3 answers
Dana’s Answer
Julian,
In addition to the already provided answers, the type of company you choose to join will have a significant impact on your overall quality of life. Company culture should be one of the primary things you examine when considering any job. Ask about the company mission, values, and goals. Do they care about diversity? How do they provide and support an inclusive atmosphere? Foster an environment of ownership, honesty, and trust? Companies with these culture traits often attract highly talented and passionate individuals who are empowered to build great things.
I favor technology driven companies (ie a company where technology is the product, rather than companies that need to hire engineers and analysts to support some aspects of their business). Technology driven companies will be the most innovative and enable you with experience and skill sets to accelerate your career and contribute to products that have much broader impact to the world.
Dana recommends the following next steps:
Mario’s Answer
There are probably lots of answers to this question. I'll mention some things I've looked at in my career as a software engineer.
I have tended to look at smaller companies (startups for example) because they tend to have a larger opportunity to create impact as an engineer. They are also great places to level-up your skills and learn a lot...because there is a lot less structure. When a company is large, its often more difficult (but not impossible) to have larger impact.
I have also tended to favor companies that are growing fast. Regardless of the engineering discipline you want to get into...you can probably google "fasting growing X engineering companies" or something like that...to see what is growing fast in that specific industry. Fast growing companies tend to be career accelerators....and full of very challenging problems that nobody has solved (yet). They can also be very hard work.
Finally, and most important...pick a company that is doing you *truly* find interesting, and that is something you ethically agree with. If you do this, you will always have fun doing it, and you will feel proud doing it.