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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

danluu.com

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#81

Post by arbitrage314 »

silverlake wrote: post #57
arbitrage314 wrote: post #42

I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat): If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup. If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever. I…

AFAIK, working at Google et. al. pays well, but for most people your career will cap out at senior engineer. At other big companies (banks, telecom, oil, etc) a good Google dev can climb the tech career ladder quickly and make more money, get more responsibility (if that's your thing). Do you want to be a small fish at Google, or a big fish at Goldman Sachs?

I wouldn't want to stay anywhere long if I was the big fish simply because I enjoy learning new things so much.

That being said, at this point in my life/career, I'm not worried about being a big fish at either Google or Goldman Sachs.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#82

Post by georgefrick »

dhd415 wrote: post #74
georgefrick wrote: post #50

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?

I think it's important to remember that HN seems to focus on the experience of the 95th percentile developer (which is not to say that you are not one of those). The numbers in this blog post are well beyond the reach of even a 75th percentile developer. The GAFAs and YC startups of the world aren't even going to interview a 75th percentile developer let alone hire and compensate him or her at those levels. If you lo…

I don't disagree (or claim to be 95th percentile). The question I have in regards to your comment would be - so then isn't it an article about how he is getting ripped off?

What I mean to say is, my thought is that a developer in the 95th percentile would make their own product/business.

I've never thought of myself as an 'average' developer; but then again most people say that about their driving. It does make me wonder what a bad developer is though.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#83

Post by tachim »

stanleydrew wrote: post #55

I don't want to criticize too harshly, because I do think this analysis is generally good (if slightly unoriginal). The problem is that these analyses always focus on how you, as a prospective employee, can extract the most value from the world. Optimizing cash vs equity or arbitraging location or whatever. You can see it seep through all over the place in the language used. Sometimes it's subtle: > I’ve told that an…

Totally agree with this. The narrative shows up in more discussions than just startup vs bigco; it's also a very common decisionmaking framework when choosing first jobs out of college, when choosing projects to work on while at the company, etc.

It's pretty bad overall for net societal productivity. The main reasons this framework shows up so much is that (i) it's hard to really think through what kind of unique value one offers and to figure out how to leverage it, and (ii) it's tough psychologically to do something that doesn't optimize for the typical value function (prestige + income).

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#84

Post by peter303 »

I dont think these high salaries will last because we are in the midst of a startup bubble with too much VC money chasing too few good ideas. Echo 1990s.

However even if return to the 2004 scenario of 80K/100K that is still comparable to other professional careers and better than most college majors. So I'd recommend staying in CS if you like it.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#85

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

slewis wrote: post #73
herge wrote: post #7

I'd recommend anyone looking for their first job out of university to consider strongly a job at a startup. Consider it a 'finishing school', where you'll have the highest chance to touch as many different technologies and tasks as possible (from system administration, to backend to frontend work), as opposed to the 'Big Company' where (especially for a first job) you'll be focused on one task. The important thing is…

Everyone is either saying go to a big corp or go to a startup as your first job. What I usually tell new grads is: Get offers from both, and take the job that has the best potential person or people that you'll be able to learn from. There are a bunch of ways you can research this. Try asking people on the team to tell you who they've learned the most from in their career. Do not take a job where you'll be a lone wol…

Do not take a job where you'll be a lone wolf

Good point. Fresh out of school I went to a tiny company of under 10 people. I had a great time and I was really impressed with the skills of the people I worked with.

But within 18 months or so it became obvious that I had by far the most theoretical knowledge of anyone there and a lot of their approach was guesswork. In two years, I began to realize I was just as good an engineer as any of them, just inexperienced.

I should probably have left after year three when the fun-factor was in sharp decline, but I stayed 5 more years, then took a job at at $BIGCO where my salary almost doubled instantly and projects were much, much bigger and infinitely more fun.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#86

Post by astral303 »

bri3d wrote: post #79
lafay wrote: post #77

I've worked at both startups and big companies since I first came to SV in 1999. And some startups that became big companies. For me, there's much more than the practical & financial considerations laid out here. Deep down I know that I enjoy taking risks -- I like the roller coaster ride, and having a very real and visible impact on whether the company as a whole sinks or swims. Know yourself and don't ignore your i…

If you think you're that good at picking financially successful startups, why not invest just money rather than time AND money?

Time is money.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#87

Post by thomaslangston »

bri3d wrote: post #79
lafay wrote: post #77

I've worked at both startups and big companies since I first came to SV in 1999. And some startups that became big companies. For me, there's much more than the practical & financial considerations laid out here. Deep down I know that I enjoy taking risks -- I like the roller coaster ride, and having a very real and visible impact on whether the company as a whole sinks or swims. Know yourself and don't ignore your i…

If you think you're that good at picking financially successful startups, why not invest just money rather than time AND money?

Because you're not legally able to do so unless you're an accredited investor?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#88

Post by nkurz »

georgefrick wrote: post #50

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?

I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee.

Depending on your skills, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. But you might be surprised to learn that the author worked for Google an hour-and-a-half away in Madison? https://github.com/danluu/tex-resume/blob/master/resume.pdf

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#89

Post by lhorie »

herge wrote: post #7

I'd recommend anyone looking for their first job out of university to consider strongly a job at a startup. Consider it a 'finishing school', where you'll have the highest chance to touch as many different technologies and tasks as possible (from system administration, to backend to frontend work), as opposed to the 'Big Company' where (especially for a first job) you'll be focused on one task. The important thing is…

I recommend getting into a small company (i.e. 80-200 employees and profitable), if possible. At this size, you have opportunities to wear different hats and moving sideways, but you also get opportunities to see and participate in workforce scaling (helping form new processes, seeing new departments emerge, etc).

The important thing is to be vocal about what you want to do. If you came in as a frontend dev want to do more about backend work, go find gossip about new projects and express your areas of interest to higher ups. If you want manage people, offer to improve the technical hiring test. If something is stupid (maybe there's burnout due to too much overtime, or a process is over-bureaucratic, or some aspect of development is too cowboy), be proactive and offer solutions.

The unique thing about small companies is that there are enough people that narrowmindedness and complacency start to appear (and with it, process problems), which gives you plenty of opportunities to prove yourself with out-of-the-box thinking, but not enough bureaucracy to prevent you from being able to make changes.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#90

Post by logical42 »

acconrad wrote: post #80
arbitrage314 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been out of school 3-4 years, and I work at a large company. I'm about 10% a manager, 10% a resident data scientist, and 80% a coder, and I love my job.

so are you a valley coder at netflix? seems suspect you already have a 250k salary as a 26 yr old

My personal observations (at a bigco) suggest that it's not super unusual to have 200k-250k total comp at a bigco after a few years.
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