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Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
491–500 of 968 posts
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's what I'm saying. I'm clarifying that the value of the RSU is when you got them at the time of the offer. Not at the time you sell it or vest it.
The value of an unvested RSU is a very tricky thing. I had to try to value my potential RSU benefits when I got divorced. It's not the same as a stock option where even if you leave, you have an asset that you can still purchase at the contract price. RSUs are little more than a promise that at point in time X, company promises to release Y stocks to you. I'm pretty sure you could argue that RSUs have zero value unti…
RSUs are guaranteed money at big tech companies. I have never heard of any MAFANGs rescinding their RSUs. In fact, when shopping for a house in SV, my mortgage lender also took unvested RSUs in account when deciding how much to pre-approve me for.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are only a handful of companies that pay $400k/yr for senior software engineers and MSFT ain't one of them (facebook, and google do however). None of the companies in top tier tech can afford to pay substantially less than any of its competitors. That's why they're "top tech". If what you said was true, and FB or Google paid a lot more than say MSFT or AMZN, then all the best senior engineers would eventually…
No, he’s correct. MSFT pays a lot more in the Bay Area than Seattle because the cost of living is so much lower in Seattle (no state income tax, housing, etc) that they can get away with paying a lot less. My total compensation went up by ~80% going from MSFT to FB (but my housing costs 3x in the Bay Area vs what I had in Boston so it’s not as large an increase as it sounds).
What you're saying is that the difference isn't between companies - MSFT vs FB - but between areas: Seattle vs Bay.
I'm mostly aware of pay in the Bay and a few similar areas, and it is largely equivalent at the levels posted here.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why do founders get over 10x early employees? Because founders take at least 100x the risk of an early employee, and 100x the personal risk and commitment. Founders generally aren't getting paid (at least until revenue or significant funding comes through) and they have 100x the impact that an early employee does on the success of the company. If an early employee doesn't work out, the founders just replace that pe…
> Because founders take at least 100x the risk of an early employee, and 100x the personal risk and commitment. Simply untrue. Many early startup employees work intense 12-14 hour days. Are you saying founders work 1,200-1,400 hour days? Early startup employees also risk about the same as founders. Maybe a little less, financially. > Founders generally aren't getting paid (at least until revenue or significant fundin…
Founders don't work many more hours per day than early employees at x100 less than early employees. They work many more months/years before earning an income at all.
By the time the employees start to get hired, a large part of the risk and work that a founder does to earn their hopeful future fat stacks has already been done.
Now, are startup compensation packages a little low and relying on the money making reputation of past decades? Sure. That doesnt mean there isn't a world of difference between working hard on something that has a decent amount of vetting for below market rate, and working hard on working that's almost certainly not going to pan out for zero dollars.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Many early startup employees work intense 12-14 hour days. Are you saying founders work 1,200-1,400 hour days Hours and days don’t capture the value. I have risked my house, every minute of spare time, I have put Heroku bills on my personal credit card, paid contractors out of my pocket and had to create something out of nothing within a difficult market vertical. Comparing that to a “long day at the office” doesn’…
Just to bring some perspective...when I was starting out, I was a teacher. I put in 12-16 hour days, got paid the inflation adjusted equivalent of 23k/yr, and put school supplies on my CC while facing the significant opportunity cost of spending my most energetic years empowering others. I finally burned out and “retired” to 10x the salary at half the time and energy cost. My point is that people will do things that…
I loved your response. Just to add to it: early startup employees aren't working hard just because they selflessly want to contribute. They often hold the belief (typically mistaken nowadays) that their equity will be worth tens of millions of dollars, because that's what the founders told them. So they pour their heart and soul into this venture that will surely make them rich.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#496Just 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…
Related question but not directly to OP:
I'm a 6 years experience SWE making $200K TC (all "paper money") in Orange County (CA) right now -- is it realistic to ask for this much paper money if I wanted to attempt a spot at a FAANG(MUA)? I'm still young and flexible and have no trouble moving around so I wouldn't mind at least trying.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#497While I absolutely agree with the comp aspect and think that's probably the biggest point, I want to add that management skill is also a huge factor. I've seen a lot of startups (YC and otherwise) fail to grow the team well because the founders are good hackers but not good managers. In a large company your manager has a manager who will help guide and review them, and you can switch teams without risking your curren…
Those are all excellent suggestions, thank you. I'm intrigued by the idea of a "way to try out/transfer between startups who allow it". Would anyone else be interested in that, if we could broker it between a set of companies?
Along the lines of other comments: Consider creating “YC Engineering, Inc.” Good engineers are concerned with their career path more than comp packages.
One function of YCE could be to enable engineers to swiftly choose projects rather than companies. An ML expert may work on optimizing income for AirBnB hosts for 6 months and then switch to working on a project at Coinbase Prime. Maybe they like Coinbase Prime and migrate to that full time or maybe they want to explore more with ML and switch to optimizing Cruise routes.
This would also be useful for startups since “fire fast” is a challenge for some. It would seem easier for founders just to tell you “this person isn’t working out: they may be better suited for a more mature YC company.” At that point you could pull that employee and have them placed at a better suited company.
Lastly I think it is a good opportunity for educating engineers. If a good engineer is proficient in Python but YC needs a lot of blockchain/financial engineers (e.g. Coinbase’s ridiculous hiring growth) then there could be opportunity to guide that engineer to such a path if they’re interested.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#498And where there are cons, what would fix them? My understanding is insurance and benefits are a weak area. The internet ate my really long comment. Suffice it to say, if you haven't already, I will suggest you (YC) talk with an Aflac agent.
Do you have any specifics on what issues you have seen?
Things I've seen:
* No 401ks (which means I'm paying extra in taxes).
* Crappy health benefits (prescriptions costing 4x what they do under other plans or high deductible plans).
* No commuter benefits/pre-tax Clipper cards.
* No tuition reimbursement or education budget, the assumption being that just working is supposed to be the whole of the employee's career advancement.
* No parental leave.
* No childcare support (why this isn't rolled into coworking spaces I have no idea.)
* No HR in case of harassment, politics or personal vendettas.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
FAANG + Microsoft + Uber + Airbnb hire thousands and thousands of engineers in the Valley and Seattle every year. 400K is L5-L6 salary (senior engineer, first level manager). There are a TON of engineers making that money. They are not really outliers, and FAANGMUA is also not really outlier considering Google itself has 80K employees and Amazon and MSFT have over 200K employees.
Excuse me but the median senior software engineer at Microsoft does not make $400k/yr in TC. Same goes for AMZN. There are only a handful of companies that pay $400k/yr for senior software engineers and MSFT ain't one of them (facebook, and google do however). Go checkout Blind if you don't believe. Or ask your friend at MSFT. And like someone else said, first level managers are more like 250-350k range, not 400k, ye…
Anecdotally, I know plenty of 66s and 67s at Microsoft that are pulling $300-500k in TC. Microsoft’s stock rise has also made this decade extremely nice for grants.
Course, with the average house going for $1 million in Kirkland, they have to spend it.
Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work at Google, used to work at Amazon, and had an offer from Microsoft. From my experience, Google/FB pay much more than Amazon and Microsoft if we're talking about total compensation so I think it's a little more rare than what you're saying. I don't think it's that easy to hit L5 either. My teammate is amazing and had like 8+ years at Microsoft before joining Google but was hired as an L4. For most SWEs, L5 woul…
I keep hearing about the FAANG companies and I have to wonder what can I do to make my proactiveness pay off in getting into the running for job interviews? I feel like it's easier to get their attention as a CS student seeking internships than as a self-taught mid-level developer (which I am). I have interviewed on two separate occasions by Amazon, and only contacted by Microsoft (submitted some forms, but they neve…
No, they're voracious recruiting machines. It is certainly possible to get hired by writing into a webform; it's not a particularly effective way relative to others, but it works enough to justify them sending those leads to recruiters.
Other than knowing an acquaintance that works in the company I see no other way to get into an interview more quickly. You should certainly cultivate an internal advocate. In no circumstance will that be worse than applying cold; it will often be better.