Agreed. I think this type of company (high-growth and 2-3 years away from IPO) is a much better first job out of school than working at a big tech company. Sure, your cash comp will be 10 - 25% lower, but if you want to start a company someday, this type of experience is on average much more valuable than big tech co.
I've been working at a high-growth company for the past year and as OP mentioned, have learned from early engineers, experienced engineers from big tech co's, and started leading medium sized projects six months in. I'm on the growth engineering team so I've also been able to learn about best practices in growth from people who led teams at big tech co's.
From this experience, I now feel ready to be an early engineer at a startup or build my own thing. I was able to get the benefit of working with the best people from big tech co's but in a high-growth environment where there are more problems to be solved than people to solve them.
For this reason, working at a high-growth unicorn is seen as just as valuable as a big tech co. If not more, for product/growth eng roles.
I've been working at a high-growth company for the past year and as OP mentioned, have learned from early engineers, experienced engineers from big tech co's, and started leading medium sized projects six months in. I'm on the growth engineering team so I've also been able to learn about best practices in growth from people who led teams at big tech co's.
From this experience, I now feel ready to be an early engineer at a startup or build my own thing. I was able to get the benefit of working with the best people from big tech co's but in a high-growth environment where there are more problems to be solved than people to solve them.
For this reason, working at a high-growth unicorn is seen as just as valuable as a big tech co. If not more, for product/growth eng roles.