better to work for a small or big company

huangyhg

better to work for a small or big company?
hello,
what would be the advantages and disadvantages of working for a small and for a big company?
thank you once more
ngedm
larger firms generally have larger projects as well as a greater mix of professionals.  for the first 10-15 years of your career i would suggest that you work for both for a duration of 2 or 3 years to pick up as much experience as possible.  if you find a larger firm that offers an incredible variety, where the learning process is there, you might want to stay longer.
in general, larger firms tend to have greater job security. on the other hand, smaller companies generally have many more opportunities for advancement which can pay higher dividends in the future (better chance at stock options or other financial windfalls).
i work for a small office within a large firm and have had opportunities to help out on a wide variety of projects - from bridges and water treatment plants to a cruise terminal and sign structures. also, as dik said, large firms give you more of an opportunity to learn from a wider variety of professionals. a smaller firm gives each employee more responsibility.
i worked for a very small firm out of college.  i learned alot, but didn't get paid squat.  also, the projects were usually small and local.  i work in a medium sized (about 120 employees) firm now with a variety of disciplines and the variety and size of projects is great.  and i also get paid reasonably well now.  so in my opinion, i would work for a large office.
i've generally worked for firms in the 80 to 150 employee range and have found it to be very satisfying.  very small firms (1 - 4 engineers) give you instant responsibility, immediate client contact opportunities, and a chance to really learn how a business works.
very large firms, on the other hand, will offer you different levels of opportunity....some firms are good, some are very very bad.  i have a friend that went to work for a large firm who basically sat around all day with only nominal responsibilities and not a wide variety of projects.  he told me that he'd done as much engineering design in 6 months at the large firm that he'd done in two weeks at our office.
other pals in larger firms have expressed satisfaction at the large projects and have had good positions with few complaints.
if you're at the point of interviewing for a position - consider this:  ask whomever you are looking at to provide you with their resumes of key engineers who you'll be working for/under/with.  that way you can see the kind of experience you will be drawing from at that firm.
jae's last point is extremely important, especially if early in one's career.  a large company should have lots of talented folks, but that does you no good if you do not get an opportunity to work with them.  sometimes all it takes is one or two people to make the difference regardless of size of company.
my opinion is to stay away from large manufacturing corporations. we were all treated like money making tools for the management and marketing people and we received minimal respect. the work was very specialized. went to another manufacturing company where there was more engineering going on yet the same corporate crap to put up with (cubicles, people that b.s. their way to the top, etc). large consulting firms may be different.
forgive me fss, but i can't resist!!!
there are advantages and disadvantages to either, as has been pointed out.  my greatest concern is something haynewp touch on...the de-professionalizing of engineers and engineering by treatment as a commodity.  this is happening more and more in large firms, and will likely continue and worsen.
i have had the opportunity to work in one of the larger firms in the world (somewhere between enr top 10 and enr top 30 depending on the year), in a fairly high technical capacity (they cringe when i go near something administrative!).  the resource sharing is great, the project mix is great, the technical challenges are great, and the people i worked with daily are some of the finest technical minds anywhere.  but the technical people are getting farther and farther from the decision processes and are more and more driven by management greatly removed from the client service process.  this can make life difficult, both logistically and emotionally with respect to morale.
i have been a sole practitioner (no one to blame but me!), which is fun, but limiting.  i have worked in a small firm (i grew from just me to about a dozen people)and the challenges are fun, but you don't get the project mix and exposure to the really cool stuff!
i am now at a medium size firm (600 people)where i hope to realize some of the advantages of both the large firm and the small firm.  ideally, for a consulting practice, you would have the resources and exposure of a large firm with the autonomy of action of a small firm.  i realize the naivete of this idealism, but what the hell... we can dream.
besides, we're engineers...we get to work for 50 years 'cause we never make enough to retire, so we can sample a lot of what the profession has to offer!!
i've worked for both a small company and a very large company.  there's no simple answer to your question because corporate culture plays such a large part of job satisfaction. in my case i preferred the larger company. but i have to tell you there was one issue that really influenced me (maybe more than it should have) and that was overtime pay. the large company paid engineers straight time for overtime the small company paid nothing for overtime. the latter just seemed fundamentally unfair to me so that really left a bad taste in my mouth.
i'm sorry but i don't agree with breaks that smaller companies have many more opportunities for advancement. at the small company i worked at the next step for me was engineering manager which did not pay much more (if any at all), then next was ceo, which i didn't see as obtainable and wouldn't want anyway. i think perhaps when i say small i mean really small, three design engineers. he might be think a bit larger or he's just had different experience than i have.
you do get a better understanding at a small company of the whole business picture.
as far as large companies go, in my case, i was part of a large team (max'd out at over 200 people from several different disciplines) on a huge project.  even though you think with this many people your contibutions would just get lost, i didn't feel this way at all. i enjoyed working with lots of different engineers not only in my own discipline of structural engineering but in other disciplines as well.
i think your doing the right thing by asking the question.  try to talk to people from both sides of the fence too. i could tell you a lot more than i care to type, plus i figure if i make this too long people will lose interest (if they haven't already).
thanks everybody who took the time to reply to my question. i would appreciate if more people feel like replying to this thread because it's a very important subject for a young engineer.
also i'd like to ask if there's more mentorship in bigger companies? i feel that because a small company doesn't have the resources, they wouldn't be able to check your work. and by checking and pointing out the blunders i feel that i could learn a lot.
thanks everybody
there's a difference between mentorship and checking work.  mentorship can be found in any size firm, but certainly a larger one has more resources to allow mentoring and many of them promote it.
checking work is a task...mentoring is a process.
a comment for rkillian....
i disagree with the concept of paid overtime for engineers.  we are a profession.  if we promote concepts that are associated with non-professional pursuits, then we will continue to erode the status and stature of engineering as a profession.  i know that some "engineers" have become unionized.  sorry, but i didn't put a lot of time and effort into an engineering education, internship,licensure, and professional practice where my livelihood is always on the line just to be lumped in with non-professionals who have little or no legal responsibility and public obligation.  i'm not being arrogant...i'm just proud to be an engineer..i think it is honorable and the profession serves the public good.