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

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

#561

Post by pm90 »

GordonS wrote: post #354
dunpeal wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who think of 400K (or even 200K in some previous discussions) as "outlier pay" are probably just not familiar with big tech pay and how much revenue they earn per engineer.

> how much revenue they earn per engineer That does not necessarily correlate with salary. At least it doesn't outside of SV.

Agreed. SV is different from the rest of the markets, and it is the main reason why it attracts so many engineers from all over the country (hell, from the world).

Although I don't regret the time I spent outside of SV, from a financial perspective as a single young engineer, it absolutely, 100% makes financial sense to consider opportunities in SF that compensate you so well.

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

#562

Post by brianwawok »

avip wrote: post #205
thetrb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What also comes into the picture here is the extremely high cost of living in the Bay Area. Even startups have to offer $200k in non-"maybe" compensation to make sure people can afford living here. Even a relatively small size startup with 50 people now already has $10 million in salary costs per year (not even counting taxes, benefits, etc.). So overall the balance is tilted very much in favor of the big companies t…

Which raises the ancient Quan - why are startups so reluctant, as a species, to establish remote teams? How come VCs are even allowing their investees to pay bubbly rents and wages?

Or how about in person but not in SF?

Benefits of in person. But not SF salary.

Has been my route, no complaints.

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

#563

Post by pm90 »

dmode wrote: post #387
ironjunkie wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing that people seem to forget is that a lot of people calculate their FAANG Total Comp with the value of the stock today, not on the day they were given to them. This simply because you could have yourself bought those stocks at the same price back in the days. You cannot include the increase as part of your total comp This in some case makes a huge difference, especially now, where all the tech stocks h…

FAANGS give you RSUs, which are cash equivalent. When I am referring to 400K, I am referring to "total cash in hand" at the end of the year. Generally the comp you get quoted when you get hired is $200K base + $200K in RSUs based on hire date's stock price. So in today's frothy stock market, you would at least earn $400K and possibly more.

200K in RSU's per year or over 4 years?

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

#564

Post by aidenn0 »

The single biggest con for me is asking me to move to the bay area on a sub $200k salary. I have 4 kids, I live in SoCal. The difference in mortgage alone means that I will be either losing money compared to my current job at a medium sized company or having an absurd commute.

I looked at bay-area job opportunities and FAANG would be break-even to small-raise, while all startups would be a minimum of $20k less money in my pocket for any sub 30 minute commute. My current commute is 15 minutes.

On top of this, from my sphere of people I know non-founder equity is a joke. One quote from a friend "You're more likely to get rich taking a job with no equity and sinking the difference in salary in powerball tickets." The largest exit from my social circle netted the (#3 employee) $60k, or about the difference in salary over the time working there. The best financial outcome for him was actually the massive raise he got by working at the payscales of the company that acquired the startup.

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

#565

Post by tensor »

eanzenberg wrote: post #235
neutrino7 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started a job as a data scientist at a FAANG company. PhD + 2 years of experience for $200k total compensation (plus another $50k in one time bonuses/relo). It’s almost double what my previous (non-tech) employer paid. Although I’m starting to wonder if I should have gone the software engineering route instead. SWEs get double the RSUs as data scientists for the same experience level (so ~250k for my level) an…

I'm in a somewhat similar boat and have seen DS positions at FAANG not pay as well as SWE. Why is that?

On the other hand, top PhDs in machine learning are earning 2 million a year: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-int...

If you have a PhD in CS and are being paid less than someone with an undergrad, something is wrong.

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

#566

Post by justinzollars »

benatkin wrote: post #457
justinzollars wrote: post #448

Wow, when did we all lose our souls? So many pro "FAANG" comments. Working at a big tech company totally sucks. Its soul sucking. Personally speaking, I made about 300k at a FANG adjacent company - and I hated every moment of it. I quit to make less money at a startup. And I'd do it again. Today, especially today, what is there to be proud of in working for a FANNG company? Google is working with the Pentagon on war…

It can feel like these startups aren't all that independent from those companies. Most are hosted by Google or Amazon and many depend upon Google or Apple to approve their mobile apps for distribution. Some get acquired by them.

Good point. These are big monopolies and its pretty tough to avoid them.

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

#567

Post by acconrad »

biztos wrote: post #372
acconrad wrote: post #129

I was the first engineer at a TechStars startup that did have a successful exit (I was there about 5 years before the exit). If there is something I want YC to know, it's this: You helped create the culture of founder empowerment. You have the power to evolve that narrative to those that sacrifice as early employees. Tell the world that early employees deserve a lot more equity. Tell the world that early employees co…

What's an "early employee" for you? (That is, who gets "a lot more equity?") I ask because I've noticed with some high-dollar acquisitions a lot of times "engineer #50" makes his/her "F-You Money" on the acquisition, but having been "engineer #2" and "#4" and even "#1" (sadly, no big exits) I am skeptical that #50 took on much more risk or contributed more than, say, #200.

Pre-series A. Once Series A comes into play, you can get paid "market" - which is to say, the normal rate outside of FAANG.

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

#568

Post by acconrad »

narag wrote: post #473
acconrad wrote: post #129

I was the first engineer at a TechStars startup that did have a successful exit (I was there about 5 years before the exit). If there is something I want YC to know, it's this: You helped create the culture of founder empowerment. You have the power to evolve that narrative to those that sacrifice as early employees. Tell the world that early employees deserve a lot more equity. Tell the world that early employees co…

As the startup gets traction and more money from VCs, wouldn't it be wise to give raises in cash to early employees?

Most companies don't give 50% raises when you finally raise money (which is to say, most companies won't simply bring you up to market if you came in super early).

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

#569

Post by stevenwoo »

bethly wrote: post #121

One of the prime advantages for me is that I could find a company with women in leadership roles and I could interview everyone at the company before taking the job. I am absolutely willing to give up monetary compensation in exchange for working in an environment without sexual harassment, where I can have a significant cultural impact and with fair compensation & career progression. The downside is that there isn't…

There were a couple in the May Who's Hiring posts that probably fit your criteria, not sure about June, though actually reading all the individual posts takes quite a bit of time.

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

#570

Post by infinite8s »

freeone3000 wrote: post #362
jonmb wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question since I'm not familiar with the area - who is making 400k at Microsoft or Facebook? Not the typical mid-level software engineer, I'd assume. Are these product leads or head engineers making the 400k?

400k is reasonable for total comp after a few years of experience. Note that total comp includes a bunch of stuff that's technically discretionary, like your annual bonus, and a bunch of stuff that's paid out but not really cashable, like meals and health insurance. Your pre-tax cash, sans benefits, is probably closer to $200k.

People don't usually include health insurance and free meals when they think about their total comp.
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