I have the opportunity to maybe get a job as a software developer at a small software company that employs 14 people. But my gut is telling me that getting a job at a small company like that might he terrible. Do you guys have any experiences working at companies that small?
In my mind, I imagine the CEO would have a very large presence at the company and everyone would feel a lot of pressure to appease him. I imagine that the whole company would just be a boys’ club. But I guess any company can be like that, so maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, and the size of the company isn’t actually related to company culture?
Please let me know if you have any thoughts.
EDIT: The company has been around for two decades
A small company like that likely won’t have policies and processes to fall back on. This can be good for some things, but when things go bad it can backfire.
Mainly for things like promotions, HR, complaints, etc. In big companies there’s a formal process for how to get promoted and what’s expected at each level, etc. Same for HR complaints. At a small company you’re going to be more subject to the whims of whoever is in charge.
Same for new projects. In a big company you have red tape and processes to blame when something fails, but in a small company it’ll be more likely to be “your fault”.
Haha this is such a good point.
The CEO took us to lunch and said to me, “I don’t know if your people like the Olive Garden or not.” Which if I was to report to HR, that would be HIS BROTHER.
I also didn’t get a promotion because I don’t go to his golf outings.
Oh and his wife was a CTO and she once asked me why I release software with bugs in them. That was when I started applying for other jobs.