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

Employees are more aware now that the startup they work for isn't going to be the next facebook or google so perpetrating that myth and offering below market comp with some equity isn't attractive to top employees anymore. As many have stated, competing on comp and benefits is a tall order so looking for other ways to compete would be useful. Focusing on location, an enjoyable work environment, and quality of life (not fake unlimited time off) would entice those who want to work for a startup but can't justify the tough work hours combined with low pay.

Most startups are located in the Bay Area and the cost of living there combined with lower salaries make it an unattractive proposition for early employees. Encouraging remote work is a great way to attract employees who may not want to live in SF, NY or Seattle and are happy to work for less than those in the major hubs. Or move the startup HQ out of the valley if remote just won't work. Competing for workers in places where the big players aren't will give them an edge and greatly increase the value proposition they offer to early stage employees. This combined with proper quality of life focus and increased autonomy and responsibility that startups offer would change my mind about working for a big firm and make me consider a startup job.

I used to think your first point was correct, but it's actually not. If you look at the founders of startups, very few of them have worked in other startups. Usually they ladder up as the founder of progressively larger ventures.

The other pathway is a prestigious college / MBA program or working their way up through one of the big tech companies and then leaving to start their own thing.

I've seen very few "former lead engineer at X startup founded their own company" stories, and that was literally what I was trying to do with my career for probably 5-7 years.

The Work at a Startup resource is great. We've found it to be an excellent hiring resource.

As other folks have noted, the pros/cons of working at a startup vs an established Silicon Valley tech company have shifted over the past couple of years. I think of venture-backed tech companies as falling into three broad buckets:

  1. early stage startups
  2. "post-Series B" high growth
  3. large, publicly traded

At a startup, you get to see a lot (both good and bad) that's highly relevant if you want to start a company yourself at some point. You have much more responsibility earlier in your career than you will have anywhere else, and you get an equity lottery ticket.

At a high-growth company, you have the invaluable experience of seeing growing pains first hand, your equity is much more likely to be worth something (statistically) than at a startup, and down the road people in the San Francisco startup ecosystem are likely to look at this experience on your resume as uniquely valuable.

At a big company, you have great work/life balance, great guaranteed (or quasi-guaranteed) comp, and -- sometimes -- you have unique resources available to you.

I wrote a blog post earlier this year about this that goes into more detail: https://medium.com/@kwindla/what-kind-of-silicon-valley-comp...

So do you work remote to live in a low cost of living area? Just curious how many big salary opportunities are in low cost of living areas.

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 what anybody tells you, is more luck than skill.

That said, why do I work at a startup? Because the feeling of being able to meaningfully affect its trajectory (both technically and in terms of product) just matters to me. You can't get that at a big company, and for me that more than makes up for the ~50-75 k$/yr I gave up for it.

But I'm in the extremely fortunate position of having very frugal tastes, a significant fallback fund (I could afford to not work and maintain my current lifestyle for several years), and no dependents. Beyond the raw dollar amount, this also means that I'm basically indifferent to the prospect of losing my job, which as the other comments point out, is the other significant drawback of startups.

It's unclear to me that the combination of intangibles and tangibles works out positively for many other people, and I kind of feel that to a first approximation, recommending against being an employee at a start up is the right advice.