Title: Hi HN folks, I can&#x27;t think of a better place to ask this.<p>So I&#x27;m not a software engineer but robotics, and my masters degree was more of an &quot;jack of all trades, master of none&quot; in Robotics (but more towards software side of it)<p>I&#x27;ve now worked for about 3-4 years, so still a junior, but mostly at startups (and in my 3rd one).<p>Hitting my 30s last year and recently talking to a person slightly younger than me with similar background I got the sense of FOMO. this person had a similar degree and first job out of college at an (now failed) startup, but just recently landed a SDE job at Amazon.<p>As I haven&#x27;t really worked at big companies, I&#x27;ve always had this nascent feeling that I never really learned &quot;the right way&quot; to do things. I often feel like a &quot;patchwork engineer&quot;, learning how things work only sufficiently to make things work in a smaller scale without understanding important big project&#x2F;organization principles. (or maintaining stuff)<p>How much of this is valid, and how much is just the misconception  &quot;the grass is greener&quot; at big companies? Is it valuable to try to apply to big companies to get a good foundation in &quot;the right way&quot; to do things? I feel like I&#x27;ve also cornered myself with my resume &#x2F; experience by only working at startups, and might not even be a lucrative candidate for larger organizations. (30s crisis not withstanding)<p>Any insight is much appreciated!
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