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Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

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Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#101

Post by jacobush »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #99
octorian wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I used to live in a "normal" part of the country, telling people I'm a Software Engineer would usually lead to one of two things: 1. They'd pivot to asking me where I worked (which I didn't feel comfortable sharing with a random stranger, since I worked for a small enough place that it felt a little too specific) 2. They'd lump me in with the annoying IT guy who fixed their stupid Windows issues at work. Now tha…

I am genuinely curious about the tech start-ups that give you "street-cred" in SF. At most of the places I hang out at they dislike techies and blame on them the rising rent prices, monoculture, in general the cultural demise of the city. Actually at most parties or bars I have to "hide" that I work in tech, or come to terms with "that guy who works in tech... but hey he's ok, unlike the rest of the lot". So, I 'm ho…

Not in SF/SV but maybe in parties with a lot of unicorn employees?

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#102

Post by nostrademons »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #99
octorian wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I used to live in a "normal" part of the country, telling people I'm a Software Engineer would usually lead to one of two things: 1. They'd pivot to asking me where I worked (which I didn't feel comfortable sharing with a random stranger, since I worked for a small enough place that it felt a little too specific) 2. They'd lump me in with the annoying IT guy who fixed their stupid Windows issues at work. Now tha…

I am genuinely curious about the tech start-ups that give you "street-cred" in SF. At most of the places I hang out at they dislike techies and blame on them the rising rent prices, monoculture, in general the cultural demise of the city. Actually at most parties or bars I have to "hide" that I work in tech, or come to terms with "that guy who works in tech... but hey he's ok, unlike the rest of the lot". So, I 'm ho…

My time in the party scene was basically '09-11, which was before Techies became The Evil Empire. Back then folks were like "Oh, you work for Google, that's awesome, I love your products." Or even more specifically, "Woah, you worked on [Google doodles|the front page of Google|GFiber], I remember seeing that, tell me more about it." It was starting to change around 2012, but right around then I got a girlfriend, got married, and had a kid, and so I basically only have time to hang out with either my wife's friends (for whom I'm just "X's husband") or the friends I made at Google. I'm vaguely aware that much of SF hates techies (and ironically, a few of my wife's Peace Corps friends are in that bucket, which makes for awkward attempts to mix friends groups), but I don't hang out with those people, nor have I worked for a big tech company for going on 4 years now, so it doesn't affect me much. South Bay - where I go to random meetups - is still very tech friendly because that's basically all people do here.

Interestingly, when I go back home to New England, I get a much warmer reception introducing myself as an ex-Googler than in SF. I still have schoolkids at my high school ask me about what it was like to work on Google Doodles, and I ran into a nice ex-hockey-player on a ferry in Connecticut that asked what I did ("software", without elaboration) and then was like "Oh, that sounds exciting, you must make bank" ("I do okay...").

Anyways, I grew up as a nerd in a small town in the 80s, and whatever hate techies get in SF now is nothing compared to that. The U.S. (and probably the world) has fragmented into a lot of micro-tribes recently that all seem to hate each other, but at least they're tribes where it's not terribly difficult to find others who share your values and appreciate what you do, while in the 80s it was monolithic American culture vs. any individuals unfortunate enough to be different. Techies had a brief moment on top from 1995-2000 and again from 2005-2011 where they were getting rich and the rest of the world was enjoying the products they built, but now that most people take for granted the Internet & mobile world they've built, it's just another corporate industry.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#103

Post by PeOe »

I started a startup together with a colleague. It´s a lot of work and you don´t get rich (as you said) but there are so many other points that matter. The teams are friendlier, open-minded and are more family than employees. You share time together and work is not strictly planned. Yes, you can learn a lot but you need to work hard to do so and failure is part of it.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#104

Post by sonnyblarney »

fyfy18 wrote: post #98
sonnyblarney wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at several startups and some big companies. Doing things you've never done before, and being thrown into the brink is I think the best opportunity to learn. This happens without necessarily being pushed into roles, merely by the scope of activities one might be involved in. You can work at a large company, as an Engineer, and literally never learn how a company actually works. A lot of things that go on a…

> A lot of things that go on at big companies are dumb - but so many people there have no context for knowing one way or another, they think it's normal. What they are 'learning' is bad behaviours and some things on courses etc.. Working at a startup can be exactly the same. Especially if it’s staffed by inexperienced people full of ego :-)

Yes but you see the effects immediately. Small means outcomes are a function of the people there.

In big companies, people can do nothing and the gears keep turning.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#105

Post by tribesman »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #71
jamiepenney wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a lot of "oh yep, you look the type". Ouch.

I get a lot of "you're very social for a computer person". I guess it's a compliment, but it feels a little backhanded.

I got a complement that i don't sound montonouus like a programmer.

Other time, someone said but i don't imagine you as a tech bro.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#106

Post by tribesman »

grosjona wrote: post #56
mpodlasin wrote: post #29

It's funny how my experience is exactly reverse. Since I joined startup I learn much less, since we can't afford experimentation and there are no other front end devs here, so I don't get a chance to learn backend stuff, since someone has to do front end part. I also hoped to learn some business stuff, but most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors while you code boring crud application.

I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical s…

Having worked at both, if you've a family and low motivation to work, i find it easier to hide in a big company than a startup.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#107

Post by grosjona »

plicense wrote: post #73
grosjona wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical s…

> For example, one reason why many corporations push really hard on having 100% unit and integration test coverage is because they have such high employee turnover that they can't rely on their engineers to maintain their own code I'm in a similar situation as yours and have switched between big corporations and startups and now at a big co again. I used to have the opinion that unit tests are a time sink, but what c…

I would only write unit tests for very complex classes whose logic cannot be simplified into something readable. Personally, I rarely introduce bugs at the unit level, almost 100% of my bugs are related to how classes/functions interact with each other - I find that bugs at the unit level are easy to track down (and often they will be caught by integration tests anyway). I prefer integration tests because they traverse more code paths and don't need to be updated so often. The main complaints I hear about integration tests is that they're slow and brittle but this is only the case if they rely on external microservices (or external data stores) and if test cases aren't properly isolated from each other. I use integration test cases as part of my development flow.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#108

Post by tribesman »

I love working at a startup, there is simply no cap on number of hours i can work.

I can meet any other employee without any appointment.

I can try my hands on accounting and legals. Go meet customers and give them the demo when i don't feel like working.

I can collect cash from customers, take a photo of the cash and send it to boss where he sends me a thumbs up emoji.

I often bring kids of my boss or colleagues from their school or drop their wifes to hospital when they are sick or if their want to go to shopping when her guy is debugging the server.

I don't have any family of my own other than a girlfriend. Doing all these things for others give me peace and makes me feel as if i am part of their family.

For an orphan kid, this is all i wanted.

I've helped my collegues mop whole floor when it's their turn in their apartment building.

I don't know if i can get all this in a big company.

After this i got 10% equality in a small company. Post sale where i made 15 million and gave 10 to my girlfriend for her support. I still work there and enjoy everyday.

You need to see where i started when i had nothing, zero saving..... No family.

Today, I've everything and I can't complain.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#109

Post by ggambetta »

jinonoel wrote: post #79

"Why join a startup #1: Acccess to jobs you're unqualified for" Had a good laugh at this, because it's completely true in my case. 7 years ago became the "data scientist" at a 4-person startup before I even knew what a data scientist actually does. Parlayed that into further data science jobs at somewhat bigger startups. Now I'm Head of Data Science at a stable traditional tech company making good money and this like…

Definitely my experience as well :) This is how I ended up being Head of Marketing at Improbable [1] for the first half of 2016. I've since returned to Engineering, but this is definitely an experience I'd never have had at my previous work at Google.

[1] http://improbable.io

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#110

Post by Nimitz14 »

plicense wrote: post #73
grosjona wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been back and forth between startups and corporations. I think I know what you mean in technical terms; that corporations use more advanced (rigorous) processes and tools and so it feels like you're learning more (it feels more precise/correct) - That said, I think that a lot of the stuff that you learn in big companies are anti-patterns when you consider the big picture; a lot of the time, you learn technical s…

> For example, one reason why many corporations push really hard on having 100% unit and integration test coverage is because they have such high employee turnover that they can't rely on their engineers to maintain their own code I'm in a similar situation as yours and have switched between big corporations and startups and now at a big co again. I used to have the opinion that unit tests are a time sink, but what c…

Unit tests don't actually tell you that your code works. Integration tests do that.
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