:

I recently graduated from college and I have two job offers: one as SDE 1 from Amazon and another from a small (less than 10 people) but quickly growing start-up. I looked at all the generic pros of cons of joining an established company vs a startup but I am still torn on the decision. Both the companies are offering similar pay, so money's out of the question now.

If anyone from the community has any advice from personal experience (or specific to Amazon), that'd help me a lot.

Have a good day, everyone!

Hey, good luck..

But the formula should contain: Money, Learning, Environment

Totally depends on where you want to end up.

Amazon would be a safer option because big company experience adds a lot to your resume and is really good for anything you do after that (including startups), even if you don't stay for long. Plus, corporate life does agree with some people and I think it would be unfortunate if you don't experience it when you have the chance. Also, corporate -> startup transition is easy, startup -> corporate, not so much.

You'll also learn a lot at Amazon, but it would be a bit more regimented and perhaps not as freeform as a small company. Amazon works at a scale not available to a startup, and there's value in learning how they go about it.

Honestly one could make an argument for either side, I just took the big company one because I'm pretty sure the startup side would be well represented here (personally, just out of college I would prefer the bigger company, if nothing else then because of the scale argument).

Pick more interesting one with kind people that will help to grow your skills.

Company size doesn’t matter but work environment is the key.

You will still work on some project, on startup there are more chances to work on multiple topics but still if there are not good people don’t go there.

Any company that has a role called "SDE 1" would scare me just because of that.

On the plus side, I have a clear career path. Keep my head down, work hard, and in a year I could be SDE 2 and living the dream.