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Where is this “constant failure” you talk about? I’m seeing a normal engineer who keeps joining startups, and is living the startup life. In fact it sounds like

Where is this “constant failure” you talk about? I’m seeing a normal engineer who keeps joining startups, and is living the startup life. In fact it sounds like you’ve even cashed out. I don’t see constant failure at all. Startups are naturally chaotic. Most fail. Until they mature it’s complete chaos. If you don’t like this life and it’s causing you stress, you should join a bigger, more mature company. It’s hard to tell from what you wrote if you like the fast pace of a startup or if you hate it. If you hate it and the uncertainty, then join a bigger company with more stable processes. If you think that’s too boring and too slow, then keep joining startups but embrace uncertainty and chaos. There’s nothing wrong with either, but understand the nature of the company you’re joining and don’t have unrealistic expectations.

burnoutgal 5y ago
I've done ok financially, but in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. When I was searching for my new job I knew I didn't wan small start-up chaos - my current role and the other big startup both have > 1000 engineers. "Startup" is kind of a loose term, but that seems big to me? I guess the alternative is like an actual enterprise company?
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  > A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. Is this normal? It doesn't seem so normal to me.
  - jgwil2 5y ago
    It's not normal. I think maybe OP's perspective has been affected by seeing a lot of people experience exceptional success, and feeling comparatively like a failure, but that doesn't reflect the reality for the vast majority of people in the industry or otherwise.
  - mch82 5y ago
    Retiring on startup stock at 30 is as about as far from normal as possible.
- lloeki 5y ago
  > in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. Or maybe not: the stock could have tanked for a zillion reasons. But hindsight is 20/20. If I had held to the BTC I mined back when it was still a toy I'd be bathing in money. Let it go. > "Startup" is kind of a loose term Lots of big co aren't strictly startups anymore but have some startup mentality, either carried over from their past or downright imported. The most nefarious ones do it purposely, pressing all the juice out of employees as if they were lemons, managing to entice them to do so voluntarily, and gaslighting them when they start to fail to produce the expected volume of lemonade. But not all are like that, and in fact I did not really find a correlation with size. Find and define both what you want and what you find unacceptable, and watch for red flags during interviews. Don't dismiss the red flags because something else looks rosy.

burnoutgal 5y ago

I've done ok financially, but in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. When I was searching for my new job I knew I didn't wan small start-up chaos - my current role and the other big startup both have > 1000 engineers. "Startup" is kind of a loose term, but that seems big to me? I guess the alternative is like an actual enterprise company?

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
> A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. Is this normal? It doesn't seem so normal to me.
- jgwil2 5y ago
  It's not normal. I think maybe OP's perspective has been affected by seeing a lot of people experience exceptional success, and feeling comparatively like a failure, but that doesn't reflect the reality for the vast majority of people in the industry or otherwise.
- mch82 5y ago
  Retiring on startup stock at 30 is as about as far from normal as possible.
lloeki 5y ago
> in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. Or maybe not: the stock could have tanked for a zillion reasons. But hindsight is 20/20. If I had held to the BTC I mined back when it was still a toy I'd be bathing in money. Let it go. > "Startup" is kind of a loose term Lots of big co aren't strictly startups anymore but have some startup mentality, either carried over from their past or downright imported. The most nefarious ones do it purposely, pressing all the juice out of employees as if they were lemons, managing to entice them to do so voluntarily, and gaslighting them when they start to fail to produce the expected volume of lemonade. But not all are like that, and in fact I did not really find a correlation with size. Find and define both what you want and what you find unacceptable, and watch for red flags during interviews. Don't dismiss the red flags because something else looks rosy.