I spent the first 15 years of my career as follows:<p>3 years in small companies outside the bay area
10 years in bay area startups
~2 years in bay area big corporations<p>I can say the following. The transition from startup to big company was really tough. Part of this was because I was used to being &quot;the guy&quot; for such a wide range of things. At big corporations, these roles are divvied up into 5-10-15 different roles. This is both good and bad. On the plus side, I can relate somewhat intelligently to colleagues across a very wide range of roles. On the minus side, the colleagues all (rightfully) feel their areas are their domain and don&#x27;t typically recognize expertise coming from outside their team. This knowledge with lack of credibility was hard to reconcile until I fully realized what was going on.