Tell HN: We're bringing back the “Work at a Startup” event on Saturday July 28
On Saturday July 28, we'll host our third Work at a Startup Expo: https://workatastartup.com/expo. We'll begin with a talk answering the most common questions about working at a startup. Then we'll have a series of rapid-fire presentations by 35 YC companies currently hiring engineers. After the event, we'll have an open house where you can talk one-on-one with the founders of any company that interested you.
New this time: we'll have a hardware demo area where companies building physical products can show them off. YC has more hardware companies than ever now, building everything from satellites to industrial robots.
For those not in the Bay Area, we will live stream all the videos, and if people are interested we can have an ongoing HN thread to discuss them as well.
If you're interested in attending, please apply at https://workatastartup.com/expo. Any questions or ideas, please comment below!
Links to previous discussions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286939
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15916350
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3676578
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346103
p.s. That recent thread about the pros and cons of working at a startup was one of the best discussions I've ever seen on Hacker News. I went through it carefully, tried to make sure that every comment got attention, and compiled a list of the main points, which got a thorough discussion at the last YC partner meeting. We're going to develop some substantive programs in response. It will take some time to responsibly make changes that affect the whole ecosystem, but we're going to work hard on it; it's an opportunity to make things better for everyone. Please stay tuned!
27 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 83.3 ms ] threadLooks like they've dropped their emphasis on working at a startup, which was SMR's mission last time I checked. But I imagine there'll be some there?
- moving away from open-plan offices to something that allows most works hours on most days to have a high degree of quiet & privacy
- addressing the many points about how start-up compensation, even when discounting equity risks for unsuccessful outcomes or low exits, is just not competitive, even though offsetting factors like working on interesting projects, flexible work/life policies, etc., are generally no worse in traditional corps than start-ups, and quite often much better.
Any concrete feedback about the analysis that came from these points would be fantastic.
I think it’s very exciting to hear that YC is directly discussing these things!
While it doesn't address the larger point about compensation (we're working on that), one thought about compensation specific to this event, is that the companies coming to the Expo are at a wide range of funding levels and sizes. Some of them would probably not even be considered "startups" by most people, like Instacart and Doordash, which are both hundreds of people. Many of them do already offer highly competitive compensation; so I would not let this be a deal-breaker for considering coming to the event.
Based on the typical compensation and culture: you describe the kind of employee they target.
And that is in a nutshell exactly what all the comments in the previous thread distill down to.
If you fill out a Work at a Startup profile, we'll automatically show you a list in the directory with just the companies hiring new grads.
You must have a rough idea of what the startups are talking about from their point of view. Just like you are trying to bring clarity into the startups maybe you could provide clarity into the recruiting/hiring.
*edit
I'm particularly excited by how many companies are hiring for deep-tech roles like machine learning, computer vision, and embedded programming for hardware.
Granted, everyone wants the “smart, motivated” + some other synonym for a great person. But are they looking only at c.s grads from surrounding Bay Area schools/Ex-Google and the like?
It sounds like your concern is whether companies are only looking for c.s. grads from brand name schools and companies, and I can specifically vouch for that not being the case. Depending on the company, they're likely to value open source contributions, independent projects you've built that are interesting, startups you've started or worked at, impressive technical work you've done at any company, and how candidates do on their own technical interviews (which vary greatly in substance), among many other factors.
Is there any timeline on lifting that exclusivity?
If the focus is primarily on early employees, then I can see how that makes sense.
For later stage startups, wouldn't YC be concerned with encouraging or supporting monocultures, or otherwise tipping the scales in favor of more software expertise, even if the company is more hardware (or ops or biotech or whatever) heavy?
Out of curiosity, what role would you be looking for?
I would hope that would be the whole point of such a project! (To reduce hiring friction enough to be able to tip the scales, not actually tip them)
> what role would you be looking for?
Personally, my specialty is ops (fka sysadmin). I rarely see a startup truly needing a dedicated someone-like-me until well after they've hired all their early employees.
>Are you looking for a software engineering position?
Answering "No" hides the "Continue" button. If you hadn't told me otherwise here, I would have had no idea you were including Ops.
I'll try "Yes" and provide more detailed feedback in e-mail.
Both were honest and up front, but trying to play up the fact that "we live to work" played about as well as a piano falling off a crane onto Wiley Coyote.
I'd say the honesty is merely the minimum required level of courtesy and respect. The reaction is understandable, especially considering that, for example, by then JTV was 5 years old. If ops is truly still onerous by that point, then candidates would be right to suspect there's something awry with management.
I do hope that this is something that's being addressed by YC, that some founders have the expectation of their early (and sometimes not so early) employees of having the same loyalty or buy-in as they do. If your entire employee option pool is 10%, it's not reasonable to ask even employee #1 for that.
I really want to be a part of a start up and learn things to get ready start to my own company at some point but all offers I got from startups can only make sense if they become Facebook.