Speaking from experience, this is a very hard choice. I've been there too. I've drunk the Kool-Aid and decided that startups are the place for young ambitious people to be. 5 years later, working for a second startup now I regret the choice I've made.
Difference in my case was that the startup actually paid well too. In the long run though it was not worth it.
The first startup I was working failed within a year even though from the outside it looked like it was going for the stars. The second one, kind of stagnated.. reached a ramen profitability but is far from hockey-stick growth everyone would like to see. I'm looking to change jobs now but noone cares if you're doing the best job in a company noone ever heard of. In the meantime my friends working for Big Corps make careers, and while they are being given responsibilities much slower their personal growth seems more.. robust. Well known names really open you many doors.
If you manage to find a successful startup, that will become a unicorn, great for you, this is probably one of the best things that can happen to a person. But it's bloody hard to know beforehand. For me going forward it's either my own startup or working for a well-known name that people will recognize.
I cannot shake the feeling that you're mixing here employability and "being good at ones job" here. Whether a candidate will "get the job done" an employer can only learn after hiring a candidate, so it cannot be used as a recruitment signal.
I'm in this situation right now, where I've been always highly appreciated by the place I was working at.
I've also built a few systems used by a few companies in a certain niche, and always strived for excellency in what I was doing. That had resulted quick series of promotions and raises in my career. This has turned out to be of very little help for me when trying to look for a new job. For various reasons, I'm trying to look for a new job and it is impossible for me to find one.
I'm probably not very good at "selling myself" as I always thought my work should speak for me. My CV looks "average" - nothing special in there, just working here and there for x years doing y.
I'm finding myself at a pay level and seniority level that other companies just cannot justify by judging me by my CV, so in the end they decide to pass on me. Maybe it sounds like a good problem to have, but it's a very big problem to me with a significant negative consequences for my life at the moment.
What I'm trying to do now, is exactly trying to put up some impressive things on Github, speaking at conferences and in general try to "market myself" a bit more. I expect this to take quite some time before it bears any fruits, but I see no other way how I can get out of this situation.
Difference in my case was that the startup actually paid well too. In the long run though it was not worth it.
The first startup I was working failed within a year even though from the outside it looked like it was going for the stars. The second one, kind of stagnated.. reached a ramen profitability but is far from hockey-stick growth everyone would like to see. I'm looking to change jobs now but noone cares if you're doing the best job in a company noone ever heard of. In the meantime my friends working for Big Corps make careers, and while they are being given responsibilities much slower their personal growth seems more.. robust. Well known names really open you many doors.
If you manage to find a successful startup, that will become a unicorn, great for you, this is probably one of the best things that can happen to a person. But it's bloody hard to know beforehand. For me going forward it's either my own startup or working for a well-known name that people will recognize.