[HN Gopher] How to Not Get Screwed over as a Software Engineer [...
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How to Not Get Screwed over as a Software Engineer [video]
Author : simonpure
Score : 198 points
Date : 2023-11-02 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com)
| Xeoncross wrote:
| As a higher income earner I've always found it important to spend
| the money to ask a Lawyer, CPA, second Doctor, Mentor, Coache,
| Inspector, and other people focused on a certain niche in life
| what they think for the $100/hr (or whatever) fee they charge.
|
| Always been worth it. If you're focused on tech, make sure you've
| hired the right people to review your NDA's, startup contract,
| new home purchase, or workout routine.
|
| Don't risk millions on a startup IPO / house / loved one without
| dropping a few hundred on a second/third opinion. You've got the
| money. Don't cheap out on important things when you could have an
| all-star team backing you.
| munk-a wrote:
| _Especially_ if you 're going through an IPO or ownership
| exchange - put every document in front of a lawyer and
| accountant. You don't want to miss your opportunity to sell or
| make a mistake on the taxes.
| jfim wrote:
| How do you work with/find a lawyer? Do you have them on a
| retainer agreement?
| dustingetz wrote:
| upcounsel.com, cash hourly, contract review in usa will be
| like $300
| Terretta wrote:
| Find and work with a lawyer that helps engineers extract
| themselves from one firm to land at a specifically competing
| firm.
|
| Since most engineers don't hire lawyers, it may be easier to
| find a lawyer that does this for Firm Z, to pull people from
| competing firms A - Y.
|
| In either case, ideally they will have had to go to
| arbitration and/or court against the original employer.
|
| This person will know what to look for in masses of
| boilerplate to help you zero in on and fix the 10 words here
| and there that can change not just your comp but your career
| options.
|
| Expect from $300 - $750 / hr, depending on the size role
| you're lawyering, which tends to indicate the amount of
| legalese, traps, and foot guns at play.
| sebmellen wrote:
| https://upcounsel.com is great for this. You basically post a
| "job" and get proposals from multiple lawyers with upfront
| pricing, deal structure, etc. and everything is negotiated
| through the platform.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Here's a submission that I made this morning (never made it out
| of new):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38111370
|
| It's an old video of a lecture Mike Monteiro (and his lawyer)
| did.
|
| Kinda speaks to this.
| slap_shot wrote:
| I'll second the opinion of having your contracts reviewed, but
| will curb some expectations: most contracts (NDAs, employment
| agreements, home contracts etc) are fairly standard. There may
| be some small points to negotiate if they are off-market, but
| you had better have the leverage to negotiate.
| wavemode wrote:
| That's a valid thing to keep in mind with big corporations.
| But if you're joining as employee number 5, and they claim
| they aren't willing to negotiate on something you dislike in
| the contract because it's "standard", you should leave the
| interview.
|
| It's exactly what they're talking about in the linked video -
| you think you're joining as a valued partner, but you're
| clearly just a cog in the wheel.
| paxys wrote:
| If you get a SDE offer from Google then sure, there is
| probably no room for changes other than some adjustment to
| salary and stock. If you are employee #10 at a startup (which
| is what this video is about), _everything_ is negotiable, and
| you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don 't go over
| your contract with a magnifying glass and professional help.
| cyrialize wrote:
| I like the mention of a workout routine. Trainers/physical
| therapists can help to figure out issues with your body and
| give you a list of stretches/exercises to help with it.
|
| I've spent my fair share of getting injured through lifting and
| each time I've bounced back because a video that a PT has
| shared has a patient with the same exact issue as me.
|
| I wonder how many injuries I could've avoided if I actually set
| up a session haha.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| How to get rich in tech as a mediocre programmer:
|
| 1. Transfer to a TPM/QA Manager role at somewhere like Amazon or
| Microsoft. Bar is much lower to get into this role.
|
| 2. Get hired into a higher level than you could in a SWE role.
|
| 3. Transfer within the company to being an SDM
|
| 4. Now you are one level higher, in a management role, that would
| have taken you 5+ years of grinding and some luck to get into.
|
| 5. Spend a few years in this role, switch to other big co, makikg
| 400-500k+ while bossing around engineers much smarter than you.
|
| ^This path is how people are doing it. Never take equity in a
| startup, never grind away as a mid level engineer, fighting with
| ten other engineers for one promotion.
|
| Edit:
|
| Adding one point to this, if you found a company with a non
| technical CEO, and the company sees some success, all the focus
| will be on the CEO. The CTO role is highly replaceable, and there
| is a massive power shift that occurs once there is traction with
| a "finished" product. The CEO, especially in B2B Saas, is the
| face of the company. So the CEO can sit on his hands the whole
| time the product is developed, but then does reap huge gains.
| There's no easy answer, as many engineers do not have the soft
| skills for the role. But arguably, they could run these
| businesses themselves.
| raincom wrote:
| A great insight, indeed.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Do not work at Amazon or amazon-like companies. They are just
| not worth it from a mental health, wlb, or career perspective
| for engineers.
|
| Find engineering/product first companies. Big tech ain't it any
| longer.
| teachrdan wrote:
| What would you recommend instead?
| munk-a wrote:
| Work at a company making a product you believe in and with
| coworkers that you get along with.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I can not emphasize enough getting along your coworkers
| and they with you. If you do not it will be even more
| challenging to get anything done.
| midasz wrote:
| I'm loving (semi-) government. Great work/life balance and
| at least in the Netherlands pretty innovative and into
| open-source.
| dogman144 wrote:
| What linked current Big Tech was early entrants into adtech
| and the related money-printing machine.
|
| Now they are just large advertising platforms that do
| something to attract users and user data.
|
| I think under similar logic, if you want to work for those
| companies for comp/prof development, it's probably whatever
| next money printer is building out.
|
| IMO this is probably AI, next-gen adtech that keeps the
| technology going post-GDPR etc (platform plays like FAANG
| or great user enumeration companies in the open ecosystem,
| although a lack of a non-obvious adtech product might limit
| the growth and prestigious of these types) maybe some top
| cybersecurity vendors if the problems get worse and
| regulations get serious, maybe defense tech (second gen
| ones following what Palantir did).
| nine_zeros wrote:
| > What would you recommend instead?
|
| My personal preference and risk appetite takes me to
| successful small public companies or well-funded startups.
|
| If I don't have a risk appetite, I'd go government or
| boring F500 companies that are starving for engineers.
|
| Wherever I go, I am very particular about the mission and
| that I get along with the team and manager. The less the
| bureaucracy, the more likely I am to enjoy working for
| them.
|
| But there is no way I will work for big tech with their
| miserable processes, culture and exploitative management. I
| am here to work, not to constantly walk on eggshells for BS
| rules.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I actually would echo this at the skills level. A lot of the
| bigger companies kind of pigeonhole your skillset to one tech
| stack that is very company-specific and introducing new tech
| can be very difficult. At least that was my experience in my
| last three big corporate positions (now at a series C
| startup).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I've said the best thing that happen to my career and
| finances was to work at AWS for three years. The best thing
| that ever happened to my mental health was to get PIP'd from
| Amazon with a $40K severance, Amazon on my resume and finding
| a job three weeks later.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Sadly this is mostly true. It used be at $bigtech you needed to
| be the equivalent of a senior engineer (L5+) to go into
| management. This is categorically not the case anymore.
|
| TPMs, due to their role, work across orgs and interface more
| with leadership so they do seem to get a lot more
| visibility/exposure than normal ICs and do seem to get promoted
| into leadership positions more easily. My wife is less
| technical and is looking for a career change and last year I
| literally suggested this path for her.
|
| (you can argue separately that this isn't as important which I
| might agree with on a case by case basis in that I've seen
| really strong leaders who are less technical who make up for in
| various ways but it's not the common case).
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| I think alot of engineers are under the impression that if
| they work hard enough they will be promoted. But actually,
| the company gains the most from highly productive mid level
| engineers. These are the workhorses, they do not want to
| promote them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You never get promoted for "working hard". You get promoted
| by showing your ability to work at a larger "scope",
| showing "impact" and "dealing with ambiguity". All of the
| leveling guidelines of tech companies I've seen or heard
| about have the same concepts.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| The whole "scope" argument is the carrot on the stick.
| Many engineers, regardless of performance and scope, will
| not get promoted. They are more valuable to the company
| as work horses, even if they have higher level capacity
| and have shown that.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I don't disagree with that. The best way to get a
| "promotion" is to work toward more scope, impact,
| ambiguity - and then leave.
|
| Or in my case get PIP'd from Amazon with a nice severance
| and found a much less stressful job within three weeks at
| a smaller company. My hearts always been at smaller
| companies and I knew from the minute I virtually walked
| into AWS I wanted to go back to smaller companies.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302
| passion__desire wrote:
| What about the ambiguity engineers cut through when
| making decisions like whether to use "React" or "Svelte"?
| and subsequent success or failure, whatever the case may
| be. Are these decisions less important that top level
| ones?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That's not what is meant by ambiguity.
|
| I was actually just interviewing someone for a position
| for a green field project where I'm leading the backend
| parts across teams. I needed to be able to "fire and
| forget" an assignment where the requirements weren't
| clear and there will probably be a lot of XYProblems.
|
| I need them to talk to the vendor/customer, come up with
| a game plan, research the technology and present their
| idea to the team. I want them to know how to talk to
| developers, technical directors who don't want to get
| into the weeds and non technical people.
|
| After they have done the research - especially about a
| technology I don't know - I want to lean on them to teach
| me and for me to be able to go to for advice.
|
| I've given the thumbs up plenty of times for team members
| and now dotted line reports that impressed me by giving
| me "imposters syndrome".
| timfsu wrote:
| Organizations are generally pyramids, where you have fewer
| people on top than on the bottom. You can't promote
| everyone, so you have to decide on criteria - and hard work
| in software engineering isn't always high-leverage work. In
| my experience the best engineers can figure out the right
| work to get done, saving hours of hard work that never even
| needed to happen.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > TPMs, due to their role, work across orgs and interface
| more with leadership so they do seem to get a lot more
| visibility/exposure than normal ICs and do seem to get
| promoted into leadership positions more easily.
|
| TPM here. More cross-org work: Yes. Interface more with
| leadership: Yes. Visibility/exposure: Yes. Easier promotions?
| Nope. Not in my experience.
|
| There are fewer of us, therefore our org chart trees don't
| grow as fast as engineers' trees, therefore there are fewer
| opportunities to add a layer and move into it as a manager.
| onion2k wrote:
| _while bossing around engineers much smarter than you_
|
| How much smarter than you are they if you've taken an effective
| shortcut to getting paid significantly more while doing a lot
| less work? Working harder, taking all the stress, and earning
| less doesn't sound _that_ smart.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Parent is referring to the fact that the technical acumen of
| this kind of manager is usually far less than the engineers
| who are working under them, which leads to worse outcomes for
| the engineers in question (but is a fine career choice and a
| rational decision for the now manager).
| andy99 wrote:
| There's an old saying If you're so smart, why
| aren't you rich?
| freeopinion wrote:
| Better?: If you're so smart, why aren't you
| happy?
| andy99 wrote:
| I agree it's better - I think the context is a response
| to people complaining about all the "dumber" people that
| have it better than them
| JrProgrammer wrote:
| For a lot of people, work happiness is also a big factor, as
| it should. You're spending at least 1/3rd of your whole day
| at your work. Choosing a specific path does not make you
| smarter per definition
| ravenstine wrote:
| Not all smart people have a desire to be parasites that are
| paid several times more than they're worth by a dysfunctional
| system.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| But the people in question, in this hypothetical, are
| working in big tech....
| pb7 wrote:
| Who decides what they're worth?
| throwaway092323 wrote:
| > Who decides what they're worth?
|
| The poster above you; they're the one who made an
| implicit claim about the value of software developers'
| work. You're welcome to disagree. Do you think everyone
| is paid fairly?
| pb7 wrote:
| They're wrong. You're worth what you can fetch. If you
| _feel_ that it's unfair, find a new bidder and make it
| fair.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > How much smarter than you are they if you've taken an
| effective shortcut to getting paid significantly more while
| doing a lot less work?
|
| Being smart and how much you make aren't related. There are
| researchers working at universities in Europe being paid
| miserable salaries and yet making incredible discoveries
| (like medical ones) and these are incredibly smart people.
|
| Meanwhile there are people with only a few neurons connecting
| raking in millions on "only fans".
|
| And, no, the later aren't smarter than the former.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| That's kind of the European dream. You work at uni, have
| fun pursuing your reasearch and earn enough money to rent a
| somewhat nice flat in the city.
|
| What else could anyone want?
|
| Heck, today i saw Sepp Hochreiter sitting in the tram on
| his way to uni. He could do anything in the world, yet he
| chooses to live the european academic life.
| nocsi wrote:
| > Being smart and how much you make aren't related. There
| are researchers working at universities in Europe being
| paid miserable salaries and yet making incredible
| discoveries (like medical ones) and these are incredibly
| smart people.
|
| Think about it, who's funding these researchers you're
| celebrating?
|
| I'd argue being smart _is_ linked to money. You don 't need
| to spend all your time exploiting the markets if you're
| smart, but just enough to build a resource pool that can
| enable your endeavors. People work with what they got - in
| your latter example, they're selling their body. If
| academics were functionally smart, then it's a simple task
| for them to be able to exploit and win against a capitalist
| market.
| rzzzt wrote:
| That's street smart
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| >How much smarter than you are they if you've taken an
| effective shortcut to getting paid significantly more while
| doing a lot less work
|
| I find it deeply troubling that so many people conflate
| "being smart" with "min-maxing labor and earning". It
| reflects the strange belief that the best people are the best
| capitalists.
|
| I take issue with the thesis that money is crystallized
| virtue where more of one is more of the other.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Yeah, it's a pretty gross mindset.
|
| I suppose it is what people need to believe, however. Good
| luck with that, I guess?
| throwaway092323 wrote:
| > I find it deeply troubling that so many people conflate
| "being smart" with "min-maxing labor and earning"
|
| And they're veeeery vocal _other_ people trying to get
| something for nothing.
| timacles wrote:
| Life is more complicated than that.
|
| There are smart people burdened with a moral compass, which
| forces them to "do the right thing" which might be pursuing
| their passion or contributing to society.
|
| Then there are smart people who are happen to exploit social
| structures to get ahead. Those becomes the sociopath CEOs and
| such.
|
| There are also plenty of not particularly smart people who
| figure out how to get ahead exploiting social structures.
|
| Theres also plenty of smart people, whos intelligence is
| restricted to their area of expertise. Technical knowledge
| doesnt transfer to strong political skills
|
| Doesn't make the smart people who actually have a
| consciousness to answer to less smart than the rest
| bumby wrote:
| I know there's some correlation between certain Big Five
| personality traits like consciousness and material success,
| but now I'm wondering which of those traits may also
| correlate with IQ.
| hollerith wrote:
| Openness is probably the one out of the 5 most correlated
| with IQ.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > How much smarter than you are they if you've taken an
| effective shortcut to getting paid significantly more while
| doing a lot less work?
|
| This is not about smartness, but about willingness for ass-
| kissing and ability of to play political games. This is not
| associated with intelligence, but with dark triad traits.
| Quite some smart people look through all this, but are
| incapable of changing the situation.
| bumby wrote:
| They probably mean "smart" as in "technical acumen" not
| "cunning"
| eikenberry wrote:
| Money isn't a linear curve where $$$==happiness. More money
| does have a strong correspondence with happiness until you
| hit a certain level and then it falls off. A case of strongly
| diminishing returns where other sources of happiness will
| outweigh the need for more money. Things like liking your job
| being a big factor.
| lakomen wrote:
| Explain acronyms please?
| raincom wrote:
| TPM = Technical Project Manager; SDE = Software Development
| Engineer; SDM = Software Development Manager
| stuff4ben wrote:
| TPM: Technical Project/Product Manager
|
| SWE: Software Engineer
|
| SDM: Software Development Manager
| Apocryphon wrote:
| To dissent from the other answers- thought TPM was Technical
| Program Manager.
| BayesianDice wrote:
| I believe that is (or at least was) true at Google -
| although from what I knew of the role, it sounded like it
| also covered what I would consider project management. (I
| think I would often consider program mangement to be
| coordinating/managing across multiple projects as part of a
| broader program of work, but I don't think that was what
| Google meant by that title.)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| At Apple, the ubiquitous EPMs are Engineering Program
| Managers. But yep, I think we're just quibbling over
| terms that aren't standardized across (or even within)
| companies, but describe roles that are more or less the
| same.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The distinction between a program, project, and product
| managers seems to be mostly dependent on the company you
| work at.
|
| All the various "PMs" at companies I've worked for have
| done largely the same jobs that are some mix of managing
| the project and figuring out new features for the product.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| The difference between ongoing operations, a project, a
| program, and a portfolio are clearly delineated in the
| Project Management Book of Knowledge, which is usually
| foundational knowledge for a project manager. If a person
| tries to practice project management without knowing this
| stuff, I'd agree with your use of scare quotes.
| mushufasa wrote:
| > So the CEO can sit on his hands the whole time the product is
| developed, but then does reap huge gains.
|
| This sounds off to me. Even if the CEO isn't a technical
| engineer literally working on the code, they are ultimately
| accountable for getting engineers and designers to build the
| right product. Building the right product is massively hard.
| Usually, it takes several wrong takes to get it right. 90% of
| startups fail.
|
| When an engineer is hired post-traction, they may not see all
| the scars and dead bodies of those failed attempts. It may seem
| easy to manage if the product is already a hit, because when
| there is true PMF it's hard to mess up.
|
| But that's like those stories about how the military in WW2
| thought they should be adding armor to the areas of the plane
| that had holes after sorties. That was totally wrong; the real
| problem would have been to add the armor to the areas of the
| plane without holes, because *those planes crashed and were
| never recovered.* In other words, what "seems easy to sit on
| the hands" is survivorship bias, and ignores the brutal reality
| of struggle that any founder will be able to relate with.
| Assuming that "engineers could run these businesses themselves"
| indicates a very incomplete understanding of what is involved
| with actually building and running a business.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| This is how its supposed to work in theory. As a CTO, you can
| easily end up doing all the work of the CEO, which he gains
| from. Its only when you go to write the software, that alot
| of the product decisions get made. This is what the
| ycombinator video is about.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| The CEO is the sales guy. If you have worked in B2B places
| before, very often the CEO is completely non-technical.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Can't the CEO be the product guy?
| mushufasa wrote:
| Yes. If you're good at product you're typically good at
| sales. If you're good at sales you may not necessarily be
| good at product.
|
| Sales is about navigating conversations to match
| someone's problem to a solution. Product is about
| navigating conversations to understand problems and
| figure out what the solution should be in the first
| place.
| timfsu wrote:
| Product CEO only works for companies where the product
| sells itself, which in my experience is only a small
| fraction of companies
| choppaface wrote:
| If the product doesn't sell itself, then the founders
| failed to make something people want. If sales lead the
| company instead of product, then market-making becomes
| the company's actual product.
| _jal wrote:
| That's frequently true, but it really depends. Some CEOs
| are the HR person, entirely focused on filling roles with
| people who know how to sell/build/whatever.
|
| I do know one CEO who is "the engineer". They're in a bit
| of a weird market, and it seems to be working. I rather
| expect he'll move to a CTO role once they're actually in
| production, though, when the focus becomes growth.
| liquidpele wrote:
| > Even if the CEO isn't a technical engineer literally
| working on the code, they are ultimately accountable for
| getting engineers and designers to build the right product.
|
| You haven't had to have meetings with a CEO before, have you?
| mushufasa wrote:
| You've never been a CEO before?
| liquidpele wrote:
| I'll take that as a "no".
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| TPM at Amazon is a very high bar, and usually requires a
| technical background. I have one old coworker who got it, and
| didn't make it very long, saying it was too challenging.
|
| I've never seen someone on the TPM ladder directly manage SWEs
| at google. Microsoft is different, the whole place is a shit
| show.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| The L6 TPM bar at amazon is way below the L6 SDE/SDM bar. Its
| not even close
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| If you have first hand experience, that's better than my
| anecdote so I will defer. I was going off of the job
| descriptions, which basically made it seem like an L6 TPM
| needed to be both an L6 SDE _AND_ a PM.
|
| Very possible i'm wrong though.
| liquidpele wrote:
| TPMs are almost universally fluff positions. The amount
| they make is absurd for what they do. I will die on this
| hill.
|
| PMs are often the same, although the position _can_ have
| value if there 's clear expectations and enough
| sales/customer complexity to warrant it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I have first hand experience dealing with them from the
| Professional Services side. Anytime I needed something
| technical, I would go through back channels to avoid
| them.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| My experience of TPMs in the industry is indeed unfortunately
| people who were not particularly good at sw dev, and who are
| not particularly good at project management, either. But they
| take care of all the charts and annoying stuff and technical
| managers and directors can hold their hand while they pretend
| to be know what they are doing by using jargon.
|
| OK, that was harsh. But not always far from the truth!
| nextos wrote:
| I love this comment because IMHO most organizations that have
| become dysfunctional host a large number of individuals that
| have hacked the company ranks the way you describe.
|
| The pattern is identical in other industries and even in
| academia. Professors are supposed to be technical staff, but in
| reality most have become middle-managers bossing around
| scientists much smarter than them (paraphrasing the OP). Plus,
| they usually claim all credit for any breakthrough.
|
| As a European, I think the US industry is much more innovative
| because this is less of a problem. It is still an issue, but at
| least technical people get some recognition.
| bjornsing wrote:
| If you want to see the extreme, come to Sweden. Here many see
| soft and hard skills as mutually exclusive. So hard work and
| understanding the nitty gritty details is extremely _bad_ for
| your career, in many companies. You can imagine the culture
| it fosters.
|
| But the situation is improving somewhat. At least that's my
| impression. Like a drunk that has hit rock bottom we're on
| our way to recovery. :)
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| I can't believe the bar is generally lower if it's apparently
| that easy to get paid 400-500k after a few years. What are the
| barriers to entry?
| liquidpele wrote:
| It's not "after a few years", and plenty of people just fail
| completely at management. It's realistically the same "hack"
| as "jump around companies to get good raises" - i.e.
| companies will pay out to fill a position, but not to keep a
| position filled.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| That's a nice fantasy but most technically minded folks will
| quickly discover that political savviness required to pull this
| off is in fact a skill and the one they generally don't
| possess. Also, watch the hands:
|
| > 2. Get hired into a higher level than you could in a SWE
| role.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Its not a fantasy, this is path represents a huge percentage
| of managers/higher ups in software
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Its not a fantasy, this is path represents a huge
| percentage of managers/higher ups in software
|
| It's also a part of the reason why at least historically
| there is such an insane hate for managers in hacker
| culture.
| fatnoah wrote:
| This was my experience after my startup was acquired. My
| boss, and my skip level were both former QA folks who'd
| never done any SWE work. I had more YOE as a SWE AND as a
| manager than both combined.
| blueboo wrote:
| I worry this whole comment chain is celebrating a coping
| mechanism of troglodytic engineering, that the ideal is to
| shape artisanal code-crystals undisturbed in a cave. We all
| wish there was a simple meritocracy of crystal-fashioning,
| with the master diamondsmiths sat at the top. If only, enough
| said.
|
| The political savviness so scorned by the in-the-trenches
| coder might actually be communication, capacity for broader
| context, strategic foresight, emotional intelligence to debug
| and optimise teams, among the many other skills required to
| execute a product/project beyond programming. And good leads
| will pluck coders showing these skills out of the engineering
| corps and set them on a TPM track.
|
| Perhaps it is only rarely the case. But it seems fair to
| observe that it is gentler on the ego to cast these rare and
| hard-earned skills as "playing the game", PM mumbled-jumbo,
| etc.
|
| At the same time, operators in bad faith tend to deploy just
| these skills, and a bad experience can incline one to wash
| their hands of it all and crave the rough diamonds of the
| cave...
| fjweo wrote:
| No these teams with these people tend to be totally
| dysfunctional. It's not the case that they are skilled at
| producing value and doing important things for the product,
| just playing the game (often in a very evil way)
| Cyberdogs7 wrote:
| I feel personally called out, as this was very much my path.
| However, I did continue to train my engineering skills and
| would be very embarrassed if any of the senior engineers in my
| team didn't think I had the same technical skills as them.
| fabianholzer wrote:
| Quite likely most of them think exactly that, but they are
| not so stupid as to say it in your face, you are after all in
| a position to have formal and disciplinary power over them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| But then you have to work at Amazon. Been there done that got
| the T-shirt.
|
| Honestly that's not bad advice though. I did something like you
| recommended. A recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me
| about applying for an SDE position in mid 2020. I wasn't about
| to sell my big house in the burbs of Atlanta that I just had
| built in 2016 to work at Amazon in Seattle "when Covid lifted".
| Besides I hadn't had to do a coding interview - ever. As an
| enterprise CRUD developer who knew AWS, had a network and knew
| how to talk to people.
|
| After I kept talking to her, she suggested I apply for a remote
| role at AWS ProServe specializing in app dev + cloud. There was
| no coding interview.
|
| I'm far from naive. I was 46 at the time on my 7th job and new
| from reputation and second hand experience that eventually
| Amazon is going to Amazon.
|
| I was well prepared when I got Amazoned.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > There's no easy answer, as many engineers do not have the
| soft skills for the role. But arguably, they could run these
| businesses themselves.
|
| I like most of this comment, but this I always think this
| perspective completely misses the point.
|
| No matter how technical your role is, working with other people
| is always going to be the most important part of your job. No
| matter how technically talented you are, your ability to
| deliver value to an organisation is going to be strictly
| bottlenecked by your ability to work with others.
|
| This is especially true for leadership roles, where success or
| failure in the job is almost entirely decided by people skills.
|
| You can have a technical founder who understands the product
| perfectly, and the understands the market perfectly, and has a
| brilliant strategic vision. But if they can't lead people
| effectively, if they can't represent the business to the
| public, if they can't develop trust among the customers, then
| they have basically none of the skills required to run the
| business.
| ekidd wrote:
| > _So the CEO can sit on his hands the whole time the product
| is developed, but then does reap huge gains._
|
| I think this is almost always false. And I say this as someone
| who has worked with many startups, and who has been both a lead
| engineer and a CTO.
|
| I have seen _so many_ startups fail because either:
|
| 1. They cannot talk to customers, or
|
| 2. They cannot close deals.
|
| It is absolutely shocking how many startups have put in 3 years
| of heroic engineering effort, but still don't even know the
| _job title_ of the person who would make the actual decision to
| buy their software.
|
| But if you have a non-technical CEO who can convince 10
| potential customers to sign a non-binding letter of intent,
| then you're in the game. Take that a competent investor and
| they'll _find_ you a CTO.
| raincom wrote:
| Yes, you have a great point: folks who close deals, who talk
| to customers, who finds prospects are NOT parasites, even
| though they can make more than the hard working engineers.
| The real parasites are elsewhere.
| AmpsterMan wrote:
| I did this by mistake. Got hired as a QA, transferred to dev in
| six months. I wouldn't technically qualify for similar roles in
| my company were I to apply from the outside.
| u89012 wrote:
| Happened to me. I was that unfortunate CTO for a fintech
| startup. Unqualified CEO with anger issues but with loads of
| money waited till past traction and nod from investors, then
| simply booted me and my team out on some lame pretext, going as
| far as bad-mouthing 2 years of hard work by the tech team and
| now the CEO and the board have ghosted and won't return
| calls/email to pay or honour employment contract terms! Sane
| advice above, DO NOT accept equity, always go for hard cash,
| lesson learnt the hard way!
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| An IC variant of this I see:
|
| 1. Climb to highest rung that is readily handed out on IC
| ladder
|
| 2. Agree to take on more leadership/management tasks, or even
| go full-time. (Impact, amirite)
|
| 3. After a few years: job hop elsewhere, using your combined
| tech and management experience
|
| 4. Enter at staff/principal, skipping the sometimes brutal
| process of getting there directly from IC.
|
| Like the OP, this exploits the fact that the highest leverage
| you have is entering an org
| ryandrake wrote:
| Number 2 is easier said than done. I'm currently sitting at
| that terrible spot where I'm at the top of the IC ladder, and
| need to become a manager and have direct reports in order to
| continue climbing, but the dreaded chicken and egg problem
| prevents it: You need management experience to become (or job
| hop to be) a manager.
|
| I had the same painful conversation with my boss that a lot
| of us have had: Became the top subject matter expert on my
| growing team, team grew to the point where my boss needed to
| insert a few managers under him, pitched myself for it and
| ultimately he hired outside the team because he needed
| someone who had already been a manager. This exact thing has
| happened in my last three companies.
|
| Very few companies actually have pure IC roles that are truly
| parallel (in comp and prestige) with the people management
| ladder.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Yes. I should say sometimes there's a huge time gap between
| 1 and 2, as you need enough clout to have someone agree to
| take a chance on you.
|
| Hope your luck changes on this front.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > There's no easy answer, as many engineers do not have the
| soft skills for the role. But arguably, they could run these
| businesses themselves.
|
| Can you clarify this? They don't have soft skills? (And perhaps
| lacking in biz skills, e.g., working understanding of
| marketing?) But still they can run the company?
|
| My experience has been different. Technology is relatively the
| easy part. People? On the other hand? People - leading,
| managing, marketing to them, etc. - is 10x more difficult.
| Human behavior is a complicated system. It's not something you
| can throw a couple of engineers at and poof! X weeks later you
| have a semi-perfect solution.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Geeze, I just gotta figure this out. Middle aged engineering
| lead here and definitely not on $400k.
| opportune wrote:
| Almost every time I run into an incompetent SWE manager they
| exploited this loophole. For some reason companies keep letting
| it happen.
| alexawarrior2 wrote:
| If that's how you want to spend your limited time on earth,
| more power too you. Sounds like one of Dante's circles of hell
| to me.
| bowenjin wrote:
| Great guide. I've seen this career path played out many times
| on Linkedin.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| One of the top comments on the YouTube video attached to the
| article talks about how someone wasted their 20s working as the
| founding engineer (employee #6 of a 6-person startup) and when
| the company exited for $100 MM, they only got 100k and are still
| working at 40 years of age while the other 5, presumably having
| cofounder-level equity, are retired.
|
| This is the true risk of startups, and, if you're looking to
| maximize your earnings, it's best to either join a big tech
| company or start your own startup owning most of the equity,
| perhaps as a side hustle while you grow it enough to be
| profitable.
|
| But getting "founding engineer" level equity on the order of 0.5%
| (before dilution!) seems to basically be a scam, where you're
| working 2x the amount for lower salaries than the market, all
| while having some nebulous carrot dangling in front of you for a
| reward that may never come, most likely, or even if it does, the
| value is so small as to not make up even on a per-hour basis the
| amount you spent working at the startup.
| Berone wrote:
| The path to getting into these founder / c-suite roles is those
| founding engineer roles in which you can learn how to scale and
| operate these ventures.
|
| The founding engineer role at 0.5% is not meant to be a role to
| retire on, but a stepping stone to those bigger roles.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Not really, it's better to just start your own startup
| instead, there is not much need to spend years as a founding
| engineer before becoming a founder, you might learn some
| skills but it's nothing you can't learn yourself, as
| evidenced by the people who are first time founders who did
| not previously work at a startup. If you get to some scale
| and get acquired (or even shut down), you can leverage that
| for future higher positions that a founding employee would
| not get you.
| Berone wrote:
| It just depends on if you have the background and talent to
| warrant that role. I think that is an exceptional case for
| someone to get funding and support to build a venture
| without any operating experience.
| lazide wrote:
| If operating == running an existing similar company, then
| almost no successful founders I'm aware of had such
| experience before hand, did they?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Most companies that YC and other VCs fund are by first-
| time founders, mostly those who have not been in other
| startups. Like the other commenter said, the path to
| being a founder is actually founding.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Except I personally know a number of CTO/co-founders that
| never served their time that way and went straight from
| Google/FB/big-tech to CTO..
| Berone wrote:
| Sure, I didn't mean to imply it's the only path to those
| seats.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| It seems common enough that early engineers are purged for
| "higher quality talent" from the big companies at some point.
| Most of the high quality engineers won't join early on
| because they don't work for startup equity. Once the business
| is established and salaries are higher those FANG engineers
| are happy to join.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| > meant
|
| by whom?
| Berone wrote:
| The folks designing the compensation plan and explaining
| the plan to the potential employee. I can't speak to
| unethical cases in which things are misrepresented.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| A "Founding Engineer" at 0.5% is an inflated title for
| "someone who can actually produce a project but is going to
| get clobbered at exit time."
|
| The title itself is mostly a lie.
| Berone wrote:
| I agree. What started as a title that signaled the
| individual was there at the earliest parts of building the
| venture, it has been abused.
| catlover76 wrote:
| The path to being a founder is actually founding. One doesn't
| need to be a "founding engineer" beforehand.
| lazide wrote:
| Being a better wheel isn't going to put one in the drivers
| seat - no matter how good of one they are.
|
| That said, if someone is the type who pays attention and
| learns what is going on, being close enough to see certainly
| helps.
| mushufasa wrote:
| While it's hard to comment on a specific situation, in my
| experience engineers are typically more interested in cash
| compensation rather than equity, even with less than 10
| employees. And this is when offering them the option; they just
| choose the cash most of the time. Meanwhile, the founding team
| often is just paying themselves stipends for rent. So there's
| some classic risk tolerance here: if the company fails (which
| 90% of startups do), the founders have burned all their savings
| and have skills that are more broad than deep, whereas the
| employees are better off, and often more hireable given the
| skills they've developed in their specialization. Also, when
| things aren't going well for the company, the engineers can put
| out feelers to leave ship and line up another job, whereas the
| founders typically have to go down with the ship and shut the
| entire company down if they are exhausted.
|
| Yes, in the small % of cases the company is very successful,
| the founders will gain more, but it's disingenuous to not
| consider the risk.
|
| Startups are not a risk-adjusted way to maximize earning
| potential for nearly anybody --- not even VCs! VC returns
| overall typically are less than S&P500.
| nytesky wrote:
| From digging around, I suspect there is a starting base
| phenomenon for that risk tolerance.
|
| For example I was watching a documentary and got curious
| about theglobe founders -- one was the son of Valley business
| type and the other was the grandson of the founder of Nestle.
|
| Many engineers come from more pedestrian roots, and need
| money to make rent if the company folds, while the founders
| can accept "stipend" money because they have cash flow
| guarantees (probably estate tax avoidant annual gifts) and
| possible even jobs from family connections.
| dboreham wrote:
| Wasn't it jwz who first widely pointed this out: startup stock
| is a lottery ticket. Nobody should take 1/2 wages because their
| boss gave them a lottery ticket.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| And then, hilariously, he said, "I just happened to have won
| that particular lottery."
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Why is it hilarious?
| neilv wrote:
| And then his accountant/advisor said something like, "If
| you'd told me you were going to buy a nightclub, there
| are easier ways to lose all your money."
| mistrial9 wrote:
| you know the best way to have a million dollars in the
| Rock'n Roll world?
|
| A. start with two million !
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I guess you have to see it first-hand:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I don't get the hilarity either. Just sounds like a small
| dose of self-awareness.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > But getting "founding engineer" level equity on the order of
| 0.5% (before dilution!) seems to basically be a scam, where
| you're working 2x the amount for lower salaries than the
| market,
|
| 0.5% at an early stage with below market compensation, no
| refreshers with future rounds, negligible comp increase with
| future rounds, and below-market salary is indeed a scam. A lot
| of startups are happy to operate this way.
|
| On the other hand, getting 0.5% equity in addition to market
| rate salary (or adjusted to market rate as soon as funding
| comes in) with refreshers on each raise to offset dilution and
| reasonable work life balance can be a very good deal.
|
| I've worked for both types of startups. The first type quickly
| loses their best talent as they figure out they're getting the
| short end of the stick. The second type can build a happy
| founding engineering team that grows with the company and wants
| to stay for the long term.
|
| Fortunately, the internet has made it harder for companies to
| get away with the bad deal, below market rate, terrible WLB
| arrangement that was so common at startups a decade ago. Some
| people still get trapped by bad deals. Usually when you look at
| those companies giving bad deals it's a small group of older
| founders managing a group of early 20s college grads who don't
| yet know better.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Yeah that's wild. I was a founding engineer once, and got 15%
| via a sweat equity agreement. No way I'd be considered a co-
| founder for under 1%.
| robervin wrote:
| I believe the parent comment is using founding engineer to
| mean early employee (not necessarily first, and
| differentiated from "founder"). 15% is certainly "founder"
| levels of equity, but it's all arbitrary.
| pc86 wrote:
| Serious question: if you're truly being paid a market-rate
| salary -- e.g. roughly as much as you could make at any other
| VC-funded enterprise, any FAANG company, etc, not the same
| $110k/yr you'd make at a bank or consulting firm -- why would
| you get _any_ equity? The whole point of equity is that you
| have skin in the game and "work harder" (whatever that
| means) to make the company a success. At least in the early
| days part of that was accepting lower cash compensation in
| exchange for a piece of the upside. Why, if you're going to
| treat a founding or near-founding position as a 9-5, 40-hour
| week, clock-in-clock-out type of position, would you get a
| piece of the upside compared to just working at a bank or
| consulting firm?
| z0r wrote:
| Equity is skin in the game. Why are you implying that a
| well paid engineer, in both salary and equity, would be
| treating their start-up role as a 9-5 bank job? At the very
| least a startup is not as safe a bet as a stable job at a
| big company like that. With equity they're going to want to
| work hard to increase the upside of their contributions.
| pdntspa wrote:
| > Why, if you're going to treat a founding or near-founding
| position as a 9-5, 40-hour week, clock-in-clock-out type of
| position, would you get a piece of the upside compared to
| just working at a bank or consulting firm?
|
| One can be very dedicated on a 9-to-5 schedule. Just
| because you value WLB doesn't mean you are in a 'clock-in-
| clock-out' mentality. People have lives outside of work,
| may be even hobbies. The idea that a startup owns your life
| needs to die, stat. That is an extremely toxic line of
| thinking.
| axlee wrote:
| The point is also to keep people around. Software engineers
| are notoriously feeble, as they get offers extremely
| regularly.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Do you mean "fickle" rather than "feeble"?
| ditonal wrote:
| Because FAANG pays equity too.
|
| Google will pay a senior engineer 200k base and 250k in
| liquid stock a year for 450k TC. That stock is also
| incredibly low risk.
|
| If a startup paying market means 450k cash, absolutely
| there's no need for equity. But if it means matching the
| 200k base then obviously you're screwed with no equity. And
| I'm theory it should be a lot of equity given the much
| higher risk premium.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| According to levels.FYI, Google average for senior
| engineer is closer to 360k. But your point still stands.
|
| You are getting equity either way, both are likely to
| appreciate, but one is likely to be more liquid. So
| you're trading liquidity for a higher return.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I'm thinking, so they don't quit on a whim.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Generally, startups don't pay market rate, it seems. I've
| seen offers for $125k - $175k as the base, while bigger tech
| companies will pay a total compensation of double or even
| triple that, so the 0.5% needs to make up for that
| difference. I don't see any startups paying at that "market
| rate" of big tech, as I've generally seen. Yes, I am focusing
| on big tech specifically but those that work at startups
| should be good enough to get into a big tech company anyway.
| brettproctor wrote:
| These folks just put up a long post trying to weigh the risk v
| reward at various startup stages.
|
| Mostly summarized into: "Joining at Series C may give you an
| ideal combination of risk and reward. Series C startups had the
| highest weighted growth in our analysis, followed by Series B
| and A."
|
| https://www.joinprospect.com/blog/which-stage-startup
| bllchmbrs wrote:
| There are 2 problems with the analysis in the article:
|
| 1. They choose startups from 2014-2015. Valuations were (a)
| more reasonable then and (b) we've just been through one of
| the biggest bull markets of tech stocks in the past decades.
| 2. That taking the "Mean Valuation Growth" over that time
| period is meaningless if (a) there hasn't been a liquidity
| event and (b) if the mean is weighted by outliers (which it
| always is).
|
| Portfolio / VC strategy is a bet on power laws. We, as
| employees, don't have that opportunity. That means we've got
| to be deliberate about who we join to try to hit a power law
| outcome.
|
| Am I crazy here?
| a945a9o5u9 wrote:
| And that is exactly why I left my last company. As person #4 I
| was offered 1% over four years, an extremely below-market-rate
| salary, and no benefits. I left after exactly one year and
| didn't bother to exercise my 0.25%. People #2 and #3 left a
| little while after that. Person #1 / CEO / CTO / Maker-Of-All-
| Decisions is still there, somehow, still funded by monthly
| donations from family members and now crowdfunding.
| eweise wrote:
| Been working at startups on and off for over 20 years. In total
| I've spent more money on stock options than I've made from
| them.
| latchkey wrote:
| Nailed it.
| saliagato wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| ditonal wrote:
| One thing people need to remember is the world runs on
| incentives. And on this topic, there is a HUGE incentive to
| mislead people.
|
| The facts are:
|
| 1) Tech startups usually need a bunch of good engineers
|
| 2) Investors and founders want these engineers for as little
| money as possible, as almost every owner-labor relationship in
| history has gone
|
| 3) Stock options have mystique from once-in-a-lifetime
| companies like Google but are overall very complex financial
| instruments
|
| 4) Many engineers are a combination of poorly informed about
| these complexities and easily impressionable to be "sold" that
| these options are a good idea.
|
| The end result is a massive amount of effort expended to
| hoodwink engineers on this topic. The existence of the term
| "founding engineer" is exhibit 1, they are an employee and
| could simply be called software engineer, the term was invented
| to add the mystique (and workload) of a founder to what's just
| a regular employee without founder equity.
|
| Exhibit 2 is this idea that being a founding engineer is a path
| to being a founder , this gets repeated ad nauseum despite
| being easily disproven by 5 minutes on linked, a slim
| percentage of hot startup founders had previously been
| "founding engineers" . Of course some startup experience might
| be useful but just as often you're the code monkey hired
| precisely so that the actual founders have more time to do the
| founder stuff you're not doing and therefore not learning.
|
| YC is basically a VC firm so it's like taking Exxon Mobiles PR
| about climate change risk at face value. There's a huge
| potential for bias. And even by VC firm standards YC has been
| shown to be exceptionally employee- hostile in their
| communications to founders and the behavior of their portfolio
| companies.
|
| Once again, people ask "what would a union do" and once again,
| here's an answer. It could hire lawyers with a collective
| budget to review startup option terms and make them less likely
| to screw over early employees. Because the lawyers that the VCs
| hire are working to protect the VCs, not you. And the blog
| posts they publish on employee equity are written to serve
| their interests, not yours.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| This is a good article on the ergodicity argument for VCs:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37869760
|
| Basically, VCs optimize for many small bets, ie investing in
| many, many companies where only one needs to hit it big in
| order to recoup the investment cost, while startups focus
| only on their own success, so it's in the VCs' best interest
| to sell the dream of working on or at a startup, thereby
| increasing VCs' own success without necessarily materially
| affecting the success of the startup itself.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > the YouTube video attached to the article
|
| Which article? The two sentences below the video pointing you
| to watch the episode, did I miss something?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Yes, my mistake, I just meant the page itself when I said
| "article," not that there is any extra material information
| besides the couple of sentences.
| jjav wrote:
| Keep in mind it's not just the percentage, but whether it will
| be possible to keep any of it.
|
| I've done five startups now and my conclusion is I'll only
| consider joining a startup at two points:
|
| In the beginning, when the share valuation is less than a
| penny. The valuation is low, do an early exercise of all shares
| up front and file an 83b. Now, as you vest, you actually own
| the shares. So you can leave the company in the future and keep
| all your so-far vested shares.
|
| Or, late in the startup cycle when the company is already well-
| known and very clearly on the IPO path.
|
| Anywhere between these points is not worth it. The valuation
| will be too high to early exercise so may lose everything but
| the probability of success will be too low to take the risk.
| golergka wrote:
| For a full picture, how much cash did he get and how much tc
| was he worth at other, more established companies at the time?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| They didn't say, you could ask them on the YouTube comment,
| but it is likely that their TC was below market compensation,
| by the way they stated their story; if they were really
| satisfied with their TC, it's likely they wouldn't have made
| such a comment.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| Industry wide, not even in startups, the people who get screwed
| the most are the ones working under the hood. I am not even
| talking about the disparity between SWEs and C-suites. I'm
| talking within the engineering domain. The closer you are to the
| application side the more credit you get for the effort, even if
| it might have only been possible through the hard work of recent
| under the hood technological advances.
|
| A prime example is deep learning. The people getting all the
| credit are the AI researchers. Now I am not trying to discredit
| them. But a huge part of what made the recent training of large
| models possible are all the other advances. All the dedicated
| PyTorch/C++/CUDA/MPI code that is written just to be able to
| scale on a HPC cluster, for example. Those people are handsomely
| rewarded, but they aren't getting the Chief AI scientist
| recognition, despite it probably being just as hard if not harder
| to write all the optimized code to enable and facilitate LLMs in
| the first place.
|
| Before I got into deep learning I was into numerics. Numerics
| people get typical SWE salaries, but they aren't getting FANNG
| level salaries, even though their code is powering the
| simulations across whole industries that ultimately enable many
| of them to operate at all.
|
| Now I am sure somebody will debate me on the "getting screwed"
| part, but it sure feels as if, the ones who use a technical
| library and build an application on top of it, get the
| recognition both for their own work and also get part of the
| recognition that should due-fully be bestowed on the author of
| the library.
|
| But maybe this is how the entirety of society works, but one
| should still be conscious of this phenomenon. If we all stand on
| the shoulders of giants, then maybe we should also name the
| giants in the acknowledgements section.
| dogman144 wrote:
| I think this depends on what you view as "getting screwed."
|
| If the under the hood line engineers aren't getting wild
| compensation for products they built generating wild
| compensation for the engineers/researchers working on the end
| product, yes that is a fair point.
|
| If it's these engineers not getting the recognition of Chief AI
| scientist and so on, that's misguided I think. There is nothing
| worse than working under a technical SME who doesn't know
| leadership, and also "product," broadly defined.
|
| I've worked on both sides of the issue and org leadership is a
| defined skill set the same way optimized code is. Unless the
| backend engineers display that leadership ability, their
| closeness to the internals of the technology doesn't justify
| them running how the technology gets deployed.
|
| It is the same as if you found a startup. During the ideation
| sessions with whatever VC buys into you, there is 5% discussion
| of tech, or better yet - checkbox the product mvp works. 95%
| who are you going to sell this to and have you spoken to them?
| Different skills.
|
| When tech is a business, the tech knowledge starts to matter
| less, or is only a portion of the picture. The individuals that
| grasp that do well, SWEs who ignore this don't IMO.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| I don't think a CUDA engineer, or a researcher working on
| optimization or distributed computing should get the same
| recognition as a Chief of anything. But dare I say that
| writing optimized code to run on clusters is just as hard as
| coming up with a new deep learning architecture? Actually
| having done both, it is harder, at least for me.
|
| The authors of "Attention is all you need" got all the
| recognition. The people who worked on scaling deep learning
| models to huge clusters got no recognition. But both were
| just as instrumental to the ultimate success of LLMs.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Recognition and leadership roles isn't based on hardness of
| the completed task. Never has been. A good leader will make
| sure the credit is spread out though, yes. Why:
|
| - Really hard or really easy things can generate the same
| revenue
|
| - Chief of X can screw up the leadership with hard or easy
| products if they can't lead and explain to external
| audiences
|
| - external audiences deal with a million things to be an
| audience to. It's wishing on a dream that that audience
| will dig into "well who actually built this" vs moving on
| to w/e other thing is trying to capture their attention.
|
| Put that together, recognition comes from glueing things
| and people together successfully, explaining how it works
| to outside world/clients, and steering the product away
| from an optimized elegant solution to w/e people will
| actually use.
|
| Ever since tech stopped being academic/open source and got
| revenue linked to it, "thems the rules."
|
| Speaking of SWE survival guides, engineers often seem to
| ignore, hate, or argue this topic always, and meanwhile the
| smaller set of engineers who get on board with this (ugly,
| yes) reality tend to do well.
| smokel wrote:
| Only a few people who were in the right place at the right time
| and struck AI gold got lucky. Many PhDs have been slaving away
| and metaphorically died in several harsh AI winters. Nothing to
| be jealous of.
|
| There are several examples of people who got lucky with
| infrastructure or more technical engineering, but it is not
| because of their perceived role or something superficial.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| That is part of the hero narrative that I am also lamenting.
|
| If there are 100 possible research directions and only 1
| proves successful. The people who travel along the other 99
| get no recognition, despite expending the same effort and
| despite their contribution being just as important.
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| why is their contribution important?
|
| Is it your supposition that the only reason the person who
| went down the successful path did so purely because they
| watched everyone else fail? That seems highly unfair to the
| successful person.
| bmitc wrote:
| Success doesn't always imply the better approach. Also,
| failure is an important part of science and technology,
| and success is often driven by insights derived from
| failures.
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| I have a successful career and my neighbors failures are
| not related to that in any way.
|
| you'll need to give a more strict definition of the word
| better before this can be a useful conversation.
| smokel wrote:
| For one, the successful ones might have learned from the
| unsuccessful ones that which does not work. This is
| especially the case if the unsuccessful ones are brave
| enough to write down that they failed. The latter does
| not seem to happen much now that most people celebrate
| only success.
| lazide wrote:
| Most seeds never germinate, and of those that do, most
| never amount to much.
|
| Such is life.
| purpleblue wrote:
| It's funny that YC is posting this video, because as far as I can
| tell, YC teaches its founders to keep most of the equity for
| themselves, and dole out as little equity as possible to their
| employees.
|
| Back during the dotcom days, most employees, from secretaries to
| engineers, got extremely rich from options when the company
| IPOed. These days, in order to make a life-changing amount of
| money at a YC startup as an employee, the company needs to
| exit/IPO at over $5 billion in order to make about $1 million. I
| was at a YC company for 4.5 years as an early engineer, and I
| ended up with less than $100,000 from my options. I would have
| made 10x that had I taken a FAANG offer with considerably less
| work and risk.
| AlexErrant wrote:
| > At YC, we tell our founders to be generous with equity, and
| even suggest giving 10% to the first 10 employees.
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/filter-by-equity-at-yc-
| star....
| satvikpendem wrote:
| 0.5% - 1% each is also what I've seen, but sadly that is
| really not enough, especially after rounds of dilution. See
| my top comment about "founding engineers":
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38116759
| timfsu wrote:
| As a YC founder, YC doesn't teach founders anything when it
| comes to how to split equity. The economics you're describing
| is a function of (overly) high valuations in private markets,
| which leads to equity grants that don't appreciate very much
| when liquidity happens. This is great for folks that got in
| early (founders and early investors) and bad for everyone else.
| choppaface wrote:
| False. YC will connect you with investors and advisors who
| will do things like perpetuate a 10% employee pool and a 100x
| to 1000x multiple between CEO and IC compensation. While YC
| might not give classes about the provenance of these choices,
| YC founders will inevitably adopt them as they focus towards
| growth and sales. All YC has to do is be marginally more
| competitive with other VCs, who will do dumb shit like
| clawbacks, dilution, Private Equity sales etc.
| choppaface wrote:
| Based on equity packages and outcomes I've seen, this video is
| a total sales video from YC to ICs as an attempt to rouse the
| hiring pipelines for YC companies in the face of this year's
| layoffs.
|
| I myself had an offer from a YC company years ago that had some
| layoffs but essentially outperformed and raised a big Series
| D/E/F this year. Had I gone with the YC company, my equity even
| in their big raise would have been about $100k. And no
| guarantee I could have realized any or all of that gain in the
| raise.
|
| YC could be up-front and give this actual data in the video.
| Instead it's primarily a specious talk show segment about how
| YC wants you the IC to think they're on your side.
| feoren wrote:
| > the company needs to exit/IPO at over $5 billion in order to
| make about $1 million
|
| I just don't understand who's signing a contract for 0.02%
| equity in a startup. How does this happen?
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Dilution, they don't start with 0,02%
| zoogeny wrote:
| The intro of that video hit hard and hurt. I have literally been
| in that position where I built the analytics page, which
| marketing asked for, and I can see the analytics for the
| analytics and no one has even checked the page. And so I chime in
| asking if anyone else has noticed that our big product release is
| not going anywhere and its like crickets. You realize that from
| your position that you have no ability to hold others
| accountable.
|
| I mean, if the release had happened and there had been technical
| issues you would have gotten called out and raked over the coals.
| But conversely, when the release was technically flawless but the
| business side tanked then no one is held responsible.
|
| What frustrates me even more is when the non-technical people are
| acting like they want your input. They are actively soliciting
| feedback and even talking about empowerment but all of the
| critical decisions are being made behind closed doors. It is
| clear they know that any sane and technically competent senior
| contributor needs agency so they try their best to provide an
| illusion since they want to keep the actual control. I can even
| understand it. Their investors demand a prominent VP of sales or
| marketing and that VP demands their own agency as a requirement
| to work at the startup. There is only so much control to give out
| and the technical guy is the one shut out.
|
| One of their points relating to how you know things are working
| really hit me. If you have fair equity and you have a seat at the
| table and things are still not working, then maybe you are the
| problem. But on the other side, if the founders are not giving
| you a seat at the table even when you are making it clear that
| you require it then maybe they don't respect you. I believe that
| it is a mistake to believe that merely working harder will earn
| that respect.
| fatherzine wrote:
| "you have no ability to hold others accountable" -- true for
| all levels of the human stack
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| This makes no sense. People in power can absolutely hold
| other's below them accountable, but if you're the low person
| on the totem pole it becomes much harder.
| rnjailamba wrote:
| After having worked at four startups, including two as CTO, I
| have zero remaining equity or financial upside from any of the
| startup equity. This is the bitter take away, your equity will
| most likely amount to nothing unless the company is on a clear
| path to IPO/ acquisition or a promise of share buy back during
| the time you're at the company. This is a higher bar than simple
| profitability.
|
| The reason you work at a startup is because you
|
| 1. seek to start a company in the future and want to index on the
| mistakes of the startup you work at
|
| 2. want to grow in responsibility/ leadership because you're
| bored at BigTech
|
| 3. want to learn more and apply the learnings, hopefully also
| experiencing the exhilaration that comes from hockey stick growth
|
| The advice to my younger self would be to ignore startup equity
| if you're an employee for all practical purposes. The only
| concrete indicator that equity signals is the trust your founders
| have in you.
| alexawarrior2 wrote:
| Amen brother/sister. Was founder, co-founder, early employee,
| or investor in eleven startups, ten of which went out of
| business or were bought with no net equity earnings for myself,
| one of them had a $250m exit from which I netted $130k, after
| seven years. It's not that retirement-level-net-earnings
| startups never happen, just that they happen only about 1 out
| of every 1000 times on average according to my research. The
| exception being, every additional $1m of net worth you have
| before you found increases your odds of success, up to around
| 50% success rate with a net worth over $10m (going towards HNWI
| territory). So being middle class your startup investments are
| lottery-level, but if you're already rich they're more of a
| calculated investment.
|
| tl;dr only capitalists - the existing 1% - have an odds-on shot
| at startup success
| satvikpendem wrote:
| > _only capitalists - the existing 1% - have an odds-on shot
| at startup success_
|
| By the VC definition of "startup," which is not universal.
| This is why I advocate for bootstrapping on the side until
| the revenue exceeds your salary. Pieter Levels famously did
| so and many others are also generating $10k or $20k+ MRR and
| living well. They can always sell that cashflowing asset for
| a 5x multiple and enter the HNWI territory, or they can
| simply keep the company on the backburner while they do other
| stuff.
| 62951413 wrote:
| 4. You'd like to work on advanced technology without a "PhD
| from CMU". Think CockroachDB, Druid/Imply, StarTree/Trino,
| ClickHouse (Hadoop/Cloudera a long time ago, Spark/Databricks
| when it was much smaller).
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| 1. Acknowledge you are not an expert at everything. Talk with
| your own Lawyers who read the contracts, Accountants that know
| local tax events, and former employees before agreeing to
| anything. "Strategic Truth" often means no one may lie to you
| knowingly, but this can still cost you during acquisition.
| Example: IP sold to another stealth company the founder owns for
| $10, so what is that 7% share/option worth again. That's right...
| you got nothing... saw several people get conned this way.
|
| 2. Avoid accumulating legal encumbrances at large firms... overly
| broad NDAs, contracts, and Patent/Copyright obligations can get
| nasty. You may be signing things long after you leave a firm for
| zero pay, get fired to claw away equity 2 months before IPO after
| a 10 year career, or incur dozens of term revisions over years
| slowly bleeding off contract value. In general, many countries
| also interpret the identical contract differently depending where
| it was signed. Example: In Canada anything you build while
| working at a firm can be claimed by said firm unless explicitly
| excluded in your contract, and in the USA it is generally
| implicit that any IP unrelated to company operations is your own.
| Most employees will roll over like a dead wale, as they likely
| don't have enough capital to fight a legal battle. One may think
| they know better as they ignore #1, but they are provably wrong.
|
| 3. Avoid predatory VCs if possible. Ask yourself what these
| people actually bring to your firm, if they think you are
| gullible enough to table personal assets, or if a one time top up
| was worth 34% of your firm. If it is just working capital from a
| douche in a cheap suite... than seriously reconsider your growth
| plan. Example: You are small and thirsty... and never saw what
| share dilution does to founders. Again, talk with your own
| legal/finance people before agreeing to anything.
|
| 4. Make sure someone doesn't swap paper stacks on you before
| signing, or give you a old unedited "wish-list" version as a
| copy. Professional cons span all professions, know card tricks,
| and people still do ethically dubious things when relatively
| small sums are involved.
|
| 5. Everything is always pleasant in the beginning, but if the
| legal paperwork is sloppy... things can get very ugly later. Part
| of being honest and candid up front... is putting into writing
| what peoples expected obligations are to each other and the firm.
| Example: Large rapid revenue growth has torn friends and families
| apart... as even a $100m can drive some people to recreate a
| history that never actually happened.
|
| 6. Most techs at Startups have 6 jobs, and being smug ain't one
| of them. Some advice for business ops.. stay in your lane, as you
| are also not as mission critical as people may have suggested.
|
| 7. YMMV, ask several random people... each bring differing
| perspectives. Everyone I respect initially disagrees with my
| opinions a first... can take a few years to reach consensus for
| the truly smart.
|
| Have a wonderful day, and build something awesome =)
| neilv wrote:
| This video format is a way to reach some people, though it's like
| a sales pitch, and not as "linkable" and clearly prescriptive as
| it could be.
|
| Ideally, there's a canonical YC bible that everyone knows about
| and consults, whether or not doing YC. Which says things like
| "equal equity" for the founders, what's the current best thinking
| on deals should be for founding engineers, early hires, interns,
| etc.
|
| Avoid people having to piece together and reconcile conflicting
| information from various other materials and messaging, from YC
| and elsewhere.
|
| It could become accepted fair and reasonable practices, if it
| hits those well. Which could break with some things YC has done
| in the past, then reconsidered. Maybe it could have such a ring
| of truth that people accept it despite YC's potential
| biases/conflicts.
|
| Somewhat like we go to levels.fyi to see what to expect from a
| FAANG, we could go to the YC bible to see what what to expect
| from a startup (or to do in a startup that we found).
|
| (I'm thinking of YC for this, since they have the influence, and
| considerable track record of earning trust.)
| focom wrote:
| interesting
| paxys wrote:
| I have seen so many of their examples happen first hand in the
| industry.
|
| - Lead engineer works 100 hour weeks to keep the company running
| for a below-market salary and 0.05% equity while the founders and
| product/sales leads constantly sell shares on the secondary
| market, buy fancy toys and travel the world.
|
| - Technical cofounder gets a 3% equity because the "business guy"
| came up with the idea and deserves the other 97%.
|
| - Early engineers are offered seemingly good equity but end up
| with lower class shares that are first to be diluted away, and an
| exit below some magic number thought up by founders/VCs earns
| them nothing because preferred shares get first dibs.
|
| The startup game is probably not right for you as a software
| engineer if you don't have a "type A" personality and aren't
| willing to have uncomfortable conversations and fight to get your
| fair share. Otherwise you are just a resource to be exploited.
| yu3zhou4 wrote:
| Thx, I just learned about Type A / Type B thanks to you
| mentioning this
| cutemonster wrote:
| Maybe you'd find the Big Five personality model interesting
| as well (if you haven't seen), in particular assertiveness vs
| agreeableness
| yu3zhou4 wrote:
| Thanks. I have some experience with Big Five and MBTI, but
| I'm not satisfied with them since they are too general in
| what they describe and also they're not scientific enough
| imho. I'd be happy to see more rigorous research in this
| area because it could be both useful for self-development
| and it sometimes might help to understand oneself as well.
| And it's also fun to do these assessments :p
|
| I'm curious of your take on these tests
| deely3 wrote:
| I don't know.. should car driver, or cleaner, or repair man get
| the same equity as founders or top managers? Does work as
| software developer really different from maintenance and repair
| guy that (sadly) easy replacable?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| You get what you negotiate. That's why actors and writers
| have been getting royalties and residuals on their works for
| decades now. Only now with the rise of streaming platforms
| and AI content generation are they being forced to accept
| weaker terms.
| deely3 wrote:
| Sure. Do you agree that software developers become modern
| repairman?
| bjornsing wrote:
| I don't think I've ever seen two people laugh so much over such a
| sad topic...
|
| Also, I think it's a mistake to talk about exploitation and blame
| when your startup is not working. Honestly, most startups don't
| work out and it's not really anybody's fault. It's kind of the
| default.
| tmarsden wrote:
| Injecting humor into a dark or sad situation is very common.
| It's a way to lighten the mood a bit when the topic is
| difficult. People joke about death for example and that's a
| much more serious topic than a startup cap table.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I'm all for some black humor. But this felt very "forced" to
| me.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Whatever you do, find someone who has walked the walk and been
| and ASK FOR HELP. ASK FOR GUIDANCE. ASK MULTIPLE PEOPLE. They are
| 99% more than happy to help! DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING!
|
| Let me put this again since it's so important: IN BUSINESS DON'T
| ASSUME ANYTHING.
| blmayer wrote:
| I wish I had seen this 5 years ago, just before being one
| "founding engineer". Wonderful talk, thanks for posting this.
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