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
I’ve worked at both small companies as small as about 12, all the way to massive fortune 100 companies (as a trans woman). Big companies get you many perks and often a very nice campus. But I’ve had better experiences mostly at the small companies.
The “boys club” thing never materialized too much, coworkers were decent people and I made great friends Never had a problem being trans at work. But the size definitely affects culture. Large companies have a fake explicit (not bad words, I mean explicit as in well defined and stated) culture shoved down your throat, small companies tend to have an organically formed culture. Big companies often attract leaders with high levels of narcissism highly driven to succeed and you have to deal with their tantrums. Startups attract unique people, still driven but in a different way.
One thing to be aware of at small companies though, is that many of these companies were formed for the purpose of being acquired, so their goal isn’t to be a cool company, it’s to do whatever it takes to be an attractive acquisition target which often sucks.
Even in a small company, the CEO is either going to be busy doing other things not managing IT, if they do manage IT, they would be no different than any other boss.