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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?

#151

Post by dunpeal »

kwindla wrote: post #136
john_moscow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the open secret is that in 2018 most people who go work for startups are those who simply couldn't get a better offer from one of the big players.

Anecdotally, that's not my experience. I see a lot of people working at startups who got tired of doing things at big companies that just weren't that interesting to them. Those folks have often made enough money that they can afford to work at a startup for a few years because the work itself is more fun, the company has a mission they like, or they appreciate having a bigger day-to-day impact. As a startup founder…

> I see a lot of people working at startups who got tired of doing things at big companies that just weren't that interesting to them. Those folks have often made enough money that they can afford to work at a startup for a few years because the work itself is more fun, the company has a mission they like, or they appreciate having a bigger day-to-day impact.

The kind of people you describe are basically retired, and working primarily for recreation. While they do exist, they're very rare, and one thing is certain about them: they will _not_ put up with crazy work hours, intense crunches, etc.

They are not the type of driven people you need at a startup. They're essentially doing this for fun. If there are too many long days or unpleasant tasks - they're out.

Unfortunately, startups need these long days and grueling tasks done, and fast. Far more than the big companies do.

So no, these magical people aren't the solution to the fundamental issue, which is: smart employees realized that engineer equity at startups is low value, and can't compare to what big profitable companies pay.

The only solution is to increase the equity upside, not rely on the recreationally retired to run your startups.

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

#152

Post by jaegerpicker »

swimorsinka wrote: post #86
ryandrake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make that much. You can also win the lottery. Your opportunity cost should not be measured against your best case alternative, it should be measured against a most likely case.

I agree with this too. There is a tier of engineers that are good, but for whatever reason, can't get into the big 5. They're bad at white-boarding or maybe they don't live in an area where the big 5 have offices. In those cases, maybe a startup makes more sense.

Often I find a number of great engineers that the big 5 disqualify for two main reasons: Location or Education. The big 5 tend to not allow remote work and if you don't have a college degree it's often hella hard to get an interview.

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

#153

Post by numbers »

nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

I agree with this from experience. I worked at a startup for about 2 years and when they exited, it was a horrible exit for me. I made $30k in the sale. I got a $15k bonus my first year with the next company, plus I had so many other benefits of being at a larger company.

Work-life balance is not great at most startups and you're expected to not ask questions about it.

Larger companies, it's always touted that they're better about work-life balance, and after being in larger companies for the past 2-3 years, it's been apparent my stress has gone down while still being productive!

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

#154

Post by praptak »

ryandrake wrote: post #57
nieksand wrote: post #2

Just a few cons.... The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. Equity grants for early…

Take that view with a huge grain of salt. Nobody is denying that someone, somewhere is making $400k as a software engineer, but we are talking outlier employees at outlier companies. You’re not getting this as a medium level rank and file engineer, or at a non-FAANG company. This whole “software engineers make $400k” trope seems to have taken on a life of its own. Every time salary comes up here, these guys come out…

Startups require crazy hours and solid dedication. If you put that into a career at a big software company, even with average talent, you will reach the level which yields that kind of money.

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

#155

Post by Clubber »

gwbas1c wrote: post #76
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #22

Having not worked in the Valley or a startup, I can say the biggest con to me is a lack of stability. You can get a job at BigCo or even MediumSizedButBeenAroundTwoDecadesCo and be reasonably sure you'll still have a job... as long as you want to work there. But with a startup, either they run out of money and you lose your job, they pivot and don't need you and you lose your job, or they get acquired and you very li…

This is exactly how overseas outsourcing works. The vast majority of the foreign people I work with are under arrangements just like you describe. This is also similar to how a lot of small software development firms work; they develop web sites and mobile apps for companies on contract.

There were some US companies that did this as well before the dot bomb. One of the selling points would be you get "bench time," which meant paid in-between assignments. I think large companies that make a lot with consulting fees use this model as well, but I'm not sure which ones.

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

#156

Post by roguecoder »

casabarata wrote: post #5

Con: with most startups (mostly the vc funded ones) it feels less like a startup and more like a corporate. The hacking ethos and mission driven teams have been replaced by overly nice offices, steve-jobs-wannabe-kid-ceos and mediocre team mates. I’ve lives both worlds and it seems there are few places left that are like the old days.

The lack of engineering skill among teammates is a huge con in general to working in the Silicon Valley, not just among startup. The money is too good and the bar too unrelated to actually maintaining code. Personally, I've found startups are one of the few ways to not spend a career mucking out a mess dozens of others left behind with few tests and even less design.

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

#157

Post by wolco »

swimorsinka wrote: post #86
ryandrake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make that much. You can also win the lottery. Your opportunity cost should not be measured against your best case alternative, it should be measured against a most likely case.

I agree with this too. There is a tier of engineers that are good, but for whatever reason, can't get into the big 5. They're bad at white-boarding or maybe they don't live in an area where the big 5 have offices. In those cases, maybe a startup makes more sense.

In those cases the big 20 make sense.

Stsrtups are great but you are always held hostage waiting to cashin

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

#158

Post by dunpeal »

nieksand wrote: post #65
polskibus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now the VCs that made lots of money selling their Google, etc., would now have to spend much more on giving a new startup runway. That's also a reason why many US startups and corporations hire dev teams in Eastern Europe and make it much harder to hire for local startups.

I think the core of a "fix" is here. If I were building an engineering org today I'd either go remote-only or build it somewhere which is not SFO/SEA/NYC and friends. An underwhelming bay area compensation package puts you at absolute top-of-market in most European cities. So Y-Combinator can help companies get out of dodge immediately after raising a seed round. For recruiting, warm up a pipeline of talented enginee…

> If I were building an engineering org today I'd either go remote-only

There's a reason why so few startups go the remote-only route. How many remote-only startups ended up a success? I can't recall a single remote-only unicorn, for example.

> For recruiting, warm up a pipeline of talented engineering managers outside the tiny handful of overheated areas in the US.

Finding good engineering talent anywhere is hard. You're supposing you can find them in various foreign, remote countries you don't know. It's not that simple.

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

#159

Post by castlecrasher2 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #127
aphextron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The big players have drastically pushed up developer comp. The "maybe" money that might come from a best-case startup exit isn't holding up well against the RSUs of the big players. I have friends pushing total comp north of 400K / year at the usual suspect companies. Over a five-year-span-till-liquidity your "maybe" money is competing against a near-guaranteed $2M in comp. I can second this. But it's not just the m…

I work for a non-startup/non-tech company with unlimited PTO and people here take advantage of that all the time. Unlimited PTO doesn't lead to work-balance nightmares; it's the result of management discouraging employees from taking breaks.

I've worked at two companies with "unlimited PTO" and it also worked as stated.

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

#160

Post by gwbas1c »

I was an early employee.

Lots and lots is said about compensation, I won't repeat it here. (Just treat equity like a tip.)

One pro is that I got to set a lot of architectural direction. Because we were small, I didn't need to put up with a lot of groupthink or bad habits when fixing some very bad problems in the codebase.

Another pro is that I had some of the best working relationships in my life while we were small.

A con is that startups are crawling with bozo managers and people who just can't handle the responsibility that their role entails. I used to spend a lot of time pushing back on people throwing unreasonable amounts of their work onto me.

(QA who wouldn't follow process and wrote incomprehensible tickets; and support people who just wrote "it doesn't work" instead of diagnosing the customer's problem.)

Ultimately, as the company matured, the above problems worked themselves out. I helped define the processes for QA and support. Defining these processes is a big pro, IMO, of working for a startup.

Also: Incompetent people manifest themselves in startups just like in large corporations; it's just that large corporations tend to absorb them better. Startups die quickly if they can't push the incompetent people out.

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