341–350 of 968 posts
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I think the open secret is that in 2018 most people who go work for startups are those who simply couldn't get a better offer from one of the big players.
Plenty of us don't want to work for them regardless of pay.
I just went through the startup job hunting process as a new-grad. I think many startups have their expectations set too high for the work requirements & compensation they're offering. Many startups want Senior Engineers with several years of experience, and they want people who live in SF. This makes it difficult for new-grads and those who don't live in the Bay Area to get into the startup scene. Many people want t…
> Many startups want Senior Engineers with several years of experience
This is often advertised. It's sometimes listed as a requirement. Those requirements are more flexible than new grads ever realize.
I think, coming from school, it's easy to take those lists of requirements literally. It's quite common, though, to hire people who don't match the requirements exactly.
Something is probably improvable, there - job listings are written in a kind of code that's not obvious at all to new grads. You kind of need a few years of experience hiring people to understand what they even mean.
You could also argue that they won't hire him because he might retire at any point. Sure, buy why would he? He wants to work. Some at his age and experience even need to work still. And besides all that, even if he retires in two years, the startup would get a tremendous mount of value from someone with his experience over that two year period.
Given how badly companies need technical talent these days, its a shame that they leave that segment of the working population out.
I echo the comp aspect. I pretty much had a best case non-unicorn startup exit; wonderful benefits pre-acquisition, actual unlimited PTO, and normal ~40hr/workweek, acquired almost immediately after receiving my shares, golden handcuffs after. My total comp was more or less equivalent to my peers doing the big 4 grind over the same time period. They had zero risk and I had to win the start up lotto. But if I had to d…
Why have I been told to begin your career at a startup, before you work at a big corp in order to "level up" your work environment? I took that advice and it has just left me starving for better compensation and, and am pretty lacking skills-wise. And now I'm still unfit to get an offer at the big tech corps, or even a chance for an interview.
I'm of the opinion that the generalist skill set you typically get from a startup is far more valuable than the specialist (and typically exclusive to the corp) skill set you get from the corp, and I'll even argue that the entry level skill set of the corp is pretty damn useless, but that's only from anecdotal evidence.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, startups dance at the edge of survival.
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> Why do founders get over 10x early employees? Because founders take at least 100x the risk of an early employee, and 100x the personal risk and commitment. Founders generally aren't getting paid (at least until revenue or significant funding comes through) and they have 100x the impact that an early employee does on the success of the company. If an early employee doesn't work out, the founders just replace that pe…
At the end of the day, when your company gets sold, and your founder worked on the company for 1-2 years before you did, but they walk away with millions and you walk away with the equivalent of a Camry - I question whether equity is not the solution. In terms of market rate salary, the startup will never match FAANG. Seriously. I'm talking about Sign-on bonus, annual bonus, re-ups, benefits (like a heart-transplant…
> "if enough people were educated on how much a bad deal being an early employee was, we could tip the scale a bit."
Yes. The reason why startup compensation is much lower are because of perception (people aren't rational) and only a shift in perception will shift the balance.
The reason why equity is not the solution is that the default outcome is not the Camry, it's giving up some multiple of your salary in exchange for nothing. People overvalue lottery tickets. We're not rational.
If a funded company (series A, say) is offering you equity as a large part of comp, you have to ask yourself why the VCs don't buy back that equity for the cost of paying market rates for talent. If it makes sense for you, it should make even more sense for them. Unless you think you have a higher appetite for risk than early-stage investors, something doesn't add up.
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I think the open secret is that in 2018 most people who go work for startups are those who simply couldn't get a better offer from one of the big players.
Anecdotally, that's not my experience. I see a lot of people working at startups who got tired of doing things at big companies that just weren't that interesting to them. Those folks have often made enough money that they can afford to work at a startup for a few years because the work itself is more fun, the company has a mission they like, or they appreciate having a bigger day-to-day impact. As a startup founder…
Those folks went through FAANG first (not startup first) though :). I don't know if they decided to move to startups for the experience/thrill/fun or they're just there so they can go back to FAANG and get the full 4-years RSU + sign-on.
So, I work at a startup. But, to echo what literally everyone else has said: The money is better at big companies. There are exceptions, but you almost certainly won't work for one of them. You will make more money at Google or Facebook or Netflix than you will at all but the luckiest choice of startup. Note I didn't say "best" choice or "most successful" choice. Gotta get in small, and exit big, which, no matter wha…
Your worldview will change when you've dependents. :-)
Are you saying you think startups are better for people with dependents? That's surprising to me, could you elaborate?
A lot of the downsides of startups people mentioned here are 100% true. If you didn't study CS in college though, consider the hours of reading Cracking the Coding Interview you'd have to do and divide those hours by your FAANG comp, and you might come out with an equal or slightly higher hourly rate going the startup route. And your interview process might be a lot less stressful.
I echo the comp aspect. I pretty much had a best case non-unicorn startup exit; wonderful benefits pre-acquisition, actual unlimited PTO, and normal ~40hr/workweek, acquired almost immediately after receiving my shares, golden handcuffs after. My total comp was more or less equivalent to my peers doing the big 4 grind over the same time period. They had zero risk and I had to win the start up lotto. But if I had to d…
I think a huge part of whether it is more fun or not is about where you are in life. Startup life was great for me when I was young and single, and enjoyed the startup lifestyle of excitement and risk. Now that I am older and have a wife and kid, I really like the stability, predictability, and salary of a job with a bigger company.
When I was younger I didn't have chances. It's incredibly privileged to be able to take a position somewhere you might not have a job in 2 months because you have enough stashed away or enough family wealth that if you fail, you can pick yourself back up easily.
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These numbers are realistic for any senior engineer working there for over 3-4 years.
Are these engineers at Facebook/Google/etc. working the typical 40 hour work week or more like 60-80?