The typical career arc from 1950 to early 21st century was to work for increasingly larger organizations, starting off small but with the goal of finding professional enlightenment by eventually working for a large, recognisable enterprise with a real iconic logo. Early careers involved working as a production support engineer or junior software developer for small tech start-ups (with at least one company being no more than 3 employees - one being a dog); within a few years, the next step was a move into project management for a medium-sized local company (no dogs); years of hard work would finally pay off when you had manager in your title for a large multi-national corporation . After 15 years of hard work, you would have had finally reached professional nirvana.
... or that was the plan. Now, working in a large organization is sometimes not the ideal that it once was:
Community
Individual experiences in large organizations can feel like it has little to do with the company as a whole - because of the structure of large organizations, community is limited to the local department. This breeds sometimes feelings of detachment and it becomes difficult to build a strong sense of belonging.
Responsibility
Many people can get lost in the shuffle working for a large company. Even gaining recognition for your work can be a difficult endeavour.
Professional influence
As responsibilities grow within larger enterprises, the ability to affect change or stimulate progress was diminished due to the volume of people and processes involved.
Jack of all trades
More often than not, a small company will give you the opportunity to grow and be creative due to the simple fact that employees need to be less specialised to overcome the paucity of resources. Within larger organisations, roles become more focused and task-oriented and there is less overall professional manoeuvrability.
Flexibility
Large enterprises usually have well-defined policies that apply to all aspects of your employment, be it employee conduct, performance or even how you dress. And, generally speaking, these rules are rigidly enforced.
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