Nah, small companies are burnout mills. Early in my career, I had explicitly worked on small companies and 4/4 times screwed over. Immediately when the big work is done and investments(or major profits) are in, suddenly the management starts replacing everyone with expensive consultants or their best chums from some failed business somewhere and starts strategic push out by stagnating.
While my experience can be rare/unique, at least at Medium/BigCo, my soul burning gets compensated, small ones are just “we are like family right?” and then push out once technical/financial growth starts rearing its head.
I’ve worked for the smallest startups (2 employees) to the biggest company (100k employees).
Everything can bring you burnout if the management is toxic. It’s independent on the size of the company. I’m now working for a small company that feels like a family even if they don’t say it.
While my experience can be rare/unique, at least at Medium/BigCo, my soul burning gets compensated, small ones are just “we are like family right?” and then push out once technical/financial growth starts rearing its head.