Same here. At some point I was disillusioned with the idea of working in a corporate because I thought I was just "selling my soul out for golden handcuffs" (doesn't help to watch some Mr. Robot, Fight Club, etc.), but in reality I was just a junior dev who didn't fit much into social hierarchies. I tossed away a good 2.5 years at two startup jobs, one that I co-founded and died slowly (even though I had already read Lean Startup et al...), before slowly realizing I just wasn't making any meaningful amount of money nor progressing in my career because I didn't have a senior/mentor/best practices guiding me. Now I'm back at the cubicle but realizing there was so much I missed out on that wasn't obvious to my younger naive self before.

What sorts of things did you miss out on? Is starting a company still a valid option if you have a senior/mentor and are familiar with best practices? How do you get those things so that you are successful?

>I see a lot of people essentially rage-quitting (let's be serious, that's what happened here) and then wasting years of their life working bottom-of-the-barrel contracting/crappy startup jobs because they "don't like big companies"

That's basically what I am doing for exactly those reasons. But I don't think my jobs are crappy.

I traded stupid amount of money for more freedom to choose what I work on. I don't want to be a monkey on a keyboard nor do I want to put with the bureaucracy of a big corporation.

Or am I getting it terribly wrong? My brief view of a large organization terrified me and I don't want to work in such a place. Are big places really that much better if I am basically paid the same amount of money?