Most pre-Series A start-ups will offer (far) below market salary; they have to, since, generally (and as another poster said), they have only $X00,000 in the ba

Most pre-Series A start-ups will offer (far) below market salary; they have to, since, generally (and as another poster said), they have only $X00,000 in the bank and no revenue. This is pretty typical. What the 0.05% equity package indicates is that the founders probably have an unrealistic expectation about how much their venture is worth at this stage. I've seen this a few times in naïve, young (23-25 years old) first-time founders that don't have significant amounts of experience working in start-ups and/or technology in general. This trivial amount of equity is a huge red flag, not only because its present value is negligible (guess what the risk-adjusted rate of return is on a start-up run by first-time founders?), but because it indicates that the work environment will likely be unpleasant (hellish hours, frequently changing requirements, no clear vision -- common in companies run by first-time founders). Also, keep in mind: if these founders are foolish / naïve enough to think they'll be able to hire a credible, valuable engineer with this package (they won't), they're also likely foolish / naïve to get screwed by their investors. Founders are only at the bottom-middle of the start-up hierarchy: VCs are above them and LPs are above them.