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In terms of how to move the needle for early employees, at my prior (and first) startup, I watched us go from 15-20 employees to >300. One of the interesting t

In terms of how to move the needle for early employees, at my prior (and first) startup, I watched us go from 15-20 employees to >300. One of the interesting things that struck me was how much advisement/mentor/training/etc investment went into the founders/C-team, and how little went into all the rest of us. (Totally reasonable that this was a situational thing, but I don't think it is). There's fame and reputation that comes from being a founder, and there's not much of that that goes into the EEs. For example, at my current startup, one of my founders wanted to sub me in for them at a panel they had a conflict with, but the guy running the panel "didn't want individual contributors". Being a founder is celebrated; being an EE isn't: https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-63-2/ https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-63-2/ https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-63-3/ https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-63-3/ Note: I'm not talking about how employment is celebrated within any given startup - that's important, but it's going to be situational - I'm talking about the community as a whole celebrates the EEs.

Bjartr 8y ago
> One of the interesting things that struck me was how much advisement/mentor/training/etc investment went into the founders/C-team Can you give a sense of how much that might be?
- RangerScience 8y ago
  Offsites, speaking gigs, trainings - but really, time with people (in this case, the investors/advisors) that can really coach (or straight role-model) you into being that much more amazing. I can't quantify thing-over-time both because this was an anecdotal impression, and because it was a decently long time ago. You invest money in successful ventures, and they snowball; people invest themselves in other successful people, and you also snowball. PS - Also just getting invited to meet other interesting people. It's suprising-not-suprising how much of an effect that has on yourself.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
webmaven 8y ago
> the guy running the panel "didn't want individual contributors". That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic. But note: Plenty of EEs aren't individual contributors! An EE can be a "team lead" for example. Basically if you have any responsibility for directing or managing other people, you are already not an IC.
- RangerScience 8y ago
  > That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic. Hmm. I really don't see how. That's a bit like saying that because you work in Java, you can't talk about Ruby, or AWS, or Scrum, or skydiving. This really seems like the sort of thing that you "opt in" rather than "opt out" - you're qualified to talk on a panel if you are X, rather than being disqualified if you are Y. Can you think of any topics where that WOULD be a reasonable requirement? I cannot, but I'm biased.
  - webmaven 8y ago
    Post-mortems, one-on-ones, dealing with toxic team members, adopting "Continuous X" practices, "Your team just added it's first woman engineer. Now what?", etc.
    - RangerScience 8y ago
      All the post-mortems I do are as an IC; I (occasionally) lead my own one-on-ones either with other ICs as a fellow IC and/or manager; I've seen "continuous X" practices pushed by both ICs and managers (ICs vastly moreso, actually); and management does not qualify you (and IC does not disqualify you) from being able to teach people how to treat fellow humans like fellow humans. In short, I completely disagree both by opinion and experience that any of those topics have "not being an IC" as a reasonable requirement.
  - webmaven 8y ago
    Also, X and Y in this case are (mostly) mutually exclusive. We just don't have a common catchall term for technical non-ICs to be able to express a positive requirement without also including non-technical managers.

Bjartr 8y ago

> One of the interesting things that struck me was how much advisement/mentor/training/etc investment went into the founders/C-team Can you give a sense of how much that might be?

RangerScience 8y ago
Offsites, speaking gigs, trainings - but really, time with people (in this case, the investors/advisors) that can really coach (or straight role-model) you into being that much more amazing. I can't quantify thing-over-time both because this was an anecdotal impression, and because it was a decently long time ago. You invest money in successful ventures, and they snowball; people invest themselves in other successful people, and you also snowball. PS - Also just getting invited to meet other interesting people. It's suprising-not-suprising how much of an effect that has on yourself.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

webmaven 8y ago

> the guy running the panel "didn't want individual contributors". That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic. But note: Plenty of EEs aren't individual contributors! An EE can be a "team lead" for example. Basically if you have any responsibility for directing or managing other people, you are already not an IC.

RangerScience 8y ago
> That may be a reasonable requirement, depending on the panel topic. Hmm. I really don't see how. That's a bit like saying that because you work in Java, you can't talk about Ruby, or AWS, or Scrum, or skydiving. This really seems like the sort of thing that you "opt in" rather than "opt out" - you're qualified to talk on a panel if you are X, rather than being disqualified if you are Y. Can you think of any topics where that WOULD be a reasonable requirement? I cannot, but I'm biased.
- webmaven 8y ago
  Post-mortems, one-on-ones, dealing with toxic team members, adopting "Continuous X" practices, "Your team just added it's first woman engineer. Now what?", etc.
  - RangerScience 8y ago
    All the post-mortems I do are as an IC; I (occasionally) lead my own one-on-ones either with other ICs as a fellow IC and/or manager; I've seen "continuous X" practices pushed by both ICs and managers (ICs vastly moreso, actually); and management does not qualify you (and IC does not disqualify you) from being able to teach people how to treat fellow humans like fellow humans. In short, I completely disagree both by opinion and experience that any of those topics have "not being an IC" as a reasonable requirement.
- webmaven 8y ago
  Also, X and Y in this case are (mostly) mutually exclusive. We just don't have a common catchall term for technical non-ICs to be able to express a positive requirement without also including non-technical managers.