
Reasons to Turn Down That Startup Job - tlo
https://deardesignstudent.com/8-reasons-to-turn-down-that-startup-job-1f82a00ade34?source=tw-e7b19f32aae8-1440703593147&gi=61a178a8bb91#1bac--share-176-724
======
jarjoura
I don't know, because I'm an engineer, but what I learned from Apple, was not
the work I was doing, but it was from being surrounded by such brilliance. I
would go to lunch (or dinner) with the guy who wrote the javascript engine. Or
pop into the office, during a beer bash, of the engineer who wrote the
original UIScrollView and pick his brain about why they did things a certain
way.

The actual day to day work though, was pretty routine. I was mostly fixing
bugs and rebuilding parts of features that had to ship in yearly timelines.
Every project I worked on that wasn't canceled was spent in refactor mode for
a good portion of the year. Let's rewrite this for 64-bit for example, or
let's rework this for this new framework. The actual customer should never
notice a change in the product, and usually the visual changes are subtle if
any. Lucky few got to work on the shiny demo-able new features and even fewer
lucky folks got to lead teams from their new products.

Lastly, most of the tooling that I got really good at and used to great
advantage was proprietary except for Xcode and Instruments. :(

So leaving to go to a startup I literally had to learn a whole new set of
tools _and_ APIs. Then again, I learned so much more about how to build a
product from the ground up at a small 11 person startup than I ever did at
Apple.

At a company like Apple, I gained skills adding a feature to an existing
product. At a startup, I gained skills building a product from nothing but an
idea.

~~~
onion2k
_At a company like Apple, I gained skills adding a feature to an existing
product. At a startup, I gained skills building a product from nothing but an
idea._

Being able to take an idea and turn it in to a product is a brilliant skill
that startups absolutely need, but equally, once the product is out there
being used, you need the other skill set to maintain the product and add new
things without annoying the users. Having people around who can do both is
exceptionally useful because it means the team continues to do productive work
for much longer without having to bring new people in.

To that end, I always recommend people get at least a few years experience at
an established company before joining a startup.

~~~
sown
> Being able to take an idea and turn it in to a product is a brilliant skill
> that startups absolutely need, but equally, once the product is out there
> being used, you need the other skill set to maintain the product and add new
> things without annoying the users.

But guess who gets the glory? :(

~~~
manigandham
If you want the glory, you're either in the wrong position or the wrong
industry.

~~~
collyw
"Fixing bugs and keeping the thing running" never sounds as impressive on a CV
as "created this product from scratch using ....".

That's how I interpreted what was being said rather than expecting fame in the
hacker community.

------
BinaryIdiot
This should really be "8 reasons to turn down that startup job as your first
job" as most of the bullet points are really only geared towards someone in or
leaving college. This should be obvious from the website's name but without
context it took me a minute before I realized.

That being said the #7 point of "The world needs fixing, not disrupting" seems
to lose sight of what disruption really is and conflates it with simply taking
advantage of people.

Disruption fixes things. In fact I think one could easily argue that
disruption fixes things far more effectively than anything else. Telling
someone to go find "real problems to solve" is simply useless. I don't
understand the point of trying to make the "service economy" a place "Where
entitled white boys figure out how to replicate their private school dorm
experience for life".

Sure there are issues in this area with SOME start-ups but going right into
calling it a race issue without providing anything useful just screams useless
rant.

Just drop #7, rename to 7 reasons and update the HN title to make it more
obvious of the target demographic. Just my thoughts.

~~~
facetube
Honest question: have you ever worked a job in that service economy and fallen
seriously ill? Things turn in to a shitshow really quickly when six-figure
bills start raining in from oncology, your for-profit insurer starts denying
claims after you've cleared the massive $5,000 deductible and $6,250 out-of-
pocket maximum, you're technically "self-employed" and have no access to
employee protections like paid sick time or FMLA, every bad health day you
have is another couple hundred dollars foregone that could have gone to
medical bills, and then the IRS piles on with self-employment tax to add
insult to (literal) injury.

Disruption in the US health care system would be great; until that happens, my
excitement over having cat litter delivered to my door in an hour or less
will, sadly, be dampened by the fact that some Americans are literally doing
their own minor surgeries over a bathroom sink right now. Wart removal is a
really common one, presumably because it routinely bills out $250-$350 per
visit in larger practices, and the typical visit count is high.

~~~
mahyarm
Your an employee with cancer, and your for profit insurance still deny's your
insurance, you quickly run out of paid and unpaid leave through the FMLA and
your still up shit creek with cancer. The employee designation doesn't seem
much better as far as I know.

The real problem are laws that try to offload welfare to employers when it
should be paid through a govt. tax system.

You have to take whatever IC income you get and divide it by 1.4 to get the
equivalent pay as an employee after benefits.

How is it like for people with no savings on medicaid or mediCAL?

~~~
facetube
Being an employee in the US can, in some cases, help preserve both your job
and your employer-facilitated health insurance while you're sick. The company
needs to have 50 or more employees for it to apply, IIRC, and you need to have
worked there for at least a year. There are slightly more generous laws in
some states. It's quite close to nothing, but still slightly better than
nothing.

I definitely agree that employment (or lack thereof) should have nothing to do
with health care.

------
vincentbarr
While I agree with some of the author's points, such as considering your
tolerance/appetite for working within a chaotic environment before joining a
startup, the article seems less about deciding whether to take a startup job
and more about why one should choose to work at an agency instead of in-house
for their first role.

>4\. You need to be going wider than deep right now.

The author's argument is roughly that working a at a startup is limiting
because you will work only a single problem because a startup is focused on
solving only a single problem.

I disagree.

1\. A company that seeks to solve a single problem is a company that has
focus; I would argue that many startups lack focus. Many startups do not know
the specific problem that they are solving nor for whom. Much time is spent on
product/market fit. So, I disagree with the premise that startups are solving
for a single problem. Successful ones do, yes, and that brings me to (2).

2\. The idea that you will work more broadly at a successful, time-tested
company than you would at a startup does not seem accurate. Startups are known
for allowing people to wear many hats for a reason (because they often require
people to wear many hats). For individual contributors, roles at a Fortune 50
company will be far more specialized – and opportunities to join projects even
slightly outside your domain of expertise will be far less prevalent.

This is why I think the argument is really about in-house vs. agency work.
Agency work will teach you their methods and provide you with exposure to a
range of clients and industries, sure.

3\. The premise that because your startup is focused on solving a single
problem, you will not get to work on a variety of problems or get to 'try
different things' makes me scratch my head... If only solving a problem were
that simple, that efficient!

~~~
zer00eyz
I think your criticisms of the explanation given are valid, but there is
something to be said for breath vs depth.

Programing and design are both hard in their own way, but fundamentally they
are a skill you can hone. Once you have mastered those skills the rest of it
becomes understanding your companies domain.

As an example from a programers perspective it is fair to say that every
system that deals with money interfaces with accounting. I have been in enough
places and exposed to enough systems, that I understand that these things will
need to happen, and how they need to happen. I also understand how to speak
with the accountants to make sure the data they are getting is what they
wanted or expected. It was only by seeing this repeatedly that the patterns
and language became clear to me.

I think it takes time to become a proficient coder in a professional setting,
as well as understanding the language and needs that are common to almost
every business. If your busy learning how to do your job, and how to deal with
the person in accounting, and trying to focus on your startups domain it might
get a bit overwhelming.

------
guelo
At a startup you'll have way more responsibility and be making decisions at a
much higher level than at bigcorp. You'll learn way more, move much faster,
wear more hats. It's not even close. That mentor will put you on some narrow
meaningless tasks, especially if you have some talent because then he'll be
afraid of you. I'd advise the opposite, go startup when you're young and have
less to risk and more to prove. If you have the energy and the talent you can
run circles around the big guys.

~~~
gedrap
>>> You'll learn way more, move much faster, wear more hats.

That's true. However, you lose the 'have you thought about doing it in X way?'
'would have never thought of that' thing. There are advantages in wearing more
hats but you absolutely must make sure that you constantly get some ideas from
outside (blogs, friends, books, etc).

>>> if you have some talent because then he'll be afraid of you

If one engineer is afraid of other, that's an indicator of a toxic workplace.
If it's the senior who's afraid because of someone much less experienced...
He's probably not that senior anyway and definitely not a good mentor.

>>> If you have the energy and the talent you can run circles around the big
guys.

It's not all black and white. Both have their pros and cons, as simple as
that.

------
Animats
From the article: _" I hate to tell you this, but right now the startup world,
or at least the ones making the majority of the noise, have their heads up
their own ass and don’t realize it stinks. They’re solving problems for the
top 5% of the population. How can I get poor people to do my chores? How can I
get people to drive me around without having to pay them health insurance? How
can a drone deliver my toilet paper within 15 minutes while the person who
fulfilled my order sits at her desk crying because she’s working a 15-hour day
and can’t take time off to get that lump in her chest looked at. This is known
as the service economy. Where entitled white boys figure out how to replicate
their private school dorm experience for life."_

YCombinator company list: [http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/)

How many of those fit the above criteria?

~~~
lucasnemeth
I find the rant of the article exaggerated and ridiculous. But actually a lot
of those companies do fit the criteria.

------
stared
Waiting for the perfect time and feeling not competent enough without a
patronage (i.e. points 1-3) are my biggest educational regrets. Sure, in
startups there is a bias for being too independent and confident. But
virtually all other places (including academia) are not good for skilled minds
and independent spirits - they rather expect you to respect hierarchy and
status quo.

Surely, not everyone is mature enough to learn by trials and _erorrs_. But by
listening to superiors one may never mature.

------
hittaruki
As a developer my experience has been the direct opposite. Getting my first
job at a startup was a the best decision for me. I think I have more width
(rather than depth) of knowledge because of it, (since I worked in wider
verity of roles).

Maybe for a designer this is different. Probably the title should point this
out?

~~~
rizzin
I'm with you here. After working at a startup for 1.5 years I became a solid
full stack developer with the ability to very quickly adapt to the current
task.

There's a point about going "wide" instead of "deep" in the article, and I can
surely say that working at that startup gave more "wide" than anything else.

And by the way, at the job where I am at the moment, I had to use a severely
limited skillset and had to use a couple of same technologies all over the
place.

------
enra
I think this rings somewhat true designers. However like any advice, it's very
generalized and won't necessarily apply.

I definitely learned a lot working as a freelancer and in a agency solving
different kinds of problems. The startup problem set is usually narrow with
variety of random things. Many startups are also not that willing to actually
invest in design (time or money wise), and it might not even make sense since
they are just trying not to die.

Many startups are not also not founded by designers, and won't really
understand design which also makes it harder to learn or practice good design.
(As devs, think about a startup founded by sales MBAs and try to teach them
good dev practices and make them understand what it is the value in it.)

I've also never worked at a startup where I could see someone as my design
mentor. Most of the time, you will just have to figure things out by yourself.

I'd still say that you learn a lot at a startup, and it can be a good place
for junior or more senior designers. It's about creating and nurturing one
overall experience and product and learning as you go. To do and learn good
design, as a junior design, the team you're joining matters a lot, as a senior
designer, the management matters a lot.

------
spamizbad
Boy do I disagree with these.

You're probably going to see more senior Agency people grumbling about
startups for two reasons:

1) Agencies are getting priced-out of the market for talented designers. Go on
glassdoor and compare how much mid-level designers at agencies make compared
to tech companies. It's close to double. As an aside, #7 is really rich. There
are tons of design firms out there who utilize of 1099 designers (some with
masters degrees!) who gross less than 38K a year for full-time work. Mike's
Mule isn't one of those companies, but the design industry isn't without it's
own 1099 abuses.

2) The startup world requires "product designers" who have a specific set of
design skills that agencies aren't well equipped to provide. Namely- ongoing
data-driven product development (as opposed to "Just enough research"),
systemized/componentized view of design (as opposed to "The customer is always
right/Take what I have created for you or I'll walk like Saul Bass"), and a
more collaborative "agile" workflow (As opposed to waterfall). Based on my
experience as an engineer working with agencies, they are reluctant to allow
their designers to directly interact with engineering teams -- we always had a
PM or an senior designer (who wasn't on our project) act as this mediator,
putting us in a time-boxed meeting when in reality we just needed to sit down
with 1 designer and just work through a few issues over <1 hour.

Because of this, agencies aren't just losing talent: They're also losing
potential clients. Startups tend to prefer tight-knit product teams, where the
designer is (or at the very least SHOULD BE!) a major component.

------
unabst
Let's not forget _for whom_ we work.

Replace the word startup with "that one inspired guy trying really really hard
to accomplish something awesome who's personally asking you for help" and I
think the post reads a bit differently. Like, do you buy their vision and feel
the awesome vibes there? This rules out #5 and #6 and #8 as motivation. With
what's on the line at startups, I doubt you'd even get an offer if they didn't
think you were ready. This rules out #1 through #4.

Reason #7 seems more to me as reason _for_ than against working for a startup.
Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google... aren't places to go either to "solve
real problems" as a designer.

Or am I missing something?

------
mikkom
Please note: This advice is for designers who have just graduated from art
school. The answers are for question:

"Q: I graduated from school this year and I’ve been looking for my first job.
After interviewing around, I finally got a job offer at a small startup. How
do I decide if it’s the right offer to take?"

------
tylercubell
Also relevant: Fuck You, Pay Me by Mike Monteiro.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U)

~~~
gedrap
Although it's a good advice, I can't really see how is it relevant.

------
joshkpeterson
This article is aimed at designers, and maybe it makes good points for them.

But for developers beginning their careers at a startup, most of these points
just don't apply. I cut my teeth at an early startup, and just for example:
people taught me how to be a better developer (#2), I went wider rather than
deeper (#3), and I had a great mentor (#4).

------
trustfundbaby
I hate to tell you this, but right now the startup world, or at least the ones
making the majority of the noise, have their heads up their own ass and don’t
realize it stinks. They’re solving problems for the top 5% of the population.
How can I get poor people to do my chores? How can I get people to drive me
around without having to pay them health insurance? How can a drone deliver my
toilet paper within 15 minutes while the person who fulfilled my order sits at
her desk crying because she’s working a 15-hour day and can’t take time off to
get that lump in her chest looked at. This is known as the service economy.
Where entitled white boys figure out how to replicate their private school
dorm experience for life.

\------

so. fucking. real.

------
jaimex2
More like 8 ways to become another drone.

