Anyone here that moved from big tech companies to smaller, almost start up like companies? What convinced you to move?

Quality of life.

They were the only folks interested in hiring an old n00b.

Having said that the quality of life stuff has been great. Work from home all the time (even before COVID), no politics or HR stuff to deal with.

I'm not really exposed to as much as I would like to as far as other developers goes ... testing ... etc. We shoot from the hip a lot.

On the other hand if I want to just go and change something about the product / improve it... I just can go do it.

I built a side application that (oh man it smells like n00b / needs refactoring) is heavily used by customers all on my own, with all the learning experiences that come with that / not something I would likely get a shot to do at mega corp.

Quality of life convinced me to move (plus the salary wasn't terrible.)

Ironically though, quality of life, promotion opportunities and salary were the exact reasons I moved out of the startup space again.

Quality of life for me as well. I went back to an old employer (a communication agency) and now I at least have SOME control over my stress levels again. The corporate rat race just isn't for me.