
Myths About Working as an Engineer at a Startup - karlhughes
http://karllhughes.com/2014/myths-working-engineer-startup/
======
silverbax88
FTA:

 _“Rock star” engineers sometimes work at startups, but usually they work for
big companies who can pay them twice the salary and have multiple indoor water
polo pools and racquetball courts._

THIS is something the 'startup world' and a lot of people on HN are not aware
of. Really, really bad-ass programmers usually work for big corporations for
good salaries. Not always, but usually. The reason I mention it is because
there is a myth that startups are built with the latest, greatest tech by the
brightest minds. Often this just isn't true...many startups are hacked
together by inexperienced programmers fresh out of college. Sometimes this
works, but often it means that nobody on staff is really a master coder,
nobody on staff has ever had to fend off Russian hackers attempting to take
down your code at 3 am, nobody on staff has had to deal with thousands of
users who wake up one morning, can't log in and no money is coming into the
company. These are the battles that most programmers learn in the trenches of
big companies, fighting tough battles, fixing complex problems under fire.
It's not ideal, but I'm not sure if you can really become battle-hardened
without going through _real_ battles with real jobs on the line.

This is what happened at Twitter - when the government came after them because
they were getting hacked too often, Twitter went out and hired 'real'
programmers and got things working. That's something that gets missed a lot in
the 'startup story'.

~~~
pptr1
"This is what happened at Twitter - when the government came after them
because they were getting hacked too often, Twitter went out and hired 'real'
programmers and got things working. That's something that gets missed a lot in
the 'startup story'."

That is interesting. Did you work at twitter or was this in the news?

~~~
silverbax88
I learned this at an OWASP conference, where several Twitter programmers
revealed this and what they did to resolve it.

The guys who were presenting never said 'they brought us in to fix things',
but that's exactly what they were. None of the guys who were building the
'hardened' Twitter were originally with the company - they were seasoned pros
brought in from other companies.

And yes, they did some bad-ass things to fix it. But the presentation was more
about OWASP level coders wanting to see what issues Twitter had to face.
Nothing was Earth-shattering at that level, but it was excellent to see the
amount of data they were working with and where their breaches were happening.

I don't want to speak for them, but it was obvious that one of their biggest
issues was people writing insecure code and checking it in without any review.
They have automated code review tools in place now.

~~~
kelukelugames
Thanks for sharing this. I'm trying to convince my own company to switch to
mandatory code reviews. Do you have a link to the talk or an article
describing:

>it was obvious that one of their biggest issues was people writing insecure
code and checking it in without any review. They have automated code review
tools in place now.

------
gaius
3 times I have worked for a small company that had a liquidity event, as an
early employee. That already makes me incredibly lucky, that those companies
didn't sink without trace. In each case, my stock was worth between 3-6 months
of my then salary. Which was a nice chunk o'change to be sure, but not FU
money, not by a long shot.

Now I work for big companies for a good salary. I put in the hours to get the
work done, but I'll never do 80+ hour weeks again unless I own a _ton_ of
equity in the venture.

The truth is that startups, like the music biz, like video games, like PR
require a steady stream of young people with unrealistic ideas who can be
exploited. Don't let yourself be played, is my advice now to young engineers.
Especially don't take career advice from a VC or a founder...

~~~
danielweber
_Don 't let yourself be played, is my advice now to young engineers_

Now how do we get them to listen? When I was a young engineer, I don't think I
would have listened to what you're saying here, although I now know I'm in
complete agreement with it.

~~~
marcosdumay
> Now how do we get them to listen?

We don't. No generation was able to do that.

But that's not completely a bad thing. When the newer generations repeat the
same old mistakes, sometimes they find out that a few of those mistakes aren't
anymore.

~~~
gaius
It will _always_ be a mistake to overestimate the value of your stock or stock
options. I'm not saying don't do startups. I'm saying don't be exploited. Take
my 6-months-pay payout as a yardstick. Then ask if it's worth taking half the
going wage, for 3 years, in return even for the guarantee of it, when it is by
no means guaranteed.

If I were to go to a startup again, I would expect to be paid a premium over
the market rate, and I would see equity as a bonus. Otherwise why should I
bust my ass to make a rich VC even richer?

------
hox
Things not addressed that I think are important:

1\. Salary. Startups always seem to offer lower salary in return for said
equity.

2\. Career development. Startups demand that you build somewhat hacks
solutions for the sake of time. In many instances you might not get the
opportunity to learn how to do things right. Too much of this and you get used
to building hacks products.

3\. 80-hour work weeks might not be the norm, but what about 60 hour work
weeks? that's a deal bresker for some.

4\. Diversity. Startups are notorious for hiring people just like the
founders.

~~~
onion2k
_Salary. Startups always seem to offer lower salary in return for said
equity._

If you're the first engineer, sure. As the second or third engineer it's a lot
more likely that you won't get any equity (or nothing that won't be diluted in
to oblivion by the time an exit comes along), and you'll be on a lower salary
with a promise of a decent raise when the business gets traction. But that
might never happen...

Also, if you do get equity, it'll probably be as a number of shares ("We'll
give you 10,000 shares!") and no one will tell how many shares have been
issued. So in reality you're getting 0.001%.

~~~
angersock
What's a reasonable percentage for a first engineer, do you think (not
counting CTO)?

~~~
eastbayjake
Sam Altman thinks it's 1.5%[1]

I really liked another blog post by Sam about equity distribution as a startup
grows: "a company ought to be giving at least 10% in total to the first 10
employees, 5% to the next 20, and 5% to the next 50"[2]

Quora has anecdotal evidence that 0.5 - 1.0% is common[3]

[1] [http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire](http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-
hire)

[2] [http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-
equity](http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity)

[3] [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-typical-amounts-of-
equity-...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-typical-amounts-of-equity-
offered-to-engineers-by-startups-of-different-sizes)

------
bane
I bounce back and forth between startups (5), small companies (2) and mega
corps (3) and so might some unique perspectives.

The truth is that for most of the world, bigco's are the default and startups
have to sell their employment in order to get employees. They have to find
some way to offset the inherent employment instability that working for a
startup entails. This has created many of the myths in this article that
continue to be perpetuated.

Some observations:

Like a few other comments, I've noticed that the absolute best-of-the-best
work for "real companies" and not startups. The reason working for a bigco
doesn't get the reputation of having the best engineering talent is simple,
talent is like any other thing with a group of people, it follows a pyramid
distribution. Most of the people are terrible and at the bottom of the
pyramid, and as you move up the pyramid you end up with smaller and smaller
populations of very good people. Except you can't have fractions of a person,
so in bigco, where the projects might involve 100 engineers. That top-notch
engineer accounts for only 1% of the staff. Sure maybe 80% of the staff may
not be any good, but that still leaves you with 20% who are _at least_ decent
work-a-day engineers.

In a startup, your entire engineering staff might be 10 people, and your top-
notch engineer now accounts for 10% of all the staff time spent on a project.
It's almost like having 10 top engineers instead (if you try to scale the
numbers to match). It's easier to find 3-4 above average folks to round out
the top of the pyramid and the rest are just there to fill in the mortar and
won't last long.

This means that your individual contribution is magnified in a startup.
_Everything_ is magnified in a startup. Decision making power, individual
contribution, etc. But so are negative aspects of working in a company. When
things go bad, they go bad really fast in a startup. The worst political
dramas I've ever seen were all in startups. Points of failure are enormous in
small startups.

One of the thing that happens as companies mature and grow is they learn they
can no longer tolerate so much magnified failure, so they build in controls to
spread around responsibility so they can better survive what would be a
catastrophic failure in a startup (founder leaving, tech decision turns out to
be wrong 18 months in etc.).

The side effect is of course that in order to turn down this magnified
negativity, the magnified good stuff also gets squashed.

------
rokhayakebe
Would you rather work for a startup (vs. established co.) that pays you 130%
market salary without equity or take 90% with the possibility of great upside?

Edit: I am asking because I think startups should be paying more than
established companies because of many reasons: 1) the work environment is
usually shitty (nice, clean offices are nice), 2) no financial security
because they are not established, 3) no one outside the startup world wants to
hire someone who failed numerous times before, 4) it is much easier to go from
Big Co to Small/Tiny Co, then the opposite. (4) is particular true and quite
dangerous for recent grads. Young recent grads are better off founding their
own company or joining Big co instead joining fresh startups.

~~~
minimaxir
Your criteria discuss the demand-side of the equation as a prospective
employee, but not the supply-side as the employer, which _can 't_ pay a higher
salary due to a highly-constrained or non-existant budget.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
Such an employer might do well to reconsider whether his product is worth what
he thinks it is, then, if he can't muster the budget to pay employees a market
(or above market, given the risks) rate.

------
rayiner
From the perspective of someone who worked for a startup as his first real
job:

> You are also likely to get some input on the way future engineers are hired
> and the way your technology team interacts with the business team.

This is true, and not entirely a good thing. I was interviewing new technical
hires within a year or two at the organization. I asked stupid nerd questions
(if you knew C++ like you claimed, you'd know the ins and outs of this
template expansion), instead of important ones like: if you're stuck, will you
ask for help, or just silently beat your head against the wall and not have
anything to show weeks later?

> An environment that encourages learning and experimentation keeps engineers
> more motivated than one that stifles its technical talent.

It's also an environment that encourages reinvention of the wheel, especially
by younger engineers with little supervision that don't necessarily realize
that a particular wheel already exists and is ready to use.

> One of the best skills you can learn if you intend to work for a startup is
> the ability to figure out things on your own.

This is an existential issue at a startup, and particularly important if
you're fresh out of college, because you don't know anything and thus must
learn everything. This is both good and bad. On one hand, I learned a lot more
in a short time than my friends that went to work for big organizations. On
the other hand, I always felt like I never really learned how to do things
"right" because a startup is a setting where you don't necessarily have the
time to dot your I's and cross your T's.

> It seems like startups move faster and create solutions to difficult
> problems more efficiently than large companies, but the truth is that they
> normally have a lower quality threshold than their corporate counterparts.

This rings true to me. It was really a revelation to me when I joined a large
organization for the first time. It was a well oiled machine, with roles for
everyone and someone whose job it was to do anything that needed to be done.
Startups have many advantages, but they're not necessarily productive or
efficient places.[1] You can spend a lot of time yak shaving at a startup.

Anyway, I'd do it over again in a heartbeat, but I'm not sure if I'd advise
someone to go to a startup straight out of school.[2] Maybe one of those well-
funded, well-established ones where they're far enough along to have real
internal processes and real management, but I'd save the "three guys in a
basement" stuff for later, when you know what you're doing. Again, YMMV.

[1] Of course, I imagine they can be if we're talking about a shop run mostly
by highly experienced engineers. But in general, I think big organizations are
better at getting more output from less-skilled labor.

[2] At least if you intend to make programming a long-term career. If your
intention is to jump over to the business side relatively soon, that advice
would change. You'll get _far_ more exposure to the business side at a startup
than you will at a large company.

~~~
untog
_Startups have many advantages, but they 're not necessarily productive or
efficient places._

So true. There's a lot of ranting and wailing on HN about 'MBA types' and
'managers', but having moved to a large company, I _love_ having project
managers. In the wrong company they can descend into ugly hierarchies, but
when you get it right a PM can handle talking to other departments/customers
and managing expectations, allowing you to focus on actually doing the work.
Few startups manage that.

~~~
danielweber
My first job was a start-up, too. The guy we put in as CEO (hey, he managed
another company before, and that company was successful) said how we had to
hire people who were "self-managing." I later realized this was code for "I
suck as a manager." He would bad-mouth "professional management" all the
freaking time, but what I saw from him was "amateur management."[1]

And management is hard. I'm not denying that. My previous attempts at
management have had poor results. But pretending or hoping you won't need it
because you aren't good at it is not the right solution.

[1] The old line about "if you think a professional is expensive, wait until
you pay for an amateur" rings especially true here.

~~~
mikestew
Yeah, I used to consider myself a "hands-off" manager. I realized that I
really was just a "lazy" manager. There's a happy medium between micro-
managing and not doing your job.

Don't get me wrong, I like folks who can be wound up and sent on their way,
and they come back with the job done without my intervention. But there's
managerial janitor work that always needs to be done. Whether it's helping
someone navigate a political landscape, or just making sure they have the
equipment necessary to get the job done, there's grunt work. And from my
experience, management done right isn't nearly as glamorous as being a trench-
working IC coder. If you take a management job so you can be "the boss", I
think you're doing it wrong and are going to suck as a manager.

------
cik
Trading stock for equity is almost never worth it - as a basic reality.
Clearly it is occasionally, or the system would collapse.

Let's say you receive $40k in salary a year (versus equity), for 5 years
(let's call that $200k, just for fun). Assuming you're diligent, that salary
difference can be invested, even in something as simple a preferred shares,
yield a compounded return of +/\- 5%, or ~$232k. So, we're not really talking
about high levels of risk.

Assuming your startup, like most others has 6 funding rounds before an exit,
and that insiders hold the traditional 4% at exit - we'd be looking at someone
who _started_ with a full 1% (of the initial, pre-dilution point) of the
company, yielding ~$341k over the same period.

Given that 1% holdings are rather high - 0.5% or less would be well expected.
That in turn means that unless your company exits for ~275M (over this 5 year
period), and you hold 0.5% then FINANCIALLY it's not worth being part of that
endeavour.

That being said there are several other great reasons to enjoy startups.

------
ehurrell
I'd agree with almost all of those, the biggest thing I'd say is, as with all
startup jobs, risk is a factor you shouldn't ignore, the last point I kinda
disagree with for that.

------
jacquesm
I miss: profit sharing is just as good as equity.

And: don't worry, you will get your shares.

~~~
glimcat
"Okay, how do you determine what portion of revenues are profit?" ( _crickets_
)

Seriously, I've heard this one waaaay too many times. It's right up there with
"you'll work for equity right, and maybe we can throw in a bit of cash if you
put in enough hours?"

~~~
jacquesm
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)

------
karcass
Having done nine startups now, all that rings pretty true to me. :)

~~~
mkoryak
9 startups over the span of how many years? Why do you keep doing it? Do you
have kids ;) ?

~~~
karcass
I started at Apple in 1994. I left to found a startup in 1997. It was an
delightful and educational disaster; I learned that I loved startups but
didn't have the constitution to lead them.

My tenures at these startups were anywhere from 18 months (acquired for modest
payout) to 8 years (IPO for modest payout).

I keep doing it because of the reasons listed in the article. Flexibility,
ability to have significant influence, get to work on cutting-edge stuff, have
to furiously learn new stuff. Plus I enjoy the recruiting and team building --
I am an extrovert. :)

Yes, I have one kid. I tutor math at her elementary school. (See
'flexibility', above.)

------
Ragnarork
As someone who's currently in his second ever job, which is in a startup
(first one was in a startup as well), I find most of it is quite accurate, but
then there'll always be edge cases. The startup world is really heterogeneous
and it's hard to draw conclusion about it that won't be really vague.

Just a small point I'd like to comment:

> Truth: you’ll get to set the culture, standards, and technologies used

This is quite funny because both startup I worked for were completely
different on this point. In the first one I was the only developer, working on
an application I created completely from scratch. I could decide entirely on
my own which technologies/tools I could use (heh, being able to start a
project in c++11 was really sweet). On the other hand, the startup I'm in
currently is rather resistant to change with regards to what we use, even
though we tried to push these change with arguments as to how it could speed
up work and eliminate some recurrent pain in the development process.

~~~
CmonDev
I guess the only ones who really set the technologies are the first hires, so
it's a big fat myth.

Otherwise why is every start-up putting some technology in the job ad title
(just look at HN job postings)?

------
breaksyourheart
What about the myth that you're doing something important?

~~~
BrianEatWorld
How do you gauge what is important?

If you consider what your role is in creating wealth, then arguably you are
doing something more important than most regular employees. How often can an
engineer at Google say that their specific input caused the company to grow by
500%? Yet, even employees at modest startups with modest exits can say they
had a significant hand in that level of growth.

If you are commenting on the "making the world a better place" trope, then
that may be a different story.

~~~
RogerL
I can create 100% growth by changing my customer base from 1 to 2.

Google can create 0.001% growth by adding another 100,000 customers (made up
percentage, you get the idea).

Is 100% > 0.001%? Not by my math.

You know who is changing the world? Some engineer working on optimizing the
cache lines on some Intel processor. Her work will, over the life of the chip,
save millions to perhaps billions of hours, with similar effects on watts
used, time wasted, and so on.

Can that Intel engineer give #s to quantify her impact on the world? Not
likely. It doesn't mean that it isn't there, nor that a rational person cannot
recognize it.

------
computerjunkie
As a recent graduate who is actively looking for a job, this is an eye opener.
Many thanks to the author for explaining what really happens in "Start-up
life".

What really struck me was the "full-stack rock star hacker" part. As someone
who has little to no experience in commercial software engineering and then
sees this phrase on many start up roles (includes ninjas and gurus), it really
sets an image that start up work is only for the incredibly bright individuals
who know it all.

I also believe some of the unrealistic expectations start ups have are one of
the major reasons why they fail. [0] "Rome wasn't built in a day".

Working long hours goes with the kind of person you are. 80 hour work weeks
may be productive for some people whilst others perform better with 37 hour
work weeks (or less). We are all different. Some athletes are born marathon
runners, whilst others are natural short distance sprinters. I think this is
where most start-ups also get it wrong and its also something that contributes
to their failures. Long hours once in a while is fine as long as you are
compensated for it.

Media is also a major contributor to what start ups should be like. As
mentioned in the article, you only hear about major acquisitions, huge crowd
funding campaign success, and crazy company valuations. But its a lot less
common to hear about the failures of start-ups, people burning out before
their first product release. Why does media never cover these failures?

As much as I would like to join a start-up or even start one, I will continue
looking for work at small-medium companies and big companies first, get good
experience first and still a personal life outside work. I guess its different
for other people, but I value work/life balance and I also think its the key
to having a successful career, be it entrepreneurial or employee based.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_wasn%27t_built_in_a_day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_wasn%27t_built_in_a_day)

~~~
watwut
Although we are all different, no study found a person that would be the most
efficient at 80 hour work weeks. Similarly, although our sleep needs differ
somehow, no study ever found a person that would be effective with under 6
hours a night sleeping.

~~~
computerjunkie
I agree that 80 hours per week sounds unhealthy and unethical. I could
possibly do it for one week but I will need a couple of days to recover
physically, a couple of weeks to recover mentally.

We do too much, expect too much, don't rest enough and get average-poor
results. Once we see the poor results, we try to use the same method again and
again, expecting different results. A vicious circle.

------
Apocryphon
"Big companies put junior engineers through training programs, send them to
advanced classes, and make them sit through certification tests, but I’ve
never seen any of those at a scrappy startup."

They do? Is employee training (outside of on-the-job learning) even a thing in
engineering anymore?

~~~
minimaxir
Facebook has an infamous 2-week "boot camp" for new hires.

~~~
nbm
It is a six-week program, although the last week or so is a bunch of teams
pitching themselves to the new hires, and the new hires meeting with the teams
they're choosing between.

------
steven2012
I disagree with the assertion that most "rock star" engineers work at big
companies. The only big companies that have true "rock stars" are Google and
Facebook and probably Microsoft too. All other "big" companies in the valley
started with rock stars, who probably got rich from options/IPOs, who then got
bored and left for another smaller company. Most companies have a huge brain
drain after the 4 years vesting period after the IPO. And this happens more
especially if the nature of the business changes, if management comes in that
ladens the company with process, slows down innovation, etc, basically make
the company less fun to work at.

~~~
emgeee
From what I've heard, pretty much every big company that does software is
supported in someway by "rockstars." The difference with larger companies is
that the ratio of bad to good tends to be much higher so that even if you work
for one of these companies, you might never actually encounter them.

~~~
steven2012
I've worked at several well-known large companies and it's pretty much not
true. Top programmers want to work and hang out with other top programmers, so
as a good, small company grows and starts losing their top guys to brain
drain, the best leave before it's too late. They don't want to be surrounded
by idiots or left doing shitty work.

Some of the ones that remain are probably very good, but they're not "rock
stars".

------
frobozz
>Truth: you’ll have more freedom to choose the projects you work on and how
you do them

This is contrary to my experience. In startups, any time you're not spending
developing the core product in the quickest way possible (i.e. the currently
established way, don't go exploring whether a new way might be quicker) is
seen as time ticking away on the death clock.

In a large corporate environment, I've been much freer, because we can afford
to play the long game. I've been able to choose projects, define completely
novel ones, choose different technologies to use, rather than the established
stack (and indeed, change what the "established stack" is).

------
mrbird
Andy Rachleff has great advice on people looking to start a career in
startups: Don't make a brand-new startup your first job--rather, look for a
mid-sized, growing company, where you'll learn some valuable skills and set
yourself up for better opportunities in the future.

[https://blog.wealthfront.com/hot-mid-size-silicon-valley-
com...](https://blog.wealthfront.com/hot-mid-size-silicon-valley-companies/)

The list is getting a bit out of date, and he's writing for business students,
but I think the advice is very sound for engineers as well. If I could do it
over again, I would have tried to find a similar path.

------
legohead
as for culture.. it's great in the beginning, but as the company grows to
medium and large, communication begins to break down, and bureaucracy creeps
in, poisoning the old culture.

with more people being brought in (usually at a rapid pace as you hit your
growth spurts), you have to adapt to more personality types, and company
culture&feel will suffer as a result

------
squidmccactus
So will I get a big payday from company shares even if my startup isn't very
successful?

~~~
bradfa
Go read up on the order that money is paid out to shareholders when the
selling/IPO price isn't much greater than the total investment to date. The
short version is that usually preferred shareholders (the investors) get paid
first and will get at least their investment back and then what's left is
split among the common shareholders. Also note that if the preferred
shareholders are "participating" or not matters, as they may get to be common
shareholders as well as preferred, meaning normal common shareholders get even
less in these kinds of situations.

If your startup isn't wildly successful and you're not a founder or investor,
don't expect to have a life-changing payday. The odds are against it.

------
swayvil
Engineering school : Work em like mules. Weed out the misfits.

Engineering job : Work em like mules.

------
porter
how much equity does the average early employee get? How about the average
late employee? What about for a company like twitch, that just exited?

~~~
kasey_junk
This varies greatly from startup to startup, but if you are not a founder it
will be very very small. Early in my career I was a very early employee (think
sub 10 employees) of a startup and was compensated with about 0.2% of the
company. Later in my career I joined a very late stage startup (think sub 500
employees) and was compensated with about 0.007% of the company.

Also note, that when I say compensated, that was with a standard 4 year
vesting agreement.

~~~
gkmoyn
This I just don't understand. The founders have the idea, leave their jobs
first, and raise the money. Fantastic. Then they bring in two engineers a
couple of weeks later, who quit their jobs for a nascent idea with no proof
it'll work. The founders have maybe 65-80% of the company between then (then
the investors and option pool), and the two engineers have 1% each. Everyone
works shoulder to shoulder and the early first employees contribute
critically, but the payouts on exit are off by orders of magnitude.

Why do people sign up for such lopsided payoffs?

Has any company tried a more gradual equity falloff? Say, with two founders
and two employees, instead of an equity distribution of: F1=34 F2=32 E1=1 E2=1
you might have: F1=20 F2=19 E1=15 E2=14

~~~
kasey_junk
Typically the founders don't have 65-80% of the company, some future investor
does.

~~~
gkmoyn
I'm talking about the equity on day 1, not on exit day. But even on exit, the
ratio is the same between founders and employees.

~~~
kasey_junk
Well depending on the legal setup, the company has 100% of it's equity on day
1. Founders and employees both are given options to buy said equity. That
ratio is not setup with the expectation that the founders will have 60-85% of
the equity in the future.

~~~
gkmoyn
Sorry, my original point must have been very unclear.

In a typical startup, the ratio of equity between founder and employee #1
might be 50:1 or even much more. I am always surprised that people sign up to
be employees given how fast equity grants drop for every subsequent hire. And,
I wonder if any company has tried more gradual equity drop-offs. For example,
where the ratio between founder and early employee grants is < 2:1, for
example.

------
quarterwave
Well written, tallies with my start-up experiences.

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yeahsathish
I Agree! Totally!

