I am considering shifting from a very structured national healthcare company to a new (less than 2 years old) tech startup.

4 Comments

1. AnonymousJuly 20,2022 at 11:34AM UTC

   I came from a large healthcare corporation and eventually made my way to small business and then running my own consulting company working with start-ups.

   You will wear more hats. You will be expected to "just figure it out". You will work without policies and procedures. You will have less robust software to manage the day-to-day stuff. You will have personalities and people who have never managed people. Money will be iffy. Even with angel investors. Beer Friday or Summer Fridays or unlimited PTO will seem less exciting with the workload. You need to have a very healthy fear of failure, but not be surprised or defeated by it. It is not a job. Not yet, at least. It's the work of entrepreneurship. Be excited about the founder's vision, but look closely at who runs Operations. That will tell you more about what it will be like. They usually aren't the same people. You need to be wired for this.

   On the other hand, you will learn more and become more independent and capable than you can imagine. You will be exposed more deeply to the business of business than you ever would at a large corporation. You will become more emotionally and technically resilient because start-up people? They don't have time for nice or not knowing. It's younger, even when people are older. Your corporate sensibilities and skills won't always translate, but can sometimes bring needed gravitas. Culture will be your responsibility to live out because Values and Missions are real in this space. The sense of accomplishment when you succeed is like nothing else.

   Just go into it with your eyes open and abandon assumptions that you might not even realize that a large company has trained you to expect.

2. AnonymousJuly 20,2022 at 12:33PM UTC

   Very this.

3. AnonymousJuly 20,2022 at 12:32PM UTC

   I went from a giant tech company to a 5 person startup. Be ready for a lack of built out process, for changes to come fast and often. Be ready to be asked to work on things outside of your "job description".

   For some this might sound like negatives. For others this is the type of environment they crave - one that allows you to help shape processes and to be agile when things aren't working.

4. AnonymousJuly 20,2022 at 2:45PM UTC

   I was in similar situation like you two years ago. I resigned from a very secure big pharma job to join a medium size clinical stage company. I selected this company because I already knew at least two functional heads. The company was doing very well when I joined. Soon, I realized there were two things that I overlooked. First, my direct boss, the VP. Though her resume was fantastic and she was very nice during interview process, it was clear that she lacked a lot of leadership and management skills. She has tons of tech experience and is a hard worker. But she stuck at individual contributor level mentality. It is clear that I will not be able to grow as much under her. So, I rejoined my previous employer after 9 months when my old boss reached out to to me.

   The truth is that I am really glad that I left. I was very well like and was given tons of opportunities to perform. I came back with renew confidence in my ability. I plan to switch job and go back to smaller company in near future but this time I will really make sure that I interview the hiring manager more carefully. I would make sure that he or she is a season manager/leader who had a tracked record of developing other. Best of luck!