> The single most important factor on whether you’ll have a good experience is whether the company you join is exploding with growth or not.<p>Growth is a double-edged sword. Working at a high-growth company can, for some, be a rewarding experience. But high-growth companies can also be chaotic, dysfunctional and unreasonably demanding of employees.<p>And if head count grows faster than meaningful traction, which is not uncommon at venture-backed startups, there's nothing less rewarding than being a part of the layoff process that inevitably ensues.<p>> The best learning is when you get to see the company grow around you. If the company already has a hundred or two hundred people, it may still be a startup, but it is really a late stage startup, <i>and all of the tremendous learning opportunities are already gone.</i><p>Nonsense. <i>What</i> you have the opportunity to learn is just as important as how much you can learn. On this front, larger, established companies often have a lot more to offer.<p>> So if you’re not blown away by everyone you meet during the hiring process, look elsewhere. You don’t want to be learning bad habits, especially because you might not know at the time that they’re that bad.<p>First, while it's usually wise to trust your gut if you get a <i>bad</i> feeling during the hiring process, if you expect to be "blown away" in a set of limited interactions with a prospective employer, you're probably being unrealistic. Keep in mind that what you see during the hiring process may be not be representative of day-to-day reality, and in some cases, what you see might even be staged[1].<p>Second, great people can make bad colleagues. An individual with a friendly and/or compelling personality isn't necessarily going to be knowledgeable or even competent. A lot of knowledgeable, competent people don't have a reality distortion field around them.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543410" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543410</a>