Comment by Sanzig

Working for a consulting firm with a lot of startup clients can also be a great experience if you plan to go that way yourself down the road, at least in what YC would call "hard tech."

You get to see the inner workings of a bunch of startups in your field, and you get to see which ones work out and which ones don't. Of course, the pay isn't great, but you do get to work on a lot of cool stuff in a "startup-ish" environment.