Sorry, but responding to criticism with "you've drunk the kool-aid" is a sure-fire way of never correcting incorrect things you say/believe.

I worked at a megacorp in big tech for many years. They do not have non-compete clauses (and I'm in a state that allows them). I also never signed an NDA with them. People leave them all the time after disputes and not one that I know of suffered after they left. You contradict yourself in talking about how hell bent megacorps are in making money, and then talk about them spending 100x your salary on lawyers to go after you. Sorry, most "you's" are not worth even 10% of your salary to go after. You leave, and both you and the company move on.

> They could hurt you, and they could make you hurt others. Don’t fall for their propaganda.

This is definitely true, but as the GP said, it's quite simple to leave if you this is the concern. While there, I interviewed for an internal position that involved work for China that sounded to me like part of their mass surveillance program. I don't really know if that was the case, but it was trivial for me to decline their offer.

And I've found plenty of non-megacorps involved in hurting others. They merely do not have the scale that big megacorps do.

It sounds like you're conflating Internet companies, and FAANG, with megacorps. Most megacorps are not one of these.

Some people do get to do very interesting work, although broadly speaking, you are correct - you are most likely going to be a cog in someone else's dream job.

They occasionally do invest in people. They gave a coworker $50K to get an MBA (which cost a lot more, but they did contribute a nice sum), with no strings attached. He left soon after getting the MBA. They really shouldn't be this nice.

As for autonomy, it does seem independent of size. My last job at that company had quite a bit of autonomy. I got to pick the tech stack. Work wasn't assigned to me - I had to go examine the needs of the department and propose solutions - make prototypes and if it seemed useful then make it into an internal product.

> You will probably be much happier at a small to mid-size company.

Compared to where I worked, most of these companies in my area have some combination of these:

1. Pay less (and I don't get FAANG salaries - perhaps 60% or less)

2. Work you as much if not more (my life in megacorp had good work/life balance - and when it didn't, I'd simply do an internal transfer).

3. Are less stable. I spent 10 years in the megacorp. Most people I know working at medium sized companies simply did not have the choice to spend that much time there.

4. Are more at the mercy of market forces, often making it equally unlikely you'll get to do cool work. The need to pay the bills is greater.

I've found that there is almost some sort of conservation law at work. As an example, most small companies where I find average people do real interesting work get paid pennies (as in, many of them could qualify for food stamps). Ditto for work/life balance. A friend worked a tech job in a medium company where he'd routinely go home at 3:30pm. Pay was average, but he had to pay almost all of his insurance (quite a bit for a family of 4). He nevertheless was happy with the compromise of a lower salary.

I'm not doubting tech companies exist that let me work in my city and are better on all these counts - just that they're harder to find and get into then big megacorp.

Not all big megacorps are FAANG - in fact, most of them are not. Do not extrapolate from outliers.