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If you have ~5+ years of experience and live in the US, things haven't changed. Regardless, negotiating matters more than ever. At startups you negotiate for e

If you have ~5+ years of experience and live in the US, things haven't changed. Regardless, negotiating matters more than ever. At startups you negotiate for equity instead of salary but a lot of the same advice applies.

ikiris 1y ago
Startup equity is the equivalent to the old Foxworthy bit "You can't write me a check?" I said, "No, I -- a check? Hell yeah, I can write you a check! I thought you needed money. Tell you what, I'm just gonna pay the whole thing off right now! I'm gonna be a congressman when I grow up."
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  It's not really, because it's finite. You don't generally dilute the options pool when you hire new employees, you give them some slice of a scarce options pool
  - achierius 1y ago
    Sure, but there's an extent to which the the board and its constitutive shareholders already expect to be giving away options for new employees, and as such will have allocated a pool for such purpose -- both for the "standard" package, and for "hard negotiators". For traditional tech startups (i.e. ones not so flush with cash as OpenAI), giving these away is far easier than giving away more real-world, honest-to-god cashflow, because that directly drains your runway, while all equity does is make your cap sheet look marginally worse.
    - mgraczyk 1y ago
      > all equity does is make your cap sheet look marginally worse But at the time the employee is negotiating this has already been decided. The company has some valuation and you are offering some known percentage of that scarce resource. You could argue that the valuation itself is the thing being manipulated (which is partially true), but that doesn't change the cost of the offer to the company in units of equity %
- paulddraper 1y ago
  My bank account says otherwise, but it depends.
  - ikiris 1y ago
    So do all the lottery winners. It doesn't really change how a lottery works, or the likely financial result.
    - mgraczyk 1y ago
      What fraction of lottery participants win, vs startup employees? It's rare and there is luck, but the quantities matter. You are much more likely to make money from a startup and it's much more under your control as an employee
      - reillyse 1y ago
        That’s an interesting thought experiment actually. If you think about the amount of money given up as a startup employee you will definitely get some winnings. For example, say as a startup employee you are earning/being compensated 80,000 a year in equity. If you bought $80,000 of lottery ticket’s each year how much would you win. Depends on the lottery but most lottery’s have a rough payout of approximately 50-70%. Let’s say it’s 50%. So you would expect to receive back $40,000 per year. Do half of all startups equity turn into cash, I think not. So probably more likely to make money from the lottery.
        paulddraper 1y ago
        Less than half of startups have exits… But most startup people don’t work at most startups.
        reillyse 1y ago
        I've worked at startups that have had exits and the employees got zilch. I think even in the startups with exits the probability of an employee having their equity turn into cash money is very low (also I doubt 50% of startups have exits - I hear a number of 10% more often and even that seems high, I'd imagine 10% of YC startups have an exit and they are the most likely to succeed so I imagine when you add in all the other startups that percentage gets far far lower).
danjl 1y ago
Startups also have more non-cash options. E.g. they can offer more than 4 weeks of vacation, unlike many enterprise companies. As a CEO, when I gave people 6 weeks of real vacation, they would never leave, since they cannot get that at bigger companies in the US. (We also stongly encouraged them to use their vacation, because a healthy work-life balance is better for the company.) Startups also have more flexibility on WFH, travel options, and other non-cash benefits like providing more authority over your schedule and tasks. They are typically strapped for cash, unless they are not actually startups anymore because they raised $100M, and just like the moniker.
- autarch 1y ago
  I'm working at a mid-size company, c. 5,500 employees. We have unlimited vacation (for US employees). I have taken about 6 weeks every year with no issues. I made sure to check that this was okay before accepting the offer, because unlimited can also mean "no one ever takes vacation".
  - danjl 1y ago
    The problem with unlimited vacation is that the majority of engineers never have the guts to ask for it, just like they don't know how to negotiate. Unlimited vacation is a benefit for the company not the employee. It avoids taxes and complications due to carryover constraints.
    - autarch 1y ago
      To clarify, unlimited vacation is the company policy for all US employees. I'm just saying you don't need to work at a startup to get 6 weeks PTO.
      - danjl 1y ago
        Unlimited vacation is in no way the same thing as 6 weeks of actual vacation. Look into it a bit more. You'll see that unlimited vacation is really just a scam. In your case it's worked out. Actual vacation days are tracked and part of your salary. For example, if you leave, you are entitled to the wages of your remaining untaken vacation days. Unlimited vacation is a favor that your manager is granting. The company is not obligated to grant your request. You have no legal right to take the days off as you do with real vacation.
Trasmatta 1y ago
Yeah, as someone with 10+ YOE, there seem to be tons of opportunities with good packages right now. Companies still seem to need lots of senior devs: the market looks much much harder for anyone with less experience right now
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Do tell.
0x5f3759df-i 1y ago
Maybe if you have 5+ years experience at FAANG or something. I have 5+ years experience at a no name place and can’t even get an interview anywhere. Maybe my resume is shit but I’ve tried many different versions with no luck in the last 4-5 months.
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  You may want to try moving to the bay area or NYC for a few years if you're not already in one of those places. It's much easier to get a good job, then you can move away after you have the "right" experience. Also follow the advice in the article, in particular find people you want to work for and DM them
- braden-lk 1y ago
  There's been this vein of advice from the past decade that's in the realm of "just work at FAANG". Always rubbed me the wrong way; they make it sound so easy, lol. The couple of interviews I managed to get after hundreds of ghostings, I was absolutely demolished in the interviews. It seems like if you get nervous doing math problems in front of people who really don't want to be there (and tell you to your face), you don't get to work at FAANG. Just started my own business instead.
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    Clearly the advice can’t be for the literal 50th percentile HN reader in 2025… because nowadays there are hundreds of thousands of readers. And all the FAANG combined probably don’t even have half that many positions, with negotiable salaries, in total worldwide.
    - rsanek 1y ago
      i mean, even if we only include Apple Microsoft and Google you're already up to more than half a million employees
      - MichaelZuo 1y ago
SoftTalker 1y ago
Only consider equity if there is actually a market value for it. Early stage startups hand out equity options that likely will not ever be worth anything.
eadmund 1y ago
> At startups you negotiate for equity instead of salary Never take equity over salary. Equity at a startup is a lottery ticket. Would you agree to be paid $10,000 less for $10,000 in lottery tickets? For $20,000 in lottery tickets?

ikiris 1y ago

Startup equity is the equivalent to the old Foxworthy bit "You can't write me a check?" I said, "No, I -- a check? Hell yeah, I can write you a check! I thought you needed money. Tell you what, I'm just gonna pay the whole thing off right now! I'm gonna be a congressman when I grow up."

mgraczyk 1y ago
It's not really, because it's finite. You don't generally dilute the options pool when you hire new employees, you give them some slice of a scarce options pool
- achierius 1y ago
  Sure, but there's an extent to which the the board and its constitutive shareholders already expect to be giving away options for new employees, and as such will have allocated a pool for such purpose -- both for the "standard" package, and for "hard negotiators". For traditional tech startups (i.e. ones not so flush with cash as OpenAI), giving these away is far easier than giving away more real-world, honest-to-god cashflow, because that directly drains your runway, while all equity does is make your cap sheet look marginally worse.
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    > all equity does is make your cap sheet look marginally worse But at the time the employee is negotiating this has already been decided. The company has some valuation and you are offering some known percentage of that scarce resource. You could argue that the valuation itself is the thing being manipulated (which is partially true), but that doesn't change the cost of the offer to the company in units of equity %
paulddraper 1y ago
My bank account says otherwise, but it depends.
- ikiris 1y ago
  So do all the lottery winners. It doesn't really change how a lottery works, or the likely financial result.
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    What fraction of lottery participants win, vs startup employees? It's rare and there is luck, but the quantities matter. You are much more likely to make money from a startup and it's much more under your control as an employee
    - reillyse 1y ago
      That’s an interesting thought experiment actually. If you think about the amount of money given up as a startup employee you will definitely get some winnings. For example, say as a startup employee you are earning/being compensated 80,000 a year in equity. If you bought $80,000 of lottery ticket’s each year how much would you win. Depends on the lottery but most lottery’s have a rough payout of approximately 50-70%. Let’s say it’s 50%. So you would expect to receive back $40,000 per year. Do half of all startups equity turn into cash, I think not. So probably more likely to make money from the lottery.
      - paulddraper 1y ago
        Less than half of startups have exits… But most startup people don’t work at most startups.
        reillyse 1y ago
        I've worked at startups that have had exits and the employees got zilch. I think even in the startups with exits the probability of an employee having their equity turn into cash money is very low (also I doubt 50% of startups have exits - I hear a number of 10% more often and even that seems high, I'd imagine 10% of YC startups have an exit and they are the most likely to succeed so I imagine when you add in all the other startups that percentage gets far far lower).

danjl 1y ago

Startups also have more non-cash options. E.g. they can offer more than 4 weeks of vacation, unlike many enterprise companies. As a CEO, when I gave people 6 weeks of real vacation, they would never leave, since they cannot get that at bigger companies in the US. (We also stongly encouraged them to use their vacation, because a healthy work-life balance is better for the company.) Startups also have more flexibility on WFH, travel options, and other non-cash benefits like providing more authority over your schedule and tasks. They are typically strapped for cash, unless they are not actually startups anymore because they raised $100M, and just like the moniker.

autarch 1y ago
I'm working at a mid-size company, c. 5,500 employees. We have unlimited vacation (for US employees). I have taken about 6 weeks every year with no issues. I made sure to check that this was okay before accepting the offer, because unlimited can also mean "no one ever takes vacation".
- danjl 1y ago
  The problem with unlimited vacation is that the majority of engineers never have the guts to ask for it, just like they don't know how to negotiate. Unlimited vacation is a benefit for the company not the employee. It avoids taxes and complications due to carryover constraints.
  - autarch 1y ago
    To clarify, unlimited vacation is the company policy for all US employees. I'm just saying you don't need to work at a startup to get 6 weeks PTO.
    - danjl 1y ago
      Unlimited vacation is in no way the same thing as 6 weeks of actual vacation. Look into it a bit more. You'll see that unlimited vacation is really just a scam. In your case it's worked out. Actual vacation days are tracked and part of your salary. For example, if you leave, you are entitled to the wages of your remaining untaken vacation days. Unlimited vacation is a favor that your manager is granting. The company is not obligated to grant your request. You have no legal right to take the days off as you do with real vacation.

Trasmatta 1y ago

Yeah, as someone with 10+ YOE, there seem to be tons of opportunities with good packages right now. Companies still seem to need lots of senior devs: the market looks much much harder for anyone with less experience right now

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Do tell.

0x5f3759df-i 1y ago

Maybe if you have 5+ years experience at FAANG or something. I have 5+ years experience at a no name place and can’t even get an interview anywhere. Maybe my resume is shit but I’ve tried many different versions with no luck in the last 4-5 months.

mgraczyk 1y ago
You may want to try moving to the bay area or NYC for a few years if you're not already in one of those places. It's much easier to get a good job, then you can move away after you have the "right" experience. Also follow the advice in the article, in particular find people you want to work for and DM them
braden-lk 1y ago
There's been this vein of advice from the past decade that's in the realm of "just work at FAANG". Always rubbed me the wrong way; they make it sound so easy, lol. The couple of interviews I managed to get after hundreds of ghostings, I was absolutely demolished in the interviews. It seems like if you get nervous doing math problems in front of people who really don't want to be there (and tell you to your face), you don't get to work at FAANG. Just started my own business instead.
- MichaelZuo 1y ago
  Clearly the advice can’t be for the literal 50th percentile HN reader in 2025… because nowadays there are hundreds of thousands of readers. And all the FAANG combined probably don’t even have half that many positions, with negotiable salaries, in total worldwide.
  - rsanek 1y ago
    i mean, even if we only include Apple Microsoft and Google you're already up to more than half a million employees
    - MichaelZuo 1y ago

SoftTalker 1y ago

Only consider equity if there is actually a market value for it. Early stage startups hand out equity options that likely will not ever be worth anything.

eadmund 1y ago

> At startups you negotiate for equity instead of salary Never take equity over salary. Equity at a startup is a lottery ticket. Would you agree to be paid $10,000 less for $10,000 in lottery tickets? For $20,000 in lottery tickets?