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Yeah exactly. Early in my career, I loved working at startups, and aside from compensation would prefer to do so again, but the opportunity cost now is way too

by notJim 7y ago

Yeah exactly. Early in my career, I loved working at startups, and aside from compensation would prefer to do so again, but the opportunity cost now is way too high. The one advantage I see at a startup is that if you pick one with a decent engineering culture, you can learn a lot more than most FAANG roles (although you'll probably learn more at the best FAANG roles than at good startup roles? Unclear.)

alecbenzer 7y ago
I think startups are a bit of a crapshoot even in this regard. You'll learn a lot at a good one, but could potentially learn a lot of bad habits at a bad one.
- bradlys 7y ago
  > I think startups are a bit of a crapshoot even in this regard. You'll learn a lot at a good one, but could potentially learn a lot of bad habits at a bad one. I've seen far more shit habits from habitual startup employees than those who come from Big N. The people who come from big public companies are almost always better at best practices and writing code than startup employees. I don't believe working at startups really gives you good sense for architecture, scalability, readability, or a variety of aspects of programming. It's almost all about getting that short term dollar to get to the next stage of funding. So, raw first time implementation speed gets prioritized over all other aspects. I don't find many startups have very strong technical voices either. CTOs frequently being product people in disguise, etc. That's my experience...
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    That is all true but you’ll get one thing working at a startup that you don’t get at a big company. A sense of legitimate urgency. I’ve worked at both and at a big company things are glacially slow and engineers love to build big “enterprise” solutions to tiny problems that don’t need it. At a functioning startup if you overbuild you die. Everybody working at one knows this so people are much more pragmatic. At a large company, your over engineered crap is lost in the noise.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      > That is all true but you’ll get one thing working at a startup that you don’t get at a big company. A sense of legitimate urgency. I’ve worked at both and at a big company things are glacially slow and engineers love to build big “enterprise” solutions to tiny problems that don’t need it. The "sense of legitimate urgency" is a bunch of bullshit. It's just as made up as it is at any other company. I've worked at startups from seed stage to unicorn and a lot of the real urgent things aren't things that engineering needs to do - it's other shit and usually has to do with partnering with someone. And that usually isn't an engineering problem. Engineering is rarely the blocker for things being rolled out. It's usually that product can't determine what the right product is - business can't get the partners they need - etc. At a small company - your overengineered crap becomes the institutional bullshit that holds the rest of engineering back for years because no one can replace it because there's no time for refactoring. At least at a big company you can throw away those solutions that don't work for people. At a small company - it becomes the shit that holds you back from doing things efficiently for years.
mavelikara 7y ago
Because startup employees are typically doing tasks where they don't have much prior experience, your chances of learning from your peers is lower in an average startup than in a large company.

by notJim 7y ago

alecbenzer 7y ago

I think startups are a bit of a crapshoot even in this regard. You'll learn a lot at a good one, but could potentially learn a lot of bad habits at a bad one.

bradlys 7y ago
> I think startups are a bit of a crapshoot even in this regard. You'll learn a lot at a good one, but could potentially learn a lot of bad habits at a bad one. I've seen far more shit habits from habitual startup employees than those who come from Big N. The people who come from big public companies are almost always better at best practices and writing code than startup employees. I don't believe working at startups really gives you good sense for architecture, scalability, readability, or a variety of aspects of programming. It's almost all about getting that short term dollar to get to the next stage of funding. So, raw first time implementation speed gets prioritized over all other aspects. I don't find many startups have very strong technical voices either. CTOs frequently being product people in disguise, etc. That's my experience...
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  That is all true but you’ll get one thing working at a startup that you don’t get at a big company. A sense of legitimate urgency. I’ve worked at both and at a big company things are glacially slow and engineers love to build big “enterprise” solutions to tiny problems that don’t need it. At a functioning startup if you overbuild you die. Everybody working at one knows this so people are much more pragmatic. At a large company, your over engineered crap is lost in the noise.
  - bradlys 7y ago
    > That is all true but you’ll get one thing working at a startup that you don’t get at a big company. A sense of legitimate urgency. I’ve worked at both and at a big company things are glacially slow and engineers love to build big “enterprise” solutions to tiny problems that don’t need it. The "sense of legitimate urgency" is a bunch of bullshit. It's just as made up as it is at any other company. I've worked at startups from seed stage to unicorn and a lot of the real urgent things aren't things that engineering needs to do - it's other shit and usually has to do with partnering with someone. And that usually isn't an engineering problem. Engineering is rarely the blocker for things being rolled out. It's usually that product can't determine what the right product is - business can't get the partners they need - etc. At a small company - your overengineered crap becomes the institutional bullshit that holds the rest of engineering back for years because no one can replace it because there's no time for refactoring. At least at a big company you can throw away those solutions that don't work for people. At a small company - it becomes the shit that holds you back from doing things efficiently for years.

mavelikara 7y ago

Because startup employees are typically doing tasks where they don't have much prior experience, your chances of learning from your peers is lower in an average startup than in a large company.