

Why Non-engineers Think Engineers Are Better Off Joining Startups - diego
http://dbasch.posterous.com/why-non-engineers-think-engineers-are-better

======
wallflower
We've done polls here on HN before of where people work. A significant
percentage of the HN community work for companies that are not startups.

Sometimes even just reading on HN about people who are succeeding (or
persisting) with their side projects or about successful startup founders or
failed startup founders is enough to release the tension (momentarily) - to
jump from a certain 9 to 5 reality to very real world of a real start-up.

The ability to leave your job at 5pm is very much a benefit, one that 99% of
startups will never offer.

That being said, you will never become wealthy[1] without ownership of
something that produces income. That will almost never happen at a BigCo. My
mom had multiple patents - for which she got a nice lucite paperweight [2]

[1] My definition of wealthy == How long you can maintain your current,
preferred lifestyle without working. This means building a semi-passive/semi-
active income from your own products. Binging on consulting income isn't the
same. Yes, you can adjust your preferred lifestyle to meet median cash flows.

[2] Example from the "Corporate & IP Recognition Company" (LOL)

<http://aztecawards.com/clear-lucite-silver-plate-sq12.html>

~~~
meterplech
I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a
company you own. But, I am not sure joining a startup you don't own doesn't
give you a hugely better chance of wealth. Especially if you are not one of
the first 5 employees or some very high position. Let's say you have the
skills to be a VP Engineering of a startup or a engineering manager at Google.

Let's be generous and say you get there after a series A and make 100k/year
startup and get ~.5% ownership subject to dilution. Compared to that Google
job making 175k a year plus bonus and stock options. Let's be conservative and
say total compensation of 200k. In 5 years you are forgoing $500,000 + any
return on asset you made. That startup has to sell for $10 million without
taking any more investment for it to be worth it.

Obviously this is possible, but it's not clear which one is better off most of
the time. Like the article says- do a startup if you want to do one. Not if
you want to get rich. If you want to get rich go be a quant at a hedge fund.

~~~
ojbyrne
Eric Schmidt has never started a company. He's the 129th richest person in the
world:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt>

~~~
CapitalistCartr
He doesn't say its impossible, so one example doesn't refute, or even respond
to his statement. Not only is the plural of anecdote not data, neither is the
singular.

~~~
ojbyrne
"I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a
company you own"

Only - "Alone in kind or class"

Sure sounds like he said it was impossible to me.

------
samt
Good times are better for working at startups for one reason - switching costs
are lower. When you know that if $employer runs out of cash but you can find
another job in a week, there's very little risk involved as a startup
engineer.

That said, as an engineer being a startup "employee" is a sucker's game.
You'll never get enough equity or intangibles to compensate for the
risk/effort/opportunity cost.

~~~
flacon
"That said, as an engineer being a startup "employee" is a sucker's game.
You'll never get enough equity or intangibles to compensate for the
risk/effort/opportunity cost."

As someone that just left a startup I couldn't agree more...

~~~
samt
So what's your plan now? :)

~~~
angstrom
I would sell the equity and invest it in a six pack of socks. Honestly, I
think anyone working for a startup should continually re-evaluate their
commitment to the vision every 3-4 months. If it pains you to see where things
are going you're better off cutting lose. I've seen people waste 4 years at a
startup only to leave empty handed.

It can be very much like a gambler's dilemma. The more time/money you invest
the harder it becomes to walk away. Eventually they realize they've stayed not
because they agree with the vision, but because they don't want to cut their
losses.

One such startup I know of is going 10 years strong. I think the VCs are in
the same situation as the former coworker I mentioned; throwing good money
after bad.

~~~
fookyong
wow. I want to upvote this 100 times - you basically describe my exact
situation.

I'm leaving a startup next month. I'm in a senior position so it was a very
difficult decision to make in addition to what you said about the time
invested / gambler's dilemma.

But in the end, like you said, I just don't agree with the direction the
company is going - whilst at the same time I have no doubt that the company
will continue to successfully raise VC, for the exact reasons you describe.

In a nutshell, get out of my mind, sir!

------
mgkimsal
"and then build a crappy, I-hope-nobody-sees-this-code prototype."

And it'll end up being 'production' code because "we already have it and they
already paid for it!". And the crappier it is, the longer it will remain in
production and the harder everyone will fight against rebuilding it to be not
crappy.

~~~
preek
That's why I quit my job at a big corporation (not a classic IT behemoth,
though) and will start working at a startup in two weeks.

The code there sucked - and most coders did, too.

~~~
j_baker
I hope you aren't expecting startup code to be a lot better. Not only will
startup code tend to be crappy, but you run into a _ton_ of people (managers
and coders alike) who will all but insist that your code be a certain level of
crappy. In other words, if you write good code, then you've spent too much
time on it and should have moved on to the next project.

I don't mean to give you the impression that your new job is going to suck. If
you chose the right startup, you're going to have an awesome time. But I also
think it's important to be realistic.

~~~
danenania
Is this such a bad thing? Engineers often have a tendency to to focus too much
on writing 'good code', and forget the bigger picture of what they're working
on. Technical debt is a real issue, but it's something to manage, not
eliminate. I'd much rather be in a place where most engineers have at least
half a pragmatic eye on products, features, and ux rather than only caring
about code quality and the elegance of their algorithms. Yeah, it can also be
good to have a few of those code quality sticklers around to keep everyone
honest, but they shouldn't be running things or setting the tone.

I think a big part of the reason a management tier is needed at all in a lot
of smaller companies is the general unwillingness of engineers to sacrifice
code purity for expediency.

~~~
j_baker
And I think the need for engineers in smaller companies is the unwillingness
of management to sacrifice expediency for purity. :-)

Regardless, that's beside my point. It sounded like the person I responded to
wanted to work on better code, so I was just pointing out that startups aren't
necessarily any better in that respect. I'll leave it to him to determine how
good or bad that is as I'd really rather not get involved in this old debate
again.

------
jswiente
"You will have stability. If you are hired by Oracle or Google [...] chances
are you'll be able to work on this specific problem for long enough to
accomplish something."

Large companies change all the time. Departments are merged, strategies are
changed and projects are stopped constantly. I think this point isn't valid.

~~~
pestaa
Engineers aren't fired just because a project is cancelled. Generally speaking
jobs are safer than startups.

I agree the point isn't valid, though, but I think yours isn't, either.

~~~
Tangurena
I work at one of the national labs. Almost everyone on my floor is an ME (I'm
an EE, but I'm writing code). The majority party in this Congress hates what
we do (renewable energy) and thus it is extremely likely that a large part of
our budget will get cut next fiscal year. So in our case, lots of engineers
will get fired when our projects get canceled. Partisan bickering might not
get a budget passed before the fiscal year starts (October 1), but I'm saving
money and paying off debts, just in case.

~~~
robryan
Sounds like NASA, constantly in limbo because of political disagreement.
What's the public line though on wanting to cut money from renewable energy,
one of the targeted for being "more efficient" in funding?

------
zeemonkee
The argument seems to be BigCorp vs. startup. You can also work in a
relatively sane, small-to medium sized stable business.

~~~
mryall
In terms of the points cited in the article, there's not that much difference
between BigCorp and a SME. Both would pay similar salaries and have stable
long-term roles for engineers, which I think were the author's points.

------
hackerbysea
I have to say I'm a bit surprised by the sentiment favoring working at big
companies among the majority of comments here.

One possible explanation: 1) Statistically, most engineers work for big
companies. 2) By human nature, people tend to stick to their current jobs,
most likely a big company job.

Here is a related thread at Quora: [http://www.quora.com/If-I-want-to-be-an-
entrepreneur-later-s...](http://www.quora.com/If-I-want-to-be-an-entrepreneur-
later-should-I-now-work-for-a-large-company-or-a-startup)

------
pestaa
The sad thing is, most engineers are constantly in information-gathering mode,
putting them in the front of the hype.

Any logical being would play with the idea of financial freedom. And it is
unlikely in a "regular job."

~~~
baq
_Any logical being would play with the idea of financial freedom. And it is
unlikely in a "regular job."_

Not like it's likely in a startup.

~~~
pestaa
Anything greater than zero is more likely in my book. Most startups can't be
automated, though, so are all the jobs. An automated startup equals freedom
though.

------
ashr
I have no idea if there is a specific non-engineer that this post is talking
about. The author of the referenced techcrunch article Bindu Reddy is
certainly not a non-engineer : <http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bindu-reddy>

It also seems to me that this post is criticizing two sentences out of the
entire article (<http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/engineers-startups/>)
without properly understanding them with rest of the context. All this article
is saying is that due to the market warming up, now is a good time for
engineers to work at a start up.

That said, I agree with the point that dbasch is trying to make even though I
don't think that they needed to be presented as a 'rebuttal'.

~~~
jshen
All this article is saying is that due to the market warming up, now is a good
time for engineers to work at a large company.

Both of these are true, so the real fact is that now is a good time to be an
engineeer.

------
lylanm
"it would _never_ cross my mind to make a blanket statement that all engineers
should work at startups" --> I completely agree. In fact, such blanket
statements about almost any kind of advice is often naive.

~~~
arvinds
I think it is more to make a point: <http://www.paulgraham.com/discover.html>

------
jeanhsu
Totally agree with a lot of the points you brought up. There are pluses to
working at large companies, and many people are happy there. I left Google to
work for myself and then joined a startup, and couldn't be happier. Wrote a
response as well and included your post: <http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=247>

~~~
earthaid
I think Jean's post helpfully encapsulates the value of this discussion: that
engineers (and non-engineers!) should certainly consider startups in general
as an employment, educational, and financial experience that at a base level
(say, in the context of a well-funded startup) will probably at least rival
work in a larger corporate setting.

But, as lylanm also points out below, perhaps the larger point is that there's
not much merit in comparing the prospect of work at an abstract startup versus
the prospect of work at an abstract large corporation --- especially if you
don't have an offer from either.

Whether you're looking for a first job or just a new job, it's certainly worth
exploring whether a particular startup might be a better
fun+financial+whatever fit for you than another opportunity that's been
extended to you at a particular established company.

------
sanj
The "why" question wasn't answered in the actual article.

It was a reasonable debunking of a deplorable TC article, but I was really
interested in the difference in mindset.

