

Engineer #2 at Mint.com on when to join a startup - aditya
http://femgineer.com/?p=713

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fizx
I'd only recommend doing that once, however. After that you're better off
being a founder if you like the risk, or a later employee if you don't.

Being a very early employee means you get paid in knowledge and seniority,
instead of equity or salary. You hit diminishing returns when you do it again.

Signed, a guy who has been employee #1 at three startups. ymmv, etc.

~~~
ghshephard
Well, as one who has been sub employee #10 at two startups that managed to
make it to 500 employees, (One of which sold for $1.6B, fingers crossed on #2
going out for north of $1B), I'd suggest that there is a certain class of
employee who can act in a supporting role, but isn't necessarily going to
create the product.

Salary/Equity are usually pretty good in VC funded startups (As opposed to
Self Funded/Angel Funded - where I agree, be the founder or come in later on)

Of course, I totally agree, ymmv - You apparently have seen the low end of the
return, whereas I've seen the alternate.

~~~
fizx
If you can pick startups that well, I suggest a career in venture capital as
an alternative to (presumably) engineering. :)

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adityakothadiya
I think the most important part is - "but the bigger benefit is you know how
the entire system is architected and the code you’ve written impacts millions
of people".

Seriously, you feel empowered when you know why the system is architected this
way and not that way. Its immense satisfaction when you can see through how
the entire flow works, how a new feature fits into the bigger product vision,
how to debug complex issues by traversing through bunch of different code
hierarchies/directories, etc.

You get this kind of wisdom only when you're in the those first few.

On the side note, it would be great to hear first-hand stories from her about
how she got hired, how much salary + equity (in approx. range) she received,
how was the performance rewards system for an early engineer.

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kpdvx
Best part of the article is in the comments:

“'I quit my Masters at Stanford because I knew I’d learn a ton more working on
the ground floor of a startup than I would sitting in a classroom.'

I don’t recall a lot of sitting in class on your part."

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sil3ntmac
Heh, the commenter was her old Stanford professor, and the link he provided to
his website goes to a PDF of his CS249 final exam. Harsh :P

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pgbovine
wow, and he's not just a random dude, either ... he has a long and illustrious
history with silicon valley start-ups:

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

EDIT: notable line from wikipedia article: "Cheriton is also credited for
connecting Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page with venture
capitalists at Kleiner Perkins, thus becoming one of the early investors that
helped get Google off the ground."

~~~
sireat
Going off topic now, but nice to see that someone who doesn't have to, still
teaches.

From wikipedia: "University of Waterloo announced that Cheriton had donated
$25 million to support graduate studies and research", "Cheriton donated $2
million to the University of British Columbia".

~~~
mahmud
Sergey Brin's dad is still a teacher :-)

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jkrall
Great description of what life is like as a "ground floor engineer". It's
true, you work constantly and have to be a generalist. In exchange, you get an
incredibly rewarding job where you get to watch the company grow up around
you.

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microcentury
'...365 days at the very least for the first year.' I guess the second year
must be a leap year :-)

Seriously though, this is a great article and I admire anyone who is able to
provide this level of commitment and passion.

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stretchwithme
I understand the very first engineer at mint actually shared Aaron Patzer's
apartment. Maybe you can join a little too early too :-) Seriously, I think it
all worked out ok.

------
BornInTheUSSR
RTF4HWKWK

