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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?

#661

Post by bethly »

k5jhn wrote: post #68

Currently a dev at a pre-Series A startup. Pros: - both the freedom AND responsibility to build things that'll directly translate into increased growth/profits, or the opposite in the case of failure - close-knit dev team, and in general everyone is chill, i.e company culture is great so far Cons: - my salary compensation is pretty average so I am hoping for an eventual big pay-out, but it's hard to gauge what the pa…

https://tldroptions.io is all about estimating the approximate upside under a wide variety of exit scenarios. Even the basic answer ends up being “it depends...”

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

#662

Post by dunpeal »

toephu2 wrote: post #605
dunpeal wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the following claim: > There are only a handful of companies that pay $400k/yr for senior software engineers and MSFT ain't one of them This claim is false. There are a lot more than "a handful" of companies paying $400k for senior engineers. MSFT will also pay you this amount in the Bay. Overall, top tech pay about the same. You say FB pays better than MS in Seattle, and perhaps that is the case (as I state…

"Overall, top tech pay about the same." No, they do not. Again, obviously you have never worked at a FANG company otherwise you would probably realize this. It's quite a well known fact in the Valley that FB/Google pay much better than MSFT/AMZN.

You seem bitter for some reason. I wish you well.

FYI, I got offers from FANG companies, specifically the ones you mentioned. There used to be a gap, but on the last round the AMZN numbers were effectively the same as Google's. My guess is that over the last few years they faced the necessity to pay equally.

I have friends working at MSFT in the Bay and their current pay also falls in line with the numbers mentioned in this thread. Of course, they're senior engineers.

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

#663

Post by tim_sw »

rgossiaux wrote: post #656
kentonv wrote: post #633

As a former startup founder, I tend to agree that most startups are low-balling early employees. These employees over-value their stock by imagining what it would be worth if the company reaches $1B valuation. It really is a lottery ticket. But in my opinion, the answer is more pay, not more equity. Employees should get market comp, period. Doesn't matter how early-stage the startup is. If a founder can't afford empl…

I don't quite understand. On the one hand you're saying that early employees should "demand market comp" and on the other you're saying that equity basically doesn't matter (and if you feel this way, it doesn't really make any sense to be joining a startup anyway). Are you conflating "compensation" with "salary"? "Market comp" for a good engineer with several years of experience in the Bay Area is something like 250k…

250-350k is low for Google and FB. It's more like 400-500k if you are senior, 500-700k if you are staff. This is including RSUs

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

#664

Post by phamilton »

jgibson wrote: post #650
alex_young wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSUs are taxed at vesting. There is no tax advantage in holding them after they are released.

You still pay tax on the gain when you sell though (assuming there is any gain). Depending on how long you hold them there will be normal income tax or long-term gains tax

Yes, but this is equivalent to purchasing the stock. You could sell the day they vest, and then use the proceeds to repurchase the stock and you'd be in the same boat. I.e. there's nothing special about them once they vest.

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

#665

Post by School-Cotton »

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.

Nobody counts free meals as part of their total comp.

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

#666

Post by dunpeal »

tedsanders wrote: post #609
joshuamorton wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really just a distinction without a difference. The point is that for reasonable definitions of normal, this is true. Some people don't believe that. Sure not every engineer takes home that much, but its also not only the top 5 or 10%, its significantly more than that.

What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K? Are you talking software engineers? Software engineers in the Bay Area? Software engineers in the Bay Area working for a subset of companies? I suspect the reason this 'debate' exists is that we are not specific enough with our language to make our meanings clear to one another. :) To me it's difficult to tell whether the co…

> What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K?

What evidence do you have to the contrary?

Compensation data isn't typically shared openly. Well-paid engineers have no reason to share their pay figures and create animosity or worse problems.

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

#668

Post by kinganurag »

kentonv wrote: post #633

As a former startup founder, I tend to agree that most startups are low-balling early employees. These employees over-value their stock by imagining what it would be worth if the company reaches $1B valuation. It really is a lottery ticket. But in my opinion, the answer is more pay, not more equity. Employees should get market comp, period. Doesn't matter how early-stage the startup is. If a founder can't afford empl…

> If a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring yet. They could perhaps offer to take people on as co-founders -- with an appropriately equal share.

Brother, I have worked with both startup & MNC's and i can understand what you are trying to say but it is a bit harsh to say that if a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring. Some part of me says you are right but other part says that some employee should have some faith. If I look from employees perspective its safer/more rewarding/less riskier to join as co-founder then getting market rate. I believe somewhere faith also counts :)

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

#669

Post by rgossiaux »

jonmb wrote: post #257
swimorsinka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to this. 10 years ago you couldn't make 400K at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Now you can. Startups made a lot more sense when your opportunity cost was 50-150K per year.

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?

There's some data about this on Blind for Google that seems pretty solid: https://www.teamblind.com/article/google-engineer---total-co...

For Google, it looks like 90% of L6 engineers and a single-digit percentage of L5 engineers are at this number. So yes, not your typical mid-level engineer (many/most engineers plateau at L5).

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

#670

Post by tedsanders »

dunpeal wrote: post #666
tedsanders wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K? Are you talking software engineers? Software engineers in the Bay Area? Software engineers in the Bay Area working for a subset of companies? I suspect the reason this 'debate' exists is that we are not specific enough with our language to make our meanings clear to one another. :) To me it's difficult to tell whether the co…

> What evidence do you have that significantly more than 10% of engineers earn more than $400K? What evidence do you have to the contrary? Compensation data isn't typically shared openly. Well-paid engineers have no reason to share their pay figures and create animosity or worse problems.

I have no strong evidence to the contrary.

I'm trying to learn the truth. The previous commenter made claims about the distribution of comp. No doubt they had reasons for believing that claim. I want to know their reasons so I can update my own beliefs.

I have made no claims so I don't understand why you are asking me for the answer. I'm trying to learn the answer! :)

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