4 ms·

This post strikes me as pretty arrogant, and maybe even a little deluded. 3-4 high-level Microsoft engineers are asking to join your startup every week, and you

by k33n 15y ago

This post strikes me as pretty arrogant, and maybe even a little deluded. 3-4 high-level Microsoft engineers are asking to join your startup every week, and you're sending them emails like that? If you can't afford to pay them what Microsoft does, you shouldn't even be entertaining the idea of bringing them onto your company unless you're going to offset the decrease in salary with a generous equity stake. Just "working at a startup" isn't worth much. In fact, it's a major sacrifice for an engineer like that to make. I checked out EveryMove and it seems to me that engineers like that would be pretty dramatically underutilized anyway. It seems like you should just tell people like this that they are overqualified and to stay at Microsoft.

dotBen 15y ago
I think the issue is not whether EveryMove can afford to pay developers what Microsoft does, but specifically that at Microsoft (or any big company) you may not have the kind of experience of actually building a product and bringing it to market. The dynamics of a large company mean you are often working on one part of the delivery, that crucial parts of the product building process are owned by other people, release cycles are much longer and many projects don't even ship. IMHO that's a fair point and the author's suggestion that the candidate build a side project as a way of demonstrating they can build + ship in a startup-like manner seems valid to me, personally. Esp for a company with just a handful of devs.
- lsc 15y ago
  Sure, sure. But If you are a top-end Engineer that can land a top-end Engineer job /and/ can build and ship a product in a startup-like manner, there's zero reason for you to join a startup as an underpaid employee. If you want to do a startup and are willing to take a pay cut, once you are at that level, you should join as a founder.
  - ootachi 15y ago
    Not to mention that he's asking them to work for free, on a "side project", before they earn the privilege to apply for his pay cut. Kind of insulting, really.
    - ericd 15y ago
      Why? He's just saying that the guy should prove that he can (and is willing to) build something from end to end. That side project is a portfolio piece, essentially. That's reasonable if the guy has never done anything programming related outside of BigCo. And he probably doesn't want teammates who are primarily motivated by money, because almost no startup can profit off of engineers at the same rate that large companies can. Being an employee at a startup is oftentimes not a rational financial decision, but it can definitely make the right sort of person much happier than working at a big company. You really need to understand that to judge this.
    - donw 15y ago
      I'd never ask a prospective employee to work on a side project as a prerequisite to an interview, but I agree that it's almost mandatory to see that a dev has singlehandedly built and shipped a product if they're going to be a first hire at a startup. This doesn't have to be a 'side project'; it could have been a new product with a small team at their existing company, or a job at a small startup with only a small handful of people, or even just a cool thing that they built in university. A 'big company' developer, one that has only worked for large companies, that lacks this qualification, might be a good co-founder, but isn't really a good first technical hire. The pay cut, though, is insulting. I won't ask an engineer to take a below-market rate to work for my company, unless they've got an equity stake that makes up for it. Which, frankly, moves them into co-founder territory.
    - orbitingpluto 15y ago
      This also happens when you don't have a decade of experience. I had a whiteboard interview (which are never fun) but did reasonably well. The owner sent me home with homework: Implement a fully Ajaxified Frontpage 2003 clone web app. I would regularly see this company posting ads on boards for all sorts of positions. When I showed up it was a dev house of 4 people including the owner and his wife as receptionist. Sometimes people aren't hiring, they're just looking for free work.
nbclark 15y ago
Came across as arrogant to me as well, though I agree with the mentality that a startup needs to find people that have built their own apps, tools, whatever on their own. Nothing is more valuable than having someone who can get stuff done.
sliverstorm 15y ago
The most frustrating part is not that he would say those things, but that he would now post it publicly. It almost feels like he is bragging. "Look, Microsoft engineers want to be at my company! Look, I am talking down to them and turning them away!"
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  Not only that but there's this subtext that's screaming out "Startups are cool, right? Startups are cool, right? This is worth it, right? I'm cool because I'm part of a startup, right? If I speak condescendingly in blog posts itll seem like I'm successful and awesome, right?". I don't know this guy so I shouldn't pass judgement. I'm just saying that's how it comes off. I'm sure he's a nice guy otherwise.
droithomme 15y ago
I agree with you. The post read to me to be an elaborate fantasy constructed in the author's imagination justifying why his firm was hot stuff for offering severely below market wages.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
I came here to say pretty much this. I will add: 10 years of experience at a high-profile tech company in addition to numerous awards, and you want to turn him down? Do you have any idea how much job recruiters would bend over backwards to get a candidate like that? I have worked for myself, for startups, and at a bigger company - and I can attest that work does not differ much, except that startups pay crappy wages and demand crazy hours. Experience is experience - it does not matter if he was trained on the MS stack - I was too, and quickly became proficient in OSS, Mac, and mobile development.
- geori 15y ago
  I agree. Marcelo is a moron for turning down this guy. Although we don't run the MS stack, my startup would kill to have a guy like this to join. It is completely laughable to me that this guy has to do a side project to prove he is worthy of a startup. Just have a few beers with him and talk over the problems you are working on and see if he has good ideas on how to solve them. If he does, you've got a hire. If he really needs hand holding (and seriously does an award winning guy like this need hand holding???) then say it isnt a good fit.
peacemaker 15y ago
Completely agree... I'm in kind of a similar situation to the fictional MS employee myself but I have also built things on the side. If I received this kind of email from a company I would laugh and then click 'Delete' and never consider them again. Someone with the level of experience he describes will be hounded by recruiters for all sorts of companies every day - I know because I put my resume online recently and it has been non-stop from both big companies and startups. None of the startups have any issues with my big company experience and neither should the author. So if we're generalising, then from that post it seems to me the author is rather arrogant and a bit deluded about what it takes to work at his startup...

by k33n 15y ago

dotBen 15y ago

I think the issue is not whether EveryMove can afford to pay developers what Microsoft does, but specifically that at Microsoft (or any big company) you may not have the kind of experience of actually building a product and bringing it to market. The dynamics of a large company mean you are often working on one part of the delivery, that crucial parts of the product building process are owned by other people, release cycles are much longer and many projects don't even ship. IMHO that's a fair point and the author's suggestion that the candidate build a side project as a way of demonstrating they can build + ship in a startup-like manner seems valid to me, personally. Esp for a company with just a handful of devs.

lsc 15y ago
Sure, sure. But If you are a top-end Engineer that can land a top-end Engineer job /and/ can build and ship a product in a startup-like manner, there's zero reason for you to join a startup as an underpaid employee. If you want to do a startup and are willing to take a pay cut, once you are at that level, you should join as a founder.
- ootachi 15y ago
  Not to mention that he's asking them to work for free, on a "side project", before they earn the privilege to apply for his pay cut. Kind of insulting, really.
  - ericd 15y ago
    Why? He's just saying that the guy should prove that he can (and is willing to) build something from end to end. That side project is a portfolio piece, essentially. That's reasonable if the guy has never done anything programming related outside of BigCo. And he probably doesn't want teammates who are primarily motivated by money, because almost no startup can profit off of engineers at the same rate that large companies can. Being an employee at a startup is oftentimes not a rational financial decision, but it can definitely make the right sort of person much happier than working at a big company. You really need to understand that to judge this.
  - donw 15y ago
    I'd never ask a prospective employee to work on a side project as a prerequisite to an interview, but I agree that it's almost mandatory to see that a dev has singlehandedly built and shipped a product if they're going to be a first hire at a startup. This doesn't have to be a 'side project'; it could have been a new product with a small team at their existing company, or a job at a small startup with only a small handful of people, or even just a cool thing that they built in university. A 'big company' developer, one that has only worked for large companies, that lacks this qualification, might be a good co-founder, but isn't really a good first technical hire. The pay cut, though, is insulting. I won't ask an engineer to take a below-market rate to work for my company, unless they've got an equity stake that makes up for it. Which, frankly, moves them into co-founder territory.
  - orbitingpluto 15y ago
    This also happens when you don't have a decade of experience. I had a whiteboard interview (which are never fun) but did reasonably well. The owner sent me home with homework: Implement a fully Ajaxified Frontpage 2003 clone web app. I would regularly see this company posting ads on boards for all sorts of positions. When I showed up it was a dev house of 4 people including the owner and his wife as receptionist. Sometimes people aren't hiring, they're just looking for free work.

nbclark 15y ago

Came across as arrogant to me as well, though I agree with the mentality that a startup needs to find people that have built their own apps, tools, whatever on their own. Nothing is more valuable than having someone who can get stuff done.

sliverstorm 15y ago

The most frustrating part is not that he would say those things, but that he would now post it publicly. It almost feels like he is bragging. "Look, Microsoft engineers want to be at my company! Look, I am talking down to them and turning them away!"

billpatrianakos 15y ago
Not only that but there's this subtext that's screaming out "Startups are cool, right? Startups are cool, right? This is worth it, right? I'm cool because I'm part of a startup, right? If I speak condescendingly in blog posts itll seem like I'm successful and awesome, right?". I don't know this guy so I shouldn't pass judgement. I'm just saying that's how it comes off. I'm sure he's a nice guy otherwise.

droithomme 15y ago

I agree with you. The post read to me to be an elaborate fantasy constructed in the author's imagination justifying why his firm was hot stuff for offering severely below market wages.

gavanwoolery 15y ago

I came here to say pretty much this. I will add: 10 years of experience at a high-profile tech company in addition to numerous awards, and you want to turn him down? Do you have any idea how much job recruiters would bend over backwards to get a candidate like that? I have worked for myself, for startups, and at a bigger company - and I can attest that work does not differ much, except that startups pay crappy wages and demand crazy hours. Experience is experience - it does not matter if he was trained on the MS stack - I was too, and quickly became proficient in OSS, Mac, and mobile development.

geori 15y ago
I agree. Marcelo is a moron for turning down this guy. Although we don't run the MS stack, my startup would kill to have a guy like this to join. It is completely laughable to me that this guy has to do a side project to prove he is worthy of a startup. Just have a few beers with him and talk over the problems you are working on and see if he has good ideas on how to solve them. If he does, you've got a hire. If he really needs hand holding (and seriously does an award winning guy like this need hand holding???) then say it isnt a good fit.

peacemaker 15y ago

Completely agree... I'm in kind of a similar situation to the fictional MS employee myself but I have also built things on the side. If I received this kind of email from a company I would laugh and then click 'Delete' and never consider them again. Someone with the level of experience he describes will be hounded by recruiters for all sorts of companies every day - I know because I put my resume online recently and it has been non-stop from both big companies and startups. None of the startups have any issues with my big company experience and neither should the author. So if we're generalising, then from that post it seems to me the author is rather arrogant and a bit deluded about what it takes to work at his startup...