I've interned two boutique firm. One in Sydney and one in NY. Both, no longer than 6 months and both had no more than 4 staffs including myself. Now I'm working for a corporate firm in Sydney for the past 2 years and it has about 50 staffs. Boutique firms were great if you get along with everyone there since you will have to work with the same people everyday and often eat lunch together and drink together, talk about your weekend etc etc. So there is more transparency, which means if you happen to hate one of the staff, it would be a pain to work there.

In corporate firm you get to chose which "group" you would want to belong to. Those group often consists of same project team or same age group. There are lot more office politics and less transparency.

It is easier to be pigeon holed in the corporate setting but there are potential to learn a lot more things from many talented individuals as well as many projects that are running concurrently.

Also, in boutique firms I was doing pretty much everything, whereas in corporate firm you tend to specialize in one area for a particular project and then specialize in another area for another project.

Although I have learnt immensely from my current job I'm quite tired of the politics and long commitment to a single project. I will be doing my M.Arch in the US from this fall and after graduating I will definitely go back to a boutique firm. Oh, also, corporate firm don't necessary pay you better !!

Anyway my 2 cents.

Thanks Kou, that's the feeling I am getting. Seems like corporate work just wears you down. I'll probably end up there eventually.

hys ... depends on what you want to achieve in your career ... if you're really interested in being a part of large, complex building projects, then those sorts of learning and work opportunities are most likely to be found in the bigger, more formal corporate firms. if you're more interested in being involved in small, tailored, very hands-on projects, then those opportunities are more likely to be found in the smaller, more informal boutique environment.

as you assess this decision, you may want to focus mostly on where you want to be 10-15 years down the road and start seeking work experience in the kinds of places that can help you realize that vision.

agree w/ quizzical. try maybe finding a larger boutique type firm of around 40-60 employees. it might give you a good blend of both. big enough to handle larger projects but still small enough to give you a diverse experience.

yep i agree with quizzical too. If you want to climb the coporate ladder and perhaps get an offer for a director position or partnership somewhere down the track, coporate firm is great. If you want to start up your own firm then the smaller boutique firm will teach you a lot more about how to run a business. At least that's what I found through my experience and I do want to have my own office and hence I will go back to boutique. But again, you do learn many things from coporate firm that you can't in boutique, thus it's a good stepping stone to go through one or two coporate.

did boutique firms in london and tokyo. but before that was in a semi-corporate office (only 15 architects+ support staff). not quite what you are looking at but much of the above jibes with my experience...

the 15 man shop was all government projects, never a house or similar small scale work (the economics of that kind of project were hard to justify). On the other hand because we were small-ish we couldn't handle anything more than 10,000 square meters, and most of our work was about 5000 m squares. which means we did a lot of schools and hospitals, small office buildings and the like. Big enough to learn interesting things, small enough to require some effort on the design end. Being mid-sized we also had no specialisation to speak of and no pigeon-holing at all. which was nice.

in the boutique firms it was pretty much as others describe above. and the work was very satisfying (which was not so much the case with the corporate-ish work). however, i did ocassionally find it frustrating that the kind of work we were doing was very hard to use towards landing bigger projects or projects in different areas. This was as much about the system in the UK as about the desires of my office, mind.

pay was better in the corporate office, but hours were about 2,5 times the hours in the boutique offices. something about the small office. maybe the fact that your staff really are all right in your face all the time, that keeps the boss from asking for absurd hours with no pay...

So is it generally true that corporate pays slightly better than boutique?

i'm a student and doing my second summer internship, last year at an office of eight people, this year an office of four. this is probably pretty naive, but what exactly is the difference between a boutique and corporate? i mean beyond the obvious, exactly what is either one?

here are a few previous threads that relate to this topic:

1. Choosing the right firm

2. happy medium ?

3. What is so pejorative about 'corporate'?

Thanks quizzical.

Thanks quizzical.

Pay tends to relate to the fees the firm negociates.
Big firms ask for bigger fees and have bigger projects - so bigger pay.
small projects=small fee=small office=small pay.

See if the principles (big or little) knows how to make a profit. Too many bad decisions up top (not saying 'no' enough) make unhappy worker bees and no bonuses/raises at the end of the year.

Corporate firms often are 2nd/3rd+ generation of principles and have polished their business model to have fees that produce a profit... Less risk is taken because they are planning for long-term survival. Botiques have much shorter histories and haven't worked out the kinks of runing a business, so are willing to take risks (wheee!)

Then again good design is not always good business (too much time gets sucked into the fun stuff) - and I didn't need a wharton degree to know that. But then, how many architects and landscapers go into the field to make bank? We'd be stock brokers if we really wanted the dough.

eh, I'm actually coveting a big corporate job right now. I'm tired of how in small offices the principal insists on designing EVERY STINKING LITTLE THING that goes out the door, which really leaves very little room for growth as a designer. I'm really hoping a bigger firm will be a bit more decentralized in terms of design power.

You're right, rationalist; if you can prove you're good at design, or anything, you will get plenty of opportunity to do what you're good at at corporate offices. I worked at small-boutique firms for 6 years, and didn't get a lot of opportunities in masterplanning or design phase (that's for the bosses), but shit load of CD and CA experience. I am NOT saying that you don't need to have those experince, but man, enough is enough. I know there are some people who just love to do CA jobs, but I am not one of them. I've been working for a year in a big office (200+), and it's been a blast!
Big firm = more jobs = more opportunities
It is right that if you're fresh out of school and working at a big firm, you might get pigeon-holed, but that also happens in small firms, too.