Everyone will have different experiences, but I had the same observation as you, and that's why I choose start-ups over big companies for my first two jobs.
But then I had to get into the "big" companies for visa reasons, and honestly I don't miss start-up world anymore. The learning has been pretty steep, yes in a start-up you wear more hats.
But in my experience, the attention to detail and investment on engineering is higher in bigger companies, simply because they can afford to. Whereas an early stage start-up works more or less on a thin deadline, and if the founders are not engineers themselves, usually engineering gets compromised over velocity. Also, scale. The bigger the company the more challenges they will have (whether in vertical or horizontal scaling). And IMO working at scale, teaches you a lot more than people think.
But then I had to get into the "big" companies for visa reasons, and honestly I don't miss start-up world anymore. The learning has been pretty steep, yes in a start-up you wear more hats.
But in my experience, the attention to detail and investment on engineering is higher in bigger companies, simply because they can afford to. Whereas an early stage start-up works more or less on a thin deadline, and if the founders are not engineers themselves, usually engineering gets compromised over velocity. Also, scale. The bigger the company the more challenges they will have (whether in vertical or horizontal scaling). And IMO working at scale, teaches you a lot more than people think.