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Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

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Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#41

Post by kstrauser »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #39
sametmax wrote: post #24

Start ups will give a chance to junior with a weak resume if he/she can demonstrate skills. You may very well end up with a mission above your skill set as well, and grow because of the challenge and responsability. Less bureaucracy and smaller size also mean a quicker hiring process, direct access to most interesting people in the company and a wide overview of the entire product.

Usually this is false. Startups are some of the most aggressive users of whiteboard trivia, live coding, etc., to filter out candidates who don’t fit precisely the mold of people desperate to work at FAANG companies.

Some startups are, largely because they often lack the experience to know better. Plenty of startups are managed by people who care about having a better process.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#42

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

kstrauser wrote: post #41
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually this is false. Startups are some of the most aggressive users of whiteboard trivia, live coding, etc., to filter out candidates who don’t fit precisely the mold of people desperate to work at FAANG companies.

Some startups are, largely because they often lack the experience to know better. Plenty of startups are managed by people who care about having a better process.

It’s pretty universal.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#43

Post by Qworg »

xiphias2 wrote: post #5
jypepin wrote: post #3

My view is only a data point, but what I've observed is that while comp at startups has not evolved much in the last 5 years (seeing roughly same salaries + stock packages), total comp at later stage startups or bigger companies has sky rocketed. The comments on the 2018 post you mention are all still true and relevant today. My experience has proven than as an employee, joining a post series B will usually be a bett…

It's sad and strange at the same time that the market isn't reacting. Early employees shouldn't accept the huge difference between preferred and normal stock options, they should exactly understand how much their stock will be diluted at the point when they can sell it. Anyways these kind of HN threads are awesome, I hope they can rationalize the market somewhat.

After having just gone through this with my startup - the litigious nature of society makes it hard to reveal any of the information. If the board or the C* reveal too much, it opens the company up to a lawsuit.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#44

Post by jammygit »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #42
kstrauser wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some startups are, largely because they often lack the experience to know better. Plenty of startups are managed by people who care about having a better process.

It’s pretty universal.

I've interviewed at a few startups and worked for one. Never got a whiteboard question, just saw them at bigger companies. Small sample size, but 'universal' might not be accurate here

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#45

Post by neokantian »

Nowadays, a good startup is one that is going to run into massive legal issues: Uber, Airbnb, any cryptocurrency-related company, or any similar platform that is going to ransack vested interests. Otherwise, it will not make a difference. I mostly do it because I like the fact that the new concept may end up bankrupting entire self-serving industries. I would have loved joining Uber back then, and get a kick from pushing every taxi company on the globe into chapter-11 proceedings. There is still so much to disrupt!

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#46

Post by toomuchtodo »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #38
onion2k wrote: post #16

It depends what your alternatives are. This thread will fill up with comments saying start-ups won't pay as well as Google et al, but that's only relavent if you can get hired by Google (and you want to be). Comments that state "start-up wages are less than the best paying tech jobs" aren't very useful. If you can't get a job at Google then you need to compare a start-up role with a job you can get. If that's a junio…

It’s not that start-ups don’t pay as well as Google, it’s that they don’t pay as well as mid-range companies, like insurance companies, payroll tech companies, auto manufacturers, newspapers, etc. Start-ups are just other businesses. The relevant pool of peer companies to consider for salary benchmarking is all other companies your desired candidate might work for . Nobody cares about the funding situation, age, cool…

Yes, exactly! I don’t care about your mission or your “key values”. What’s the comp? What are the benefits? That’s it.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#48

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

jammygit wrote: post #44
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty universal.

I've interviewed at a few startups and worked for one. Never got a whiteboard question, just saw them at bigger companies. Small sample size, but 'universal' might not be accurate here

I’ve interviewed and worked at several start-ups, and also conducted dozens of interviews at all the start-ups I worked for, and all of them involved whiteboard puzzles (despite my objections). Meanwhile, I have many friends who have worked across many dozen start-ups over the past 15 years, and all of them report the same whiteboard puzzle culture with zero exceptions. Additionally, it is ubiquitously discussed on Hacker News that this is a known property of start-up culture and is mentioned directly as an interview step in many posting in the Hacker News monthly Who is Hiring thread.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#49

Post by mikeheaton »

badfrog wrote: post #33
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of possible reasons: - A lot of people don't know what they are actually worth and undervalue themselves - or they do not understand the caveats of things like dilution and classes of stock - or they were offered stock in units of shares without knowing the valuation - or they accept a job and relocate to the Bay Area from a reasonably-affordable place and mistakenly think that a $100k/year salary is hitting…

> or they didn't realize just how much more FAANG actually pays than late-stage startups or even other top-tier companies (even Glassdoor is wrong) This is true for a lot of people I talk to. It seems very odd that there's not more compensation transparency from these companies, because I know several people who would have jointed FAANG if they knew what they'd be making 3-5 years into their career.

I’m curious, how much is it then?

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2019?

#50

Post by tirumaraiselvan »

statictype wrote: post #27
tirumaraiselvan wrote: post #9

I don't think this is anything 2019 specific, but working in a niche startup is probably the only plausible way of working on anything niche like say blockchain or serverless.

There are many big companies wasting money on the latest fad. Hell, there are many big non-tech companies throwing money at blockchain

I don't disagree but their rate of innovation is rather slow because it isn't something their survival depends on.
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