If you are early career, just close your eyes and join a post PMF company growing like crazy. A 250+ person company growing fast is less risky than Google or Amazon. Don’t overthink it. Revenue growth rate is the key metric (apply some common sense on whether they can make money someday - but honestly for career, it doesn’t matter - you want talent density not a guarantee of a payout). Anything growing 50%+ has good odds of being a great experience. 1000+ employees definitely great too and more open roles. You won’t have this luxury later in your career. CTO? There’s one spot. SWE? Many. And life is not equitable. Your early experience will compound (you will have a rare and valuable experience of “seeing what great looks like.” absolutely zero substitute for that). Just ask early Stripe folks vs wherever their equal quality peers went. There are such companies in every era. The “don’t ask what seat on a rocket ship” is self-serving, but also true. Just validate that the rocket has in fact been built and already firing.