91–100 of 133 posts
Nice article. On TripleByte - they should make it clearer that the platform is only for the Bay Area and Software Engineering.
It seems that "Engineer", in the context of hiring, for anything YC-sponsored, means programmer. Even "Work at a Startup" was (and likely still is), exclusively for software engineers.
This is despite the fact that YC actually accepts/funds companies that aren't pure software plays.
I can't comment which skill is more valuable. They are somewhat orthogonal to each other right ? The better you get at software engineering the more process oriented you become. Hopefully an early startup gives you that kind of progression, but very unlikely, since the progression is directly correlated to the startup's scale and success.
If someone desires to put good software engineering into practice from day 1, then engineer #1 at an early stage startup is not the right choice.
This is all based on anecdotal experiences so am happy to stand corrected.
These are good points for finding your first engineer, but here is a tip for helping close your dream hire: offer more equity. Your first eng hire will shoulder nearly all of the technical burden soon after as the founders transition into more of the non-technical roles (sales, outreach, recruiting, fundraising, business strategy). The amount of blood, sweat, and tears poured in by the first eng hire is somewhat less…
Depends on pay, right? If you are offering employee #1 market pay, why would you give them 10% equity? That is potentially millions of dollars for not taking a risk. I have been on both sides of this, and have thoughts. What do you think is fair for employee #1 making at or near market rate?
I'd say the reason you want a strong equity package is a question of alignment and incentive, though. Ideally this person is going to be a VP of Engineering for you someday if you scale up and on top of that needs to have architect + SRE + hacker + sysadmin skills. On top of that, you'll probably want them to make similar sacrifices that you (as the founder) are making to get the business off the ground. It shouldn't be founder equity, and maybe the standard 4 yr + cliff structure isn't right for it, but you probably want this person to have a substantial vested interest in the success of the company.
These are good points for finding your first engineer, but here is a tip for helping close your dream hire: offer more equity. Your first eng hire will shoulder nearly all of the technical burden soon after as the founders transition into more of the non-technical roles (sales, outreach, recruiting, fundraising, business strategy). The amount of blood, sweat, and tears poured in by the first eng hire is somewhat less…
Depends on pay, right? If you are offering employee #1 market pay, why would you give them 10% equity? That is potentially millions of dollars for not taking a risk. I have been on both sides of this, and have thoughts. What do you think is fair for employee #1 making at or near market rate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a name for this. It is called a cofounder ( Who is comparatively more junior than the rest of the team ).
A cofounder takes risk, an employee does not. Both are valid, but different, paths.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guess what? Most software developers don’t live in Silicon Valley and never work for a FANG company, we seem to be doing okay....
Most of those developers "doing okay" are doing significantly worse than us SV and FAANG company engineers. I save more every year now than a good number of junior engineers take home in a year, and I'm a crappy average developer not even at FAANG with a much smaller total comp than their staff. There are a tiny, tiny number of SE jobs having more than 50% of my current salary (let alone equity and other benefits and…
In most other major American cities outside of New York/DC area its about $140K. If you compare the cost of living in any of those cities, it starts looking a lot worse for Silicon Valley.
https://qz.com/906086/san-francisco-is-actually-one-of-the-w...
If you go the billable consultant route with the right skill set, you can get up to $200K
https://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=e67229f7e25ea37b
Yes this is a realistic range. I’ve been given firm offers to do that type of work (AWS not Google) but the travel requirements would be too disruptive right now.
Anyone else getting a little tired of the immediate reduction of any conversation around early-stage startup job opportunities to "comp vs FAANG"? As someone who spent the last 5 years in early stage startups, before recently accepting a FAANG offer, I'm starting to realize folks who only think about comp probably aren't good fits for startups. Here are a few quick reasons to take less comp at a super early stage sta…
As someone who did a long string of failing small companies and finally settled in among the FAANGs, I respect your experience but disagree with everything you said. Wide breadth of skills? If you’re hired as a code monkey you’re going to monkey code. Nobody ever asked me what I thought about the latest business partnership or synergy strategy. Just code. Career progression? Another nope. With only a few people in th…
I should clarify that a lot of the hard problems at early stage cos are around creating something that is not only new, but is also a viable business, with minimal resources and huge time pressure. Whether the technical side is hard or not is another question entirely.
Anyways, thanks for the comment — in addition to providing a good counterpoint, it’s a good reminder for me that my experience is neither universal nor even necessarily the general case. YMMV.
Anyone else getting a little tired of the immediate reduction of any conversation around early-stage startup job opportunities to "comp vs FAANG"? As someone who spent the last 5 years in early stage startups, before recently accepting a FAANG offer, I'm starting to realize folks who only think about comp probably aren't good fits for startups. Here are a few quick reasons to take less comp at a super early stage sta…
The difference is so big, that I hope it continues to get repeated, until we start seeing a fairer distribution of equity.
>- You will develop a wide breadth of skills you simply can't develop at FAANG, as you will be involved in product meetings, business strategy conversations, and will regularly eat lunch with the CEO. I imagine the reverse of this is true as well, in that there are skills developed at FAANG that are hard to develop as employee Yes, this is true. Note, however, that this exposure isn't necessarily that transferable, unless you plan to become a founder yourself (which isn't a bad idea).
>- You will get to fast-track your career progression, in that you will be in line for promotions much earlier than in large companies, as opportunities emerge.
Only internally. It won't transfer to long term career progression unless your startup happens to be widely successful.
>- Companies (including FAANG) will look for folks with your skillset (my startup experience was a huge plus in my recent job search).
Nah. Experience in general is a huge plus in today's job market - but non-founder startup experience is no better than any other experience, unless your startup happens to be widely successful.
>- You will work on hard problems, with passionate people; folks aren't punching the clock here. This is fun.
People are passionate and not punching the clock in most places. You certainly do get to work on hard problems at small startups much more though.
>Also, for folks just thinking about comp, I'd like to gently point out that a 40 hour week on work you feel "meh" about is ~35% of your waking life. That's not to say you can't find exciting work at FAANG (I hope I have), but rather that there is more to a job than comp or career progression, and working with passionate folks on hard problems can be incredibly fulfilling.
And your comp today directly determines how much of your waking life down the road you will need to spend on work. Higher comp today means financial independence tomorrow (allowing you to work on whatever the heck you like).
Note: I'm a happy early engineer at a startup that offers competetive comp (based on my personal evaluation - and I'm normally a skeptical person - the expected value of my compensation is clearly higher than what I would get at FAANG), so I'm not agains startups; it's just highly unfortunate that most startup founders are incredibly stingy with equity.
I wonder what proportion of HN would have different careers if software engineering paid, say, as much as humanities while humanities paid like software engineering. It seems like everyone here (myself included) isn't really in it for the money, but who knows what would happen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if you pay your #1 employee at market rate he is taking huge risks and should be compensated accordingly. Working at an early stage company often comes with huge job insecurity, loss of medical benefits more mature companies might be able to offer (better insurance etc.) and a possible kink in your CV (3 years at Microsoft look much better than spending 3 years at an unsuccessful company that eventually shut dow…
> Even if you pay your #1 employee at market rate he is taking huge risks and should be compensated accordingly. Working at an early stage company often comes with huge job insecurity, loss of medical benefits more mature companies might be able to offer (better insurance etc.) Sorry, but no. Jobs are very easy for a good dev. You are taking no zero risk as engineer #1 at a startup if your pay is market rate. > and a…
If you need the best, you're going to have to pony up equity since you just can't compete otherwise. The open secret however, is that for most startups, you really don't need the best. You don't need top quality to throw together a web backend and a mobile app and start growing a base; for those companies it makes no sense to dilute the massive payout for the founders by sharing anything with the code monkey actually delivering the app.