Ask HN: Startup Jobs as a Solution Architect • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Startup Jobs as a Solution Architect

#11

Post by swatcoder » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:27 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #10

stats111 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in management consulting and design and assure complex IT systems for large public sector organisations, acting as an intermediary between business stakeholders and technical teams. The work requires strong communication skills, stakeholder management, commercial awareness, and technical skills. Solution architects typically have a background in software development and have extensive experience working in a v…

Imagine a company with say ten people. Five do customer service. One writes the Android app, one writes the iOS App. Two of the others are technical cofounders and wrote and maintain the servers, as well as design the products. What do you see yourself doing with those skills as the tenth person? If a startup needs those skills, it's not really a startup anymore.

Wow. It’s a relief to know that you only need 11 employees or a some customized installs for your company to be established. VC really is a racket, I guess.

In any case, I’ve seen that role as Sales Engineer at enterprise startups in the 50-100 employee range, but haven’t focused enough on that space to offer more specifics.

If nobody else replies constructively here, I’d start by looking for the appropriately sized enterprise startups on Crunchbase or LinkedIn and see what you can notice about their titles and org structure.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Jobs as a Solution Architect

#12

Post by SheddingPattern » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:25 AM UTC

I've seen architecture roles in startups that focus on legacy industries, like public sector or banking. Consider adjacent roles like engineering manager or technical program manager if you have delivery experience. Another opportunity is a senior position in a startup's professional services arm, similar to forward deployed engineer but may have titles like implementation engineer, customer success engineer eer, or solution architect.

Re: Ask HN: Startup Jobs as a Solution Architect

#13

Post by stats111 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

swatcoder wrote: post #11

toast0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a company with say ten people. Five do customer service. One writes the Android app, one writes the iOS App. Two of the others are technical cofounders and wrote and maintain the servers, as well as design the products. What do you see yourself doing with those skills as the tenth person? If a startup needs those skills, it's not really a startup anymore.

Wow. It’s a relief to know that you only need 11 employees or a some customized installs for your company to be established. VC really is a racket, I guess. In any case, I’ve seen that role as Sales Engineer at enterprise startups in the 50-100 employee range, but haven’t focused enough on that space to offer more specifics. If nobody else replies constructively here, I’d start by looking for the appropriately sized…

As you originally suggested, the closest may be the CTO role. Do startups generally hire CTO's? And are CTO's expected to code?

Re: Ask HN: Startup Jobs as a Solution Architect

#14

Post by swatcoder » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:41 PM UTC

stats111 wrote: post #13

swatcoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. It’s a relief to know that you only need 11 employees or a some customized installs for your company to be established. VC really is a racket, I guess. In any case, I’ve seen that role as Sales Engineer at enterprise startups in the 50-100 employee range, but haven’t focused enough on that space to offer more specifics. If nobody else replies constructively here, I’d start by looking for the appropriately sized…

As you originally suggested, the closest may be the CTO role. Do startups generally hire CTO's? And are CTO's expected to code?

Startups rely on building an ensemble team that covers all the needed responsibilities with the minimum cost in staff. So the way those responsibilities get sliced depends on whose already involved.

If you're ready to explore smaller, earlier-stage teams, you can just pitch what you might contribute and see how well it fills a whole in the ensemble. Often, you'll be able to negotiate for a title that fits your own career trajectory, since titles are pretty much BS in that world.

Anecdotally:

I was once hired as CTO where the founding team consisted of high profile non-tech professionals who knew their industry and had connections to mine for sales/fundraising/partnership. And my own preference in that role is to not code as I find it hard to settle into the deep creative flow of my coding process amidst a lot of more piecemeal tasks and meetings.

I've also seen and passed on CTO opportunities where the founder was (say) a young MBA with some family wealth to seed the earliest days. That's often a more skeleton crew deal at that point, so the CTO may even be the only developer for a while.