The press tries to stir up the notion that there’s an ongoing competition between big software companies (Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Google, et al) and startups for the limited pool of software engineering talent. While it’s true that good software engineers are needed by both mature and fledgling software companies, there’s such a distinction between the two environments that the perceived competition is overblown. This post is the first of many that will try to enumerate the differences. If you’re a software engineer, one of your first decisions is figuring out whether you are currently a better fit at BigCo or LittleCo.

A couple of weeks ago we started blogging and republished our blist corporate website. One of the enhancements we added was a way for people to sign up for announcements and early enrollment to our beta program, even though our application isn’t ready yet. Lots of people have already signed up, which is terrific. By the way, you can sign up too. Just enter your email address at the top of this blog post.

Yesterday Matt, our Online Marketing Director, sent an email blast to the subscribers of the list. Most of us at blist are on the list, so we too received a copy of the email. Paul, one of our phenomenal software engineers, quickly sent a note to Matt, me and the rest of the team, suggesting two enhancements to future email campaigns:

1) Fix the problem with line wrapping
2) Give recipients an unsubscribe link right in the body of the confirmation email, instead of merely telling them “you can unsubscribe at any time”

Paul’s suggestions were unsolicited and welcome. The changes were quickly made for next time. Paul spent the last three years at Microsoft. My reply to Paul, cc’d to everyone on the team, was simply

“You bring up one of my favorite things about startups. Everyone gets to wear a lot of hats. If something isn’t right, chime in and let’s work to make it right. Do you think the programmers at Microsoft get to influence email campaigns?”

BigCo can’t compete with the diversity of influence every individual has at a startup. Diversity of influence. We’ll call that benefit #1 of working at a startup.

Is there a lack of diversity of influence in your diet at BigCo? There’s still a couple of open seats at our table.