

Ask HN: What skills do I need to work at a startup? - jwdunne

Interested in seeing if I have what it takes to work at a startup as a programmer and if not see what I need to do to make it happen.<p>So I guess the question is what do you look for when hiring engineers? Are there any must have skills?
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sidcool
For software engineers, I believe grit and persistence is the top skill.
Startups need people who take ownership of their work as if their lives
depended on it.

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notduncansmith
In my experience, "as if their lives depended on it" means "for 10-14 hours
per day, and most weekends". Also, don't expect to be terribly well-
compensated for your efforts. Your pay will be below market rate, and job
security is (understandably) pretty low. Your goals should be aligned with the
startup's mission - you can't be in it for the money.

I think a lot of people are attracted to the startup lifestyle because it's
been so glamorized (I was). It actually really sucks, and more than likely the
startup will fail. I couldn't find a single startup in SF willing to
compensate fairly given that fact, because they have to "stay lean". You
really have to want what the startup wants, and join for altruistic reasons -
the pay is just to keep you from starving to death while you work there.

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JoeAltmaier
I've worked at startups all my life. Two lived; the others didn't. In each
case I was fairly compensated when I joined, but no raises for several years
put me behind the curve for most of my working life.

Combine no raises with a poor starting salary (which is not the norm in my
experience) and indeed you would have a recipe for a bad return.

Even counting my two successes, in the cases we were bought, the parent
company's stock subsequently tanked so I made very little of the difference
back.

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notduncansmith
I couldn't find a starting salary for a mid-level backend + senior-level
frontend engineer in the Bay area above 80k. One company offered 60k, which
would be low for Alabama - in SF, that's downright insulting. I'm pretty sure
I just got unlucky with the companies I talked to, though.

~~~
seekingcharlie
I find that really hard to believe. I'm a designer / junior front-end dev & I
would laugh at 80k now that I'm in SFBA.

