I work for a growing startup and now, nearly 4 years in, the thing that keeps me engaged most is the potential value of my stock options.<p>The first few years the work was interesting and fun, but as the company has grown, the work has become more segmented and specialized and so much "big company" process has been put into place that it's not nearly as fun, and something that I used to do myself requires coordination with several different teams and seemingly endless meetings.<p>HR (or "people first", as they call themselves) is not helping, HR used to be our office manager/HR/facilities manager all rolled into one -- if employees wanted 2% milk in the refrigerator or an ergonomic keyboard, they only had to ask him and it was there in a few days.<p>Now we have to make a request... and get it approved (if possible, maybe it takes several levels of approval), and someone has to enter it into the purchasing system, and maybe someday I'll get it.<p>In an effort to "streamline employee benefits", benefits have been reduced, nothing added. Likewise, the "unlimited free snacks, add your favorite to the list" have been reduced to "Here's what you get from the vendor we outsource to"<p>Our average engineering salary must be close to $200K, but it still takes VP of engineering approval to get a second $700 monitor because "policy says employees only get a single monitor"<p>When the new office was being planned, management asked for suggestions about how to make it more engaging, feedback was overwhelmingly against an open office plan -- the response was "We are listening to your feedback, but we are going with an open office".<p>I think a lot of this comes with working at a larger company, but we've already lost some key early employees, and will lose more as the company grows and becomes more "big company" like.<p>The economics are slanted against employees as the company grows - if a 100 person company spends $100/employee on a benefit, that's only $10,000. If a 5000 employee company does it, that's $500K - the cost of several HR staff, so HR can say "Look, we've saved the company more than our own salary by streamlining benefits!"<p>It's not all bad, of course, or I wouldn't be here, but more and more, I find myself thinking that I'm just here for the money rather than because I enjoy it.