I posted this as a comment on the original post, but will make the point here...
Large organizations are often more dysfunctional than small ones, yes, especially when it comes to building software. But that doesn't mean they aren't filled with very smart people. The fact that enterprise programmers can't get hired at startups is not, in my opinion, a reflection of the dysfunctional nature of software development at large companies, but of a mismatch in expectations about how to communicate your ability to do your job.
As an example: one pattern I’ve seen that consistently holds enterprise programmers back in startup interviews (especially in phone screens and technical screens) is the inability to effectively articulate the projects they’ve worked on. Enterprise programmers have often worked on optimizing one small part of a very large and complex system that no one person may understand completely, and in my experience, they often cannot describe that system clearly or holistically. Startups usually need people who can build a system end-to-end, and when an enterprise programmer doesn’t seem to understand their own projects, it reflects very poorly. I see this pattern way too often.
My suggestion (and obviously this is a gross generalization) is for enterprise programmers who want to work at startups to practice being able to clearly and consisely explain what they worked on and how it fit into the overall product. Startups will care more about this than showing, for example, a deep understanding of how Java's various memory pools work (even if they work in Java).
There is also a bias against enterprise developers in that most often their work is on proprietary systems, leaving no code artifacts to view on Github, which a lot of companies have started using in their recruiting process.
This has been a huge issue for me- I used to be very active on Github, but the past year or so I've been working either on proprietary systems that are internal to the company I'm at, or working on private projects that I don't want in public repos. So, if you were to look at just my Github profile, you'd see almost no activity. That doesn't mean I'm not constantly working, though!
Large organizations are often more dysfunctional than small ones, yes, especially when it comes to building software. But that doesn't mean they aren't filled with very smart people. The fact that enterprise programmers can't get hired at startups is not, in my opinion, a reflection of the dysfunctional nature of software development at large companies, but of a mismatch in expectations about how to communicate your ability to do your job.
As an example: one pattern I’ve seen that consistently holds enterprise programmers back in startup interviews (especially in phone screens and technical screens) is the inability to effectively articulate the projects they’ve worked on. Enterprise programmers have often worked on optimizing one small part of a very large and complex system that no one person may understand completely, and in my experience, they often cannot describe that system clearly or holistically. Startups usually need people who can build a system end-to-end, and when an enterprise programmer doesn’t seem to understand their own projects, it reflects very poorly. I see this pattern way too often.
My suggestion (and obviously this is a gross generalization) is for enterprise programmers who want to work at startups to practice being able to clearly and consisely explain what they worked on and how it fit into the overall product. Startups will care more about this than showing, for example, a deep understanding of how Java's various memory pools work (even if they work in Java).