I'm currently a staff/senior level engineer for a FAANG in America. I have expertise in cloud infrastructure and building backend services - apis, workflows, stream/message consumers, etc.<p>I've been doing the same job since 9 years, since I graduated and it's been a lot of fun.<p>I've been thinking of moving to a smaller company, because I'm hoping it will give me more experience with more opensource tools, and I'm hoping it will accelerate my carer.<p>Compensation numbers are all over the place in our industry right now, and I'm trying to maximize this for the 3 - 4 year range.<p>How do you decide it's a good time to move to a smaller company?
There is no right answer. I started at a small company and have zigzagged between small and large companies my whole career. I prefer small companies. You’ll never know what’s best for you until you try it out.<p>It’s very different from a FAANG, though. You have much more responsibility, in my experience, and not everyone can make the transition successfully.