4 ms·

Ask HN: Is it a good idea to leave school for a year to join a startup?

• davelnewton 11y ago
  Given the essentially complete lack of context I don't see how this is even remotely answerable... so "maybe".
• zer00eyz 11y ago
  1. What is the pay like (I'll be frank, this matters) 2. How far/remote is it from school? same city/town? someplace else? 3. Are you sure your going to go back? 4. Will you getting credit for this, and if so how will it impact your graduation date? 5. How are you paying for school now?
• aml183 11y ago
  My bad on lack of detail. -Pay is most likely $70K. -Job is in SF. -I don't get school credit for this. -Will push my graduation date back either a semester or two semesters depending on how many credits I want to do per semester. -College Fund (Will graduate with no debt)
  • zer00eyz 11y ago
    Based on the pay alone and the location I would say this is NOT a good deal for you unless your getting housing thrown in for 70k... after taxes and rent, your going to have very little money for the experience. Even if you were living at home, 70k would not be such a great offer. The reality is your going to get a year of experience but I don't think that is going to do a lot for your resume, and your putting off graduating a year. As for getting the experience, well theres a ton of need in the open source world. If I were looking at two resumes where they were fresh out of school I'm going to look longer at your github account than the year you do at this job.
  • rdli 11y ago
    $70K is not much in SF. Based on the economics, I'd assess based on the a) the quality of the work you'd be doing and b) the quality of the startup. To take two extremes, if you're working on creating CSS templates for a Django website, stay in school. If you're working on a deep learning model for speech recognition, this becomes interesting. Same with the startup. Is it a startup with a bunch of customers already, or is it just an idea? Are the investors good? Are the founders people who seem like they can create a successful business? etc.
  • aliston 11y ago
    I did something like this and the bottom line for me would be that if you truly think it could be the next facebook, then go for it. Otherwise, hold off. Financially speaking, if its the next facebook, then you'll be retired on an island somewhere. In almost all other scenarios, you'll end up worse off because you will be able to demand a higher salary post-graduation. In terms of skills garnered, it probably will accelerate your technical skills, but you will miss out on the opportunity to solidify your network at school (which takes time) and to graduate with your class. Not to mention, depending on the quality of the startup, it might actually hurt your technical acumen if you are learning the wrong patterns. I think a bigger question is... why now? What makes the draw to startups so strong that you want to leave school to do it? If the draw is to join a risky, hot-shot, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants company (as it was for me), then you might be in for a reality check when you're debugging spaghetti code for 8 hours a day. If you're really into the startup life, my advice would be to build a business while you have college as a safety net, then drop out once you have ramen profitability. The learning curve and potential payout there is way better than the opportunity to work at a crumby startup as an employee. ... and BTW, 70k in SF is a notch above starving. More than 50% of your take home would be going to rent at that salary, even if you're living with 6 roommates in the 'loin. With demand for devs through the roof, I'd demand 100k at least.
• skadamat 11y ago
  You have to answer one question -- will you learn a lot? Will you learn more at the startup or at university? Do you have other work experience / internships where you can graduate and get a job? If you don't, take the job. If you have a good resume, solid experience performing whatever craft you're doing, then it's probably best to stay in school!
• bbcbasic 11y ago
  Other answers are good, so I will add something else to the mix. Bear in mind that if you go with the startup, you will have an awkward decision of whether to leave after 1 year (giving up any further vesting in shares) or stay and perhaps give up on school or delay it further. If they don't give you shares then don't bother. And if they do they will probably try to screw you on the terms so you walk away with nothing (or needing serious $$$ in savings that you can exercise your option or lose it) - search HN for all the gory examples of that. And even if you get all that right they'll probably fail anyway and you will end up with nothing. Not being negative just very realistic. I agree with the statements about learning something. This can either be technically interesting or about the startup life and strategies so you can learn from their mistakes when you start your own.
• rajacombinator 11y ago
  If you have to ask, no.
• cweagans 11y ago
  Just stay in school. The terms aren't that great, and there will always be another startup. Getting your degree will facilitate finding other opportunities.
• zer00eyz 11y ago
  One last thing, there is a law in CA that even if your a salaried employee, in computer programing field, they are liable for overtime unless you make more than a certain amount. That number was something like 83k the last time I checked. 70k is not 83k... if it isn't over the exemption minimum your dealing with a company that has NO idea what its doing.