From what I've heard from other more experienced individuals within industry, most individuals who have worked at a start-up company emphasize the amount of learning that they had during that opportunity. Since start-ups are smaller companies, typically an individual is tasked with having a wider range of responsibilities than someone working at a larger company. As a result, a role within a start-up could be particularly beneficial early-career, due to the exposure to a larger range of tasks. However, in my experience, I currently work at a larger company. I enjoy working within a large company and working with individuals across other teams and departments to complete larger projects but work within a specialized function for those projects. As a result, I likely am not exposed to the same wide range of skills that an individual within a start-up may build. However, within my current role, I am able to focus more on research rather than having to complete other tasks across other functions, which is helpful in ensuring that your work is being completed at your highest level and that you are not being taken away from actually conducting research. 

@atk27njit-edu I agree with many points you bring up, but wanted to add that smaller companies usually have positions that blend multiple roles. So while you may have worked as a design engineer per say, at a smaller company you learn a bit of quality, a bit of process, a bit of of even management, as in my experiences smaller companies usually merge these roles (Think of QC/QA just being under a singular title or department from our prior lectures).  For the post itself, working in a start-up in my opinion is a both a good way to launch your career in the filed, but understand that its a gamble in terms of relativity if you want to use if to boost immediately to larger companies. Sometimes taking steps of small company to slightly bigger to slightly bigger is the way to proceed if you start very low. Of course this can be accelerated by further education, projects, other certifications or completions.

As a supplier quality engineer co-op (and working full time over the summer) for a relatively large biomedical company, I can confirm that specificity is much more prevalent. I spoke to someone recently who currently works at Medtronic, but has had many years of experience on the side of start-up companies, and they mentioned how you become a jack of all trades for companies with not a lot of people. Many jobs end up becoming your responsibility because there is simply no one else to do it. This can be stressful, but also teaches you how to handle multiple different tasks that being a part of a large company would not allow you to do. As a supplier quality engineer, for example, my scope stays mainly in the area of nonconformance reports and working on first-article documents. This means that with regards to testing or working on the changing of specifications for parts is not in my range. If I were a part of a smaller start-up company, I would assume my job would include outreach in departments not just in quality, but may also include testing, or even involving tooling from different molds that may produce components used in medical devices. I feel like a larger company teaches you more about how a business runs and a smaller company teaches you more about how to handle multiple different departments within the company. 

I believe it all depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a stable, reliable job with the potential to remain in the same company for decades, you should look at larger, more reliable companies. However, if you want to be "thrown into the fire" and get more learning experiences, working at a start-up company would be better. In my opinion, beginning your career at a start-up company will provide more learning experiences that can benefit you in the long run. In a small company, you may be asked to do tasks or work on problems completely out of your normal scope of work. This allows for growth and development. However, there is always risk associated with a small company, so if you want a reliable job then choose a larger company. It all depends on if you are risk-averse or willing to take risks. Neither option is wrong, just depends on the type of individual you are.

Being an intern is very different than being a co-op which is very different than being a salaried employee. Once you are salaried, you have a lot of respect. You are a permanent employee, you get benefits. You will see what I mean. I would choose a company that has values and goals that align with you. You will only be happy if you like the culture, after all. Also, you will learn a lot as well. As for size of the company, the larger the company, the better the benefits. Your benefits take a nosedive, the smaller the company you join. I would suggest trying to find a job in a Fortune 500 company.