Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?

> It's also a fine opportunity to learn on somebody else's dime.

If you're getting paid less to work at a startup, it's not on "someone else's dime", though. It might be the most affordable way to (re)train yourself, but opportunity costs are still costs.

Pro (from my personal perspective, YMMV): You get to work on something that will actually see the light of day. For me, there's nothing worse than being this tiny little cog in the machine that comes into work from 9-5 and produces something so microscopic that you question your importance at all. Working at a startup means you have to pull your weight, wear many hats, and get shit done. This also means you can climb the later and get noticed much easier. It also means you can't slack off and fuck around all day. Most of my friends that work at larger public tech companies — it just feels like they're constantly doing unimportant things, going to conferences just for the sake of it, getting into work late and leaving early. etc. That life, that cushiness is just not for me.

Cons: As others have said, the pay is always going to be lower. The stock options are, in most cases, always going to be worth $0.

Open plan offices and general lack of a quiet, contemplative, professional working environment is the hugest con to me, even huger than the compensation issues pointed out by other commentors.

I would look to start-ups to be leading the effort to improve industry practices for software development ergonomy and human-centric working spaces (i.e. focus on privacy, quiet and individual customizability).

But instead, start-ups often try to conflate “collaborative spirit” with some shallow and false idea that collaboration is equal to being continuously embedded in a real-time stream of preemptible audio and chatter.

Headphones, jabberboxes, telephone rooms, limited freedom to be remote — none of these are useful and none address the underlying privacy and human centric ergonomy points.

Practically the only thing left that can convince me to take the risk of a startup, with its lowered compensation, poor insurance, and the poor risk characteristics of equity, is giving me my own private office, and making sure everyone on the team who wants one also has one, from the summer intern on up to executives.

If a start-up cannot offer a private office, then the start-up has to offer me the same market rate salary, bonuses, insurance and work-life balance that any other company would have to offer me.

Less than a year. More shares than non-essential employees, but far far far less shares than founders/executives.

Here's what I consider the 'sweet spot':

A small company, say 20-50 people or thereabouts, that has a profitable niche and does not require much in the way of investments. Here's why:

* Small is more fun for me - I like knowing everyone I work with, and the chance to see what other people are working on, and maybe move around some in what I'm doing, rather than 'the same thing day in and day out at BigCo'. Your work also feels more valuable and meaningful. Startups are a lot of fun that way, however...

* Investments and not living off what you sell are inherently unstable and stressful. That's ok to take a chance on when you're younger, but as someone with 20 years of experience in the industry, a family, hobbies, an interest in local politics and so on, it's not so much fun any more.

* I have a bias for cash, not equity. It's fine to roll the dice a bit on that when you're younger, and even now for the right thing... you never know, but ceteris paribus, I'd rather just have the money.

Of course actually finding a place like that is easier said than done. You need to avoid things like winner take all markets.