> You don't need to join an early-stage startup – as a mid-to-senior engineer, even if you only join places that are series-B or later I'd say the mid-growth t

> You don't need to join an early-stage startup – as a mid-to-senior engineer, even if you only join places that are series-B or later I'd say the mid-growth time (series B and nearby but of course depends on the company) is a particularly bad time to join a startup. It is too late to get favorable stock options but too early to tell if it's going to be a home run. So for individual contributors it's pretty much all blind risk with low probability of reward. Good times to join a startup are very early when the valuation is a couple pennies or less so you can get meaningful percentage of stock and you can early exercise all of it for little money and file 83b. Or join late in the game startups that are big hits and clearly going to the IPO. Way less stock, but risk of failure is now small.