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
Whether the culture is good or bad is not strongly indicated by the size. You’ll get a good feel by meeting them. Prepare some questions on turnover and overtime use. You want both low.
You will have to do work that in a bigger company would be specialist work. Some possible examples: Maintain infrastructure, drag network cables, purchase your computer, negotiate with service providers, software architecture, UX, product strategy, frontend, backend, integrations, customer support, QA, fix the printer, argue with the landlord about ventilation, etc. All this could be heaven or hell based on your personality. :)