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There is still a financial aspect though: that rapid increase in responsibility and experience most probably translated to higher income at your next jobs. And

by zapita 8y ago

There is still a financial aspect though: that rapid increase in responsibility and experience most probably translated to higher income at your next jobs. And there is a compounding effect each time you change jobs, so the earlier you were in your career when you worked at a startup, the more you gain from it financially over the course of your career. I think we have selection bias on Hacker News because many of the prominent voices here tend to have high-paying jobs at prestigious tech companies, or at least know that they could get such a job at the snap of a finger. So from that perspective, joining a startup as an early employee is less attractive. For industry insiders who want to work at a startup, it often makes more sense to just raise money and start one yourself. They can do that relatively easily because their insider status vastly increases their chances of raising seed money. For everyone else however... that cushy Google job is not at all guaranteed, and neither is the 500k angel investor check to be a co-founder. So, although being an early employee at a startup is definitely not for everyone... From an outsider’s perspective it can be pretty damn tempting.

ankit219 8y ago
Assuming he is from India, there might not be a translation to a high income job. Salaries in India frequently follow a %age increase in the last role, regardless of the position they are hiring for. There are some exceptions, like the global cos which would pay according to job, and some startups which would have salary bands, but mostly, its about how much can we increase from the last role.
- dahfizz 8y ago
  > Assuming he is from India, That's kind of a weird assumption to make.
  - ankit219 8y ago
    Based on this. > However, to me, it’s dubious how many startup successes, especially in India, have been great for, say, 20th to 50th engineer at those companies. Swiggys, Olas and Paytms of the country are infamous for not giving good (or any, these days) equity to engineers. I wasnt sure, hence stated the assumption. Did not want it to come across as a prejudice. Apologies if it did.
  - yitianjian 8y ago
    The article talks specifically about Indian startups, so I think it's a fair assumption
xondono 8y ago
This. I do hardware (sch/pcb) design in spain, I’m in a lead position in a small company. When I look at what I’ve built, I have experience with technologies that most of my college mates are still mystified with (e.g. DDR4 or x64 architecture). Most electronics in europe are industrial/power electronics, and most engineers spend their days doing what amounts to paperwork. In contrast I’ve had to ship new designs on a biweekly basis to keep things afloat, I’ve had to set up databases to keep track of our parts (something most hardware engineers don’t even understand), I’ve had to write reliable python scripts since our build process depended on it... the list goes on. From my experience interacting with US engineers, you don’t even realize how little some “Engineers” in the old continent actually know.
- ChrisGammell 8y ago
  Would love to hear more about your database system!
  - xondono 8y ago
    Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronic and Amp Hour fame? Boy I better not screw this up! :D Bad news: I use Altium Good news: I’m trying out kicad on my spare time (feel free to take the credit) As to the question, Altium is quite flexible in regards to using a database as a library, but it is riddled with bugs, workarounds and generally weird stuff. I’ve tried from the extremely simple to the overly complex. In that order: - Easy level: Excel files on a shared NAS. Pros: * easy to set up. * easy to convince management to try it out. Cons: * Not really a database * You need to close Altium to add parts (this is very frustrating during sch capture) - Medium level: Acces database (mdb) on a shared NAS Pros: * easy to set up (not as quite as excel but similar) * you can add parts from inside Altium itself (with limited input interface) Cons: * because of how buggy Altium is the database tends to get completely corrupted. Almost daily backups are mandatory. * You need to set up a form for part management, directly editing the mdb files is a path to disaster even with as little as 2 people. Insane level: SQL server on AWS. Conected to local LAN through VPN. A simple php CRUD on apache for management. Pros: * Can handle heavish loads (a T2 micro can support about a dozen hardware engineers working in parallel) * should be more scalable * hides a lot of the complexity of the database for the junior engineers. * small sized NAS won’t suffer while someone is generating a BOM. * changes to database are more manageable if someone on the team knows sql. * more reliable and resilient to altium bugs Cons: * No internet connection means no one works. * possibly the most expensive solution PS: I’m on my phone, I’ll reformat stuff when I get my pc to make it more legible
jaredklewis 8y ago
But most startups fail before they achieve any sort of name recognition. In those cases, how much does being the CTO of a company no one has heard of and no longer exist boost one's resume?
- arcticbull 8y ago
  In that case IMO it's not about the title but about the responsibilities and achievements. Don't just write "CTO of Waggletech (2018-2019)" and call it a day, but instead spell it out. Example: "Defined the technical architecture of the MVP and implemented large portions of it. [Platform-specific stuff here]. Lead the recruiting effort to bring the company from 2 to 10, interviewing over 100 applicants. Participated in raising seed-stage funding from X VC and N seed-stage investors." IMO the thing the Bay Area does better than everywhere else is in the face of failure, the immediate follow-up question is "so what did you learn?"
freewilly1040 8y ago
At your next jobs where? Other startups? If increased responsibility means managing people, I don't think that's a positive - the management experience is going to be discounted by the relative lack of hands on technical experience. Even if more responsibility means more hands on responsibility, it's a mixed bag because your experience tends to be broad but not deep. Still valuable, but not really worth the comp tradeoff IMO.
ko-ko-ko 8y ago
This is very true. I come from a non-tech (humanities/academia) background and was entirely self-taught when I decided to switch careers. I had only done very specific and quite unmarketable hobby projects on outdated technologies (win32 Assembly, Pascal, Fortran and some PHP/MySQL) and there was no way I would have had a shot at getting a job at any tech corp, let alone a FAANG. Startups, on the other hand, were hungry for talent. The pay I got at my first job wasn't great, even by startup standards. But it got me working on a more up-to-date stack (JS, Go, Python, Scala, NoSQL DBs...), taught me how to better handle the tradeoffs between clean, robust code and fast shipping and got me a great network. A few years later, I got no equity, my salary is only decent (nothing FAANG-level, but better than friends at some larger corps) but I like what I do, got a fancy title, manage people and am considered indispensable enough that I can make my own hours. I've met a large number of people from similarly non-traditional backgrounds as mine (former nurse, geology PhD, classical musician...) in the startup scene and my guess is they would never had a shot at working in tech if it were not for startups.

by zapita 8y ago

ankit219 8y ago

Assuming he is from India, there might not be a translation to a high income job. Salaries in India frequently follow a %age increase in the last role, regardless of the position they are hiring for. There are some exceptions, like the global cos which would pay according to job, and some startups which would have salary bands, but mostly, its about how much can we increase from the last role.

dahfizz 8y ago
> Assuming he is from India, That's kind of a weird assumption to make.
- ankit219 8y ago
  Based on this. > However, to me, it’s dubious how many startup successes, especially in India, have been great for, say, 20th to 50th engineer at those companies. Swiggys, Olas and Paytms of the country are infamous for not giving good (or any, these days) equity to engineers. I wasnt sure, hence stated the assumption. Did not want it to come across as a prejudice. Apologies if it did.
- yitianjian 8y ago
  The article talks specifically about Indian startups, so I think it's a fair assumption

xondono 8y ago

This. I do hardware (sch/pcb) design in spain, I’m in a lead position in a small company. When I look at what I’ve built, I have experience with technologies that most of my college mates are still mystified with (e.g. DDR4 or x64 architecture). Most electronics in europe are industrial/power electronics, and most engineers spend their days doing what amounts to paperwork. In contrast I’ve had to ship new designs on a biweekly basis to keep things afloat, I’ve had to set up databases to keep track of our parts (something most hardware engineers don’t even understand), I’ve had to write reliable python scripts since our build process depended on it... the list goes on. From my experience interacting with US engineers, you don’t even realize how little some “Engineers” in the old continent actually know.

ChrisGammell 8y ago
Would love to hear more about your database system!
- xondono 8y ago
  Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronic and Amp Hour fame? Boy I better not screw this up! :D Bad news: I use Altium Good news: I’m trying out kicad on my spare time (feel free to take the credit) As to the question, Altium is quite flexible in regards to using a database as a library, but it is riddled with bugs, workarounds and generally weird stuff. I’ve tried from the extremely simple to the overly complex. In that order: - Easy level: Excel files on a shared NAS. Pros: * easy to set up. * easy to convince management to try it out. Cons: * Not really a database * You need to close Altium to add parts (this is very frustrating during sch capture) - Medium level: Acces database (mdb) on a shared NAS Pros: * easy to set up (not as quite as excel but similar) * you can add parts from inside Altium itself (with limited input interface) Cons: * because of how buggy Altium is the database tends to get completely corrupted. Almost daily backups are mandatory. * You need to set up a form for part management, directly editing the mdb files is a path to disaster even with as little as 2 people. Insane level: SQL server on AWS. Conected to local LAN through VPN. A simple php CRUD on apache for management. Pros: * Can handle heavish loads (a T2 micro can support about a dozen hardware engineers working in parallel) * should be more scalable * hides a lot of the complexity of the database for the junior engineers. * small sized NAS won’t suffer while someone is generating a BOM. * changes to database are more manageable if someone on the team knows sql. * more reliable and resilient to altium bugs Cons: * No internet connection means no one works. * possibly the most expensive solution PS: I’m on my phone, I’ll reformat stuff when I get my pc to make it more legible

jaredklewis 8y ago

But most startups fail before they achieve any sort of name recognition. In those cases, how much does being the CTO of a company no one has heard of and no longer exist boost one's resume?

arcticbull 8y ago
In that case IMO it's not about the title but about the responsibilities and achievements. Don't just write "CTO of Waggletech (2018-2019)" and call it a day, but instead spell it out. Example: "Defined the technical architecture of the MVP and implemented large portions of it. [Platform-specific stuff here]. Lead the recruiting effort to bring the company from 2 to 10, interviewing over 100 applicants. Participated in raising seed-stage funding from X VC and N seed-stage investors." IMO the thing the Bay Area does better than everywhere else is in the face of failure, the immediate follow-up question is "so what did you learn?"

freewilly1040 8y ago

At your next jobs where? Other startups? If increased responsibility means managing people, I don't think that's a positive - the management experience is going to be discounted by the relative lack of hands on technical experience. Even if more responsibility means more hands on responsibility, it's a mixed bag because your experience tends to be broad but not deep. Still valuable, but not really worth the comp tradeoff IMO.

ko-ko-ko 8y ago

This is very true. I come from a non-tech (humanities/academia) background and was entirely self-taught when I decided to switch careers. I had only done very specific and quite unmarketable hobby projects on outdated technologies (win32 Assembly, Pascal, Fortran and some PHP/MySQL) and there was no way I would have had a shot at getting a job at any tech corp, let alone a FAANG. Startups, on the other hand, were hungry for talent. The pay I got at my first job wasn't great, even by startup standards. But it got me working on a more up-to-date stack (JS, Go, Python, Scala, NoSQL DBs...), taught me how to better handle the tradeoffs between clean, robust code and fast shipping and got me a great network. A few years later, I got no equity, my salary is only decent (nothing FAANG-level, but better than friends at some larger corps) but I like what I do, got a fancy title, manage people and am considered indispensable enough that I can make my own hours. I've met a large number of people from similarly non-traditional backgrounds as mine (former nurse, geology PhD, classical musician...) in the startup scene and my guess is they would never had a shot at working in tech if it were not for startups.