Go with the smaller company.

My first internship was with a big company and I found out that my work was very modular. I was working with a legacy code base and they would ask me to do all these little bug fixes and adding small features. After the first few weeks when I learned the software architecture I wasn't learning anymore. I was just coding.

I left that big company for a small tech/engineering company. Not a startup but a small stable private company with millions in revenue. At first they paid me half of my previous hourly wage, but it was worth it because I learn so much here. I was given a project and I am responsible for everything from design, dev, testing, infrastructure, and architecture. It is an amazing learning experience. Small companies can do things like this because they are nimble and efficient. Let me give you a small example. I updated my desktop (Ubuntu) and the update created an infinite login loop. I spent the day learning how to hack the computer in grub/boot mode to get my files back. My old company would have never let me spend a day doing that.

I wish more ppl talked about these innovative small companies on this subreddit versus just startups and the big companies.