131–140 of 392 posts
I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. If you have FU money, your view on working at a FAANG vs building a startup can change. You will find it easier to know what you truly LOVE.
Since starting, I've seen engineers who can't hack it leave or get fired. I've been the one engineer who has been productive and seen our projects to completion. Our team has gotten stronger over the past 2 years however and I feel that we are in a good position. In this way, I feel that I am valuable, but I have nothing to compare myself to.
Working at a startup I've also learned an extremely broad area of knowledge, much of this completely on my own. I'm often worried that that may hurt me if I apply at a larger company and that hiring managers would question my fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, it seems like a savvy engineer could work that into a story to tell a Boeing interviewer about how they took the initiative to think outside the box and develop a solution that saved the day when the team was under a time constraint.
If they solved a time constraint by being clever and working hard then clearly Boeing would care about that, I agree. Saving $$ per unit and saving $$ total are so different. If all you're doing is saving $500 total, I wouldn't even care in most cases... but if you managed to use clever techniques to save $0.30 off the manufacturing cost for a toy that gets sold in the millions... I most strongly agree with the ethic…
I think the course of events in the USA in the decades since the 50s has essentially answered the question of what happens if you leave it up to the most fortunate to decide how to treat the least fortunate.
Strongly agree with this. I just did about seven weeks of interviewing in NYC for senior iOS roles, at both startups and big tech companies. To be frank, it was a total shitshow. Especially on the startup side. Here’s some of the bullshit I faced interviewing at early stage companies before accepting an offer literally 2.5x as high as the (multiple) offers that startups made. 1. Shitty equity: one startup wanted me t…
From your post, it sounds like you value: 1) Safety and predictability in compensation 2) Ownership over your company’s strategy (e.g. mobile) only if you’re paid highly for doing it (not a bad thing, but many other people exist who would willingly take a pay cut for the ability to have an actual impact on company strategy) 3) A highly organized and logical hiring process and qualification evaluation 4) Custom negoti…
Yes you will probably make more at an established company, but your rate of growth can be much higher at a startup. I worked at a large tech company for 3 years before joining a startup, and learned more in the first month at the startup than the full 3 years at the large tech company. I was able to design and implement a service in a matter of days, whereas at the large tech company those 3 days would easily spent c…
I have hobbies, I have a family, I invest in culture, I enjoy free time, that is actual growth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is whether you see learning to do meaningful things on a shoestring budget to be itself a useful skill. Boeing won't care if you save the project $5k by spending a week of your time coming up with a clever workaround. The week was more important than the $5k. Same for a high level role generally. But not getting work done for a week because your boss won't approve a $500 purchase... that would be frust…
I find that saving developer time or large amounts of money can be rewarded well in my position at a FAANG, you just need to save an amount commensurate to the opportunity cost.
Which can be a hell of a lot more than you expect. Like, don't bother spending two weeks to cut the CPU use of a service in half, if the service only uses 1k CPUs to begin with.
My experience: engineering at Startup #1 for 2 years, then Google for 3 years, then Startup #2 for 4 years, and now I've been working with seed stage companies as a VC for the last 7 years. The amount I earned as an engineer was highest at Startup #1 (got lucky!), significantly lower at Google, and a little lower than that at Startup #2. Startup #2 is still chugging along, which could eventually make it on par with o…
One very salient explanation of this that has stuck with me goes something like this:
A fast growing early stage startup is great for learning because you'll often end up with tasks that you're not qualified to do, which forces you to go out of your comfort zone and learn from the inevitable mistakes you'll make along the way, whereas in a large company they usually have plenty of more senior people to take care of the more challenging tasks outside of your current pay grade.
Strongly agree with this. I just did about seven weeks of interviewing in NYC for senior iOS roles, at both startups and big tech companies. To be frank, it was a total shitshow. Especially on the startup side. Here’s some of the bullshit I faced interviewing at early stage companies before accepting an offer literally 2.5x as high as the (multiple) offers that startups made. 1. Shitty equity: one startup wanted me t…
From your post, it sounds like you value: 1) Safety and predictability in compensation 2) Ownership over your company’s strategy (e.g. mobile) only if you’re paid highly for doing it (not a bad thing, but many other people exist who would willingly take a pay cut for the ability to have an actual impact on company strategy) 3) A highly organized and logical hiring process and qualification evaluation 4) Custom negoti…
The norm is changing. Good startups today generally offer 5-10y exercise windows. [1] This is something Triplebyte started, and they have a guide for how to implement it. [2]
[1] https://github.com/holman/extended-exercise-windows
[2] https://triplebyte.com/blog/extending-stock-option-exercise-...
I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. If you have FU money, your view on working at a FAANG vs building a startup can change. You will find it easier to know what you truly LOVE.
[edited to protect your feelings]
Are you saying that simple introspection is hard? I completely disagree, because separating extrinsic motivation (I do this for money) from intrinsic motivation (I do this for fun) really isn't that hard.