It's a midpoint between founder and engineer. You get low salary and low equity. But it's enough salary that you're not eating rice and beans and have the money

It's a midpoint between founder and engineer. You get low salary and low equity. But it's enough salary that you're not eating rice and beans and have the money for the occasional Steam sale. And presumably enough equity to retire once the company IPOs. You still share the high risk of failure, but the actual cost of failure is much lower.