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Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
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Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#2One datapoint: In 2022, I had an offer as engineer #2 at a venture backed startup in San Francisco for 1%. Not sure if this is typical, but I did some research at the time and it seemed about right.
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#3I’d also be interested in knowing how much equity engineers get when they join a bigger startup later in their maturity. Ie engineer #100 for Databricks
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#4https://www.codingvc.com/p/analyzing-angellist-job-postings-...
Employee number 100 perhaps 10 basis points (0.1%)
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#5I was employee #1 long time ago and got 5%. Another time I was employe #15 and got nothing. Yet another time I cofunded the product and got 10%.
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#6I was employee #1 at a SaaS startup 15 years ago. I got 0.5%, which translated into 175k after tax 8 years later (500m exit). That was the only successful exit out of 8 startups I have worked at in the last 20 years.
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#7I was employee #1 at a SaaS startup 15 years ago. I got 0.5%, which translated into 175k after tax 8 years later (500m exit). That was the only successful exit out of 8 startups I have worked at in the last 20 years.
So being generous and assuming you paid 50% tax, that means you got 0.07% of the company, so about 10x dilution. Is that normal?
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#8I was employee #1 at a SaaS startup 15 years ago. I got 0.5%, which translated into 175k after tax 8 years later (500m exit). That was the only successful exit out of 8 startups I have worked at in the last 20 years.
So being generous and assuming you paid 50% tax, that means you got 0.07% of the company, so about 10x dilution. Is that normal?
For a founding engineer role, yes that is standard.
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#9I was employee #1 at a SaaS startup 15 years ago. I got 0.5%, which translated into 175k after tax 8 years later (500m exit). That was the only successful exit out of 8 startups I have worked at in the last 20 years.
Examples like these highlight just how incredibly poor the return on investment for working at startups is. Very few will ever reach a $500m exit. Generously assuming a 50% tax rate, $175k before tax, spread over 8 years is ~$44k/yr. As a founding engineer, you could likely find a similar job at FAANG/FAANG-adjacent companies paying 2-3x that in (liquid) stock per year.
Lifestyle arguments aside, startups seem like a _really_ bad deal.
Re: Ask HN: How much equity do early software engineers usually get?
#10can find more at wellfound.com (previously angellist, renamed with a shit name).