Yeah, I agree that there's definitely a time when it can make sense. From what I can tell it's either at the very beginning or much later in your career though.

Yeah, I agree that there's definitely a time when it can make sense. From what I can tell it's either at the very beginning or much later in your career though. In the beginning of your career, a startup that has solid senior eng talent means you get a good mentor and a big playground where you can really "get your feet wet" and learn a lot, fast. Frankly, in a way that I think is really difficult to do at most FAANGs nowadays where a large number of things are abstracted away. L5 (and equivalents) are terminal levels at most FAANGs and most engineers don't make staff or above. I think it's pretty common for engineers that get the vibe their current team isn't going to let them reach L6+ to bounce to a startup. This is where typical startup offers (even for "staff" level eng) aren't going to include enough equity for it to be worthwhile. Here, the "non-monetary" factors really need to be huge for it to really make sense as a career move. So I'm really not convinced as your "run of the mill" L5 engineer that going to a startup is ever going to monetarily be the rational choice. You really have to value something else. Again, the math here is totally different when you're talking L6+ (or effectively performing/hireable at that level)