The Pulse #63: Working at a Startup vs in Big Tech

Also: are we about to see a spike in startup shutdowns; and is downlevelling becoming more common across Big Tech?

The Pulse is a series covering insights, patterns, and trends within Big Tech and startups. Notice an interesting event or trend? Send me a message! I treat all such messages as anonymous.

Today's topics are:

1. Industry pulse. A roundup of recent events, with commentary.

2. In the trenches: working at a startup vs at Big Tech. A software engineer I worked in the same team with at Uber for 4 years, has gone back-and-forth between startups and large companies. Willem Spruijt shares the good, the bad and the ugly, about both environments.

3. Are we about to see a spike in startup shutdowns? I’ve gathered evidence which suggests startup shutdowns are on the rise, and plenty of infra and developer tooling startups are also in deep trouble.

4. Is down-leveling back in Big Tech? In 2021, upleveling was common across all of Big Tech. This is no longer the case, and job market dynamics are likely to make down-leveling more common.

1. Industry pulse