
Show HN: Work at a Startup – Find a Job at a YC Company - mattlong
https://www.workatastartup.com/?1
======
kogir
This may be an unpopular opinion here, but I'd strongly advise you _against_
working at a startup as an employee.

Some key things to consider:

    
    
        * What comp are you giving up?
        * Will your options be worth more than Facebook/Google/Amazon/Apple RSUs?
        * Can you even afford your options?
        * Will the options ever be liquid?
        * Are you willing to earn-out after an acquisition?
        * Will you have to do extra work? Are you compensated for it?
    

Starting a startup is great and you totally should. But working at one is (on
average) setting yourself up to be worse off financially than working
elsewhere. Make that decision deliberately and consciously only after really
running the numbers and thinking critically about it.

~~~
gkoberger
Financially, you're probably correct. Most people, however, work at a startup
for different reasons:

    
    
      * Less bureaucracy, more building
      * Larger impact on a product; not just being a cog
      * Generalist rather than one narrowly defined job
      * Ability to learn many new skills
      * Experience for starting their own startup
      * Working on something they believe in
      * Working with newer technologies
      * Can't get a job at a larger company (due to skillsets)
      * Easier place to make a jump into product management or people management
      * Flexibility (work from home, set own hours, etc)

~~~
Bahamut
I work at one of the companies in the parent post (~1/2 year), and worked
mainly at startups prior.

I have less meetings than I had at most startups by a significant fraction. I
have total technical direction on the product I work on (within reason). I
have gotten to code in more languages than at any other shop I’ve been at,
most of which I had zero professional experience in prior. I work on an
internal product that excites me & is more complex than anything else I have
worked with prior professionally. I work with any technology I like that does
the job, new or old. Have no competition to jump into management because not
enough engineers want to become managers. I also have flexibility to take days
off unofficially because I work hard of my own volition, as well as work from
home, and almost all of the flexibility I have gotten from startups.

Not to say I don’t like some things about startups - after all, I worked at
them for about 75% of my career spanning over 5 years. There are a lot of
myths about bigger companies out there though I have found at my current job,
and friends at similar companies like Facebook and Netflix.

------
mangoman
The one thing I saw missing from the application was a salary floor /
expectation. I currently support my wife on my salary, and wouldn't be able to
work for less than a certain amount. I would apply through this for a lot of
startups, but I wouldn't want to go through the entire interview process and
realize that they can't pay me what I need to support my family.

~~~
overcast
I'm single, with no kids, and no one to support but me. I'm not going to work
for less either.

~~~
Alex3917
> I'm not going to work for less either.

You can take equity instead of cash though.

~~~
overcast
No thank you. I'm not 19 anymore. I'll take the high paying job, and dump the
rest into Vanguard funds. Guarantee I'll make more money off of the majority
of nonsense stock options.

------
mattlong
Hi folks! I’m an engineer at YC and the main developer of Work at a Startup.

Startups are an increasingly popular place to work in the tech industry. At
the same time, the most common problem founders need help with is hiring
people. Work at a Startup is a new way to help solve this pain point for both
parties by connecting people interested in working at startups directly with
the founders of the 1100+ active YC companies by completing a common
application.

This the next iteration of the "Work at a Startup Day" idea that YC started
hosting way back in 2010 [0][1][2]!

For now, Work at a Startup is targeted at software engineers who want to work
at US-based companies since that’s the most common need of YC companies. We
will be expanding to other roles and countries once we've validated the
product for applicants and founders.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346103](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346103)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2888696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2888696)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3676578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3676578)

~~~
jonny_eh
Doesn't this compete with Triplebyte, a YC company that was founded to help YC
companies hire engineers?

~~~
ericd
I don't think that that is the long term goal of Triplebyte - I think their
goal is to help _every company_ hire engineers. YC companies are a convenient
first set of companies for a YC company to work with, though.

~~~
compumike
(I work at Triplebyte.) Yes it was a good way to get started, though we've
since grown to the point that the majority of companies hiring on our platform
are non-YC companies.

------
conanbatt
The friction of entering and it demanding so much information is a killer for
me.

If you do make a decision that only vetted applicants should have access to
apply, you should make it way more enticing to commit. Seeing some interesting
jobs and then getting excited will get the user more willing to forkout so
much information.

As it is, it felt like people harvesting and I just left the site.

~~~
mattlong
Thanks for the feedback. Making it more of a two way marketplace by letting
companies post job descriptions is certainly something we're looking at for
the reasons you list.

As for the concern on harvesting peoples' information, we try to be very open
about the fact that applications will indeed be made available to founders of
YC companies to facilitate employment opportunities. Are you not comfortable
with the "all or nothing" nature of that?

~~~
conanbatt
At the point I saw it, it felt that I was giving something valuable without
knowing what I'm getting in return.

Knowing that I don't have to fork out any information visiting "Who is Hiring"
makes it a tough sell.

I think there is a question on why here. Lets say you add company job
listings: why see them here and not on angellist (shows lots of information)
or who is hiring (no commitment) or the companies job page.

The beginning of the page mentions all big name companies which I would
already know and would just go to their pages for job postings where I can
better prepare my CV. It might be VERY different if the companies here are
small and unknown, and are somehow vetted or show unique YC information about
them. Angelist is too expensive for a 2-3 man shop just out of a batch.

I guess I picture a YC official page to be about segmentation, not open-wide
job listing competition with other big sites.

------
alexk
At first I did not understand that it is built by YC - thought someone had
used styling. It would be helpful to add some additional message, e.g.: "built
by YC team", may be even have an alias for a while work.ycombinator.com

~~~
mwseibel
good suggestion!

------
sirodoht
The main problem for me regarding this and other similar services (eg.
Triplebyte) is that there is no reason to care if you live outside the US.

Gettings a visa is hard, startups do not sponsor visas and the large majority
of startup roles are onsite. Unfortunately, this is yet another waste of time
for me along with many other similar opportunities to find a job when you
aren't part of a network of people working with startups.

That said, this seems like an interesting program by YC and I am looking
forward to see how it will continue and how the other countries' expansion
will actually work.

Congrats @mattlong.

------
Cshelton
It should be renamed to "Work as a software engineer at a startup". Looking at
the application, it seems that is all they care about.

~~~
harkmylord
Agreed. Was hoping to find a spot as a designer.

~~~
itronitron
Yeah, I consider designer (of SW) a software engineering position. Most UX
folks I know have CS degrees.

------
rglover
Alternative title: _Develop Hypertension at a Young Age_.

~~~
jmtame
I almost spit my beer out when I read this comment. It’s funny because it’s
true.

------
shafyy
Great idea. Not important, but wondering: Why aren't you using the
ycombinator.com domain for this?

~~~
mattlong
Good question! We've been discussing this a bunch internally and will probably
change in the near future. Doing so would provide a lot more trust that this
service is indeed an official YC project. And I've I've recently learned, will
do wonders for our SEO.

FWIW, the reasoning for not doing that from the start is that we wanted the
site to be very closely associated with the act of searching for "I want to
work at a startup". Perhaps that's a bit old school, but I still like to think
there's a little bit of value in it...either way, we'll likely just redirect
workatastartup.com to something on the ycombinator.com domain.

~~~
shafyy
Cool, thanks for the explanation. My opinion is that from a branding
perspective, a subdomain of ycombinator.com would be much better. Otherwise,
it seems like a cheap affiliate website (like those search engine optimized
domain names). Ironically, in your case, using a subdomain will be better for
SEO (as you correctly stated).

------
mwseibel
I'm so excited that this is launching - great work Matt!!! - This is one of
the features that I wanted YC to have way back in 2007!

------
wasd
Really cool. What niche is this serving that TripleByte doesn't? My impression
was that if you wanted to apply to any YC company at once, TripleByte was the
way to go.

~~~
mattlong
Good question!

Right now since we only target software folks, you're correct that the two
services do indeed overlap quite a bit. I think the differentiation will be
more clear once we expand beyond software engineers, which we're hoping to do
soon.

The two services also differ in that Work at a Startup does not attempt to do
any technical vetting; simply start conversations. The reasoning for this is
that when founders are hiring their first handful of employees, it's often
more important to find people that believe in your company's product/mission
rather than people with a particular background. Founders are often
constrained by how big of a "friend tree" they have to shake. Simply put, Work
at a Startup gives founders the opportunity to pitch a lot more potential
early employees than they'd otherwise have access to.

All this being said, TripleByte is certainly still a great option to go with
for a lot of folks and does indeed have a close relationship with a lot of YC
companies!

~~~
ktta
How do you anticipate new college grads will fare?

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dschep
> Sign in with YC Hacker News to get started

I think you meant:

> Apply to get started

~~~
sah2ed
I believe this means that they associate your HN handle with a
workatastartup.com account by reusing your session so you don't have to manage
yet another set of login credentials.

~~~
dschep
Sure, if that's what it did, but that's not what it looks like it does. (no
auth flow and they're on totally different domains)

------
atTheBank
Really like the idea of this and i think its well executed. Is there scope to
build this out beyond engineering roles?

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throwaway0071
I'm assuming this is US-centric. What's the approach to visas?

~~~
mattlong
Yes, for now it is US-centric.

Work at a Startup serves primarily as a matchmaker for potential employees and
founders and isn't directly involved in facilitating visa sponsorships or
other details of employment. While YC advises our companies on how to best
navigate and obtain visas, they are still ultimately the responsibility of the
founders/company.

------
andrewstetsenko
Recruiting process is so connected to applicant tracking systems, so applying
via external services vs directly to career pages won't provide you benefits.

Do you plan to integrate with ATS?

------
tensormoon
YC is building out more of their pipeline? What are the implications for this?
Is this to capture more data?

------
relyks
Does this apply for people looking for internships?

~~~
mwseibel
not yet but its on the list :)

