Ask HN: I'm considering leaving a startup to look for big-company jobs (really).
I've decided to leave a startup in which I was a founder, although the partnership was always a bit unequal (I'm the youngest and don't have any contacts to potential customers or VCs) and our CEO often takes the attitude of it being a one-man show (i.e. he tends to get "set" in decisions without appeal, he makes shitty comments if we take a long lunch, and we deal with 2-4 status checks per day). I've been treated enough like an employee that my motivation has crashed and I essentially am "just an employee" at this point. I don't have a sense of authorship over my work. At which point, why am I continuing to work for low pay? If the major benefit of being at a startup is autonomy, and I don't have that, then what the fuck am I doing?
It's been almost 3 years, and we haven't failed, but we haven't launched or secured funding yet and "just around the corner" syndrome has been ongoing ever since I started. I don't think our CEO would lie, but I can't trust his perception that things are "just about to heat up" because he's been wrong on that matter for so long.
I don't think, for the record, that our lack of success (to this point) is the CEO's fault, and it's definitely not mine: I'm just a developer. I'd prefer to leave details out, but we expended a lot of energy chasing features for customers who flaked on us, or that would/might appeal to VCs, and hence we are at Year 3 and have a lot of cool code but no minimum viable product.
I feel a bit disloyal and selfish for considering quitting, but I also feel like it's what I need to do. It's my career and I need to be selfish.
I also know that established, large companies aren't held in high regard here and I share that prejudice. On the other hand, I think large-company jobs, even if they don't lead to nine-figure exits, can turn out well. My view of large company jobs is this: sure, the default is to get bad projects and not learn much, in which case one leaves after 8-24 months for greener pastures; but they're great if someone powerful taps you as protege, favors you in project allocation, and makes you a "made man" (or "made woman") in the company. In other words, "startup" and "big company" are just two games with good and bad possible outcomes, with more variance in the startup scenario and, in both, with the "good" outcome being somewhat rare (1/5) and the "bad" being the norm. The career game is just about spinning the wheel, repeatedly, until you actually win. And I think it's time for another spin.
The question: what does leaving a startup-- one that a future employer won't have heard of-- do for (or to) one's career? Is it right for me to expect "career credit" for the 3 years I spent? Or am I fucked in that regard? Strategically, what should I be doing to maximize my chances of getting a decent big-company job? Also, what is the programmer job market like? When I last looked around (2008) it was horrendous. Has it improved?
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadSeriously look to join another startup.
My appraisal of startup vs. big-company life is that startups have more variation in individual monetary payoff, while big companies have more variance in quality of work. At a startup, you get a mix of interesting work and shitty grunt work that has to be done, and there's nothing personal about it because everyone is getting about the same quality of work, and because doing the grunt work is well worth it if the startup pays off. In a big company, you can end up in an AI/machine learning research group with high autonomy... or you can end up maintaining some shitty legacy payroll system.
But yes, I would consider a job at another startup. Or at a big company. Or at my current company if I knew the situation would improve. I don't want to be a "job hopper" and would love to find a job where it's still worth it to show up for work after 5 years.
Some can. "Startup" can still encompass something that's been running a year, is profitable, and has ~10 employees. You'll still get most if not all the autonomy while drawing a salary. You may have to give up stock options to get it, but, well, sometimes you come out the winner on those transactions....
You're trading some job security away but as others say that only matters if the job disappears and you can't quickly find another.
I won't tell you not to go big company but I would suggest you may have a false dichotomy here. The choice isn't between 3 guys going bankrupt and a bureaucracy-bound multi-national with thousands of employees. There's a lot of middle ground.
2. You need to take stock of what you've done these past 3 years. How are you different today from when you started? THAT is your "career credit", and you need to figure out how to communicate that to a big company. You probably have a ton of management skills (project management, people management, time management, etc). Big companies like that.
3. There's NOTHING wrong with going to work for a big company. Big company = stability, and after a long roller coaster ride with daily uncertainty, that can be appealing. You can always start over if it turns out you're stuck with the entrepreneurial bug ;-)
The key to being an entrepreneur is failing fast, right? You're 3 years in and haven't launched. Why? Do you know what your customers want? Because once you build what they actually want, no matter how crappy your first launch (within reason), you'll have the opposite problem of not being able to retain enough talent to keep up with their demands. You'll be constantly inundated with emails to the effect of "Yeah I really like your product, but it'd be so much better if it did X..." Failing is not just the CEO's decision; it's EVERYBODY'S decision. YOU are an entrepreneur, too. Use your spidey sense!
And make sure you're honest about it when you talk to your CEO. If you can't come to common ground, that's too bad, but if you CAN, you might turn this around yet.
Also: Read up on Founder's Syndrome if you haven't yet: http://managementhelp.org/misc/founders.htm
Edit: And if you're an Android or iPhone developer who's interested in education and games and lives in the bay area, forget everything I just said. Your company is beyond help and you should come work with us ;-)
Who is "us"?
I'm in New York and wouldn't leave except for a really great job, but I meet at least some of that bill. I'm also not available for at least 2-3 months. But I would love to talk to you even if it doesn't lead to anything. Care to take this offline? march19th2011@gmail.com
You should be receiving a message in your mailbox shortly.
Given your low reserves and being unable to join another startup because of that, I don't see an issue with joining a company that can payroll you till you're able to pursue another startup idea down the road. You should be able to work on something on the side. I actually don't share the sentiment that working at a big company is bad (or as you say, not held in high regard). Definitions of startups are skewed. Technically Facebook is a startup, yet I look at them like they're a big company. It really depends. I think there's value in being at a big company as well. Some of my best business lessons were from regular jobs working at some bigCo prior to building a startup.
In regards to your career credit... you should have been vested for stocks on a typical four year vesting schedule where if you've been there for three years, you should have vested 3/4th of your stocks already. If you were an employee, and had stock options, that's different. You would need to check.
As a developer, assuming you're good, the market is wide open.
PS As a side note, if you're ever interested in joining another startup, I am looking for a cofounder (made a post on here earlier).
On a personal level, I like our CEO a lot. He's really smart and one hell of a great guy but he wants to hold the power/control in his hands as much as possible-- a "benevolent dictatorship" of sorts. I also think he has a great vision and would be excellent in a lot of contexts.
My issue, personally, is that I am doing this to get to a position of high autonomy-- and that may never happen, I'm coming to realize. I figure that if I work to get rich, I'll probably be miserable and might fail and, even if I succeed, won't be for the better for it (though if I have kids, they will be). Or I can work toward autonomy and enjoyment, maybe get rich and maybe not, but at least have the rare privilege of actually enjoying going to work. I'm doing the startup because, if it pans out, I'll have a really cool job and lots of autonomy. Maybe. But if the CEO decides I'm "just a developer" and I end up answering to some hired-gun VP, then I'll have no choice but to quit and, if my equity doesn't do well, years of my life will have been lost.
There's a certain natural distrust I have of business people. Most of them don't mean to do any harm, but they waste others' time and ruin lives with their overconfident promises and their willingness to trample others' interests if they see it as the profitable thing to do. On the other hand, a dismal realist like me, one who acknowledges that failure is possible, can't inspire people in the way profound promises can, now can he?
three years and still no launch is an insane amount of time for a startup. Regardless of what the reason may have been, it should definitely not have taken that long.
I'm not sure how I feel about that one. First of all, there were definite (but forgivable IMO) time-eating mistakes we made in the process, and our first technical hire is brilliant but was a really bad choice for the first programmer, and we're still paying that down. As for time-to-launch, I think there are a lot of "social" startups that can be hacked together in a few weeks, but deep technology takes longer. Maybe not 3 years, but definitely 12 to 18 months.
As a developer, assuming you're good, the market is wide open.
I think I'm both too good and not good enough. "Too good" in the sense that I die a little bit when I have to use languages like Java instead of languages like Haskell or at least Python. "Not good enough" in the sense that I didn't become a programmer until age 24 and, despite natural talent, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. There's so much in software that I've never touched; it was only a few months ago that I learned HTTP and REST.
PS As a side note, if you're ever interested in joining another startup, I am looking for a cofounder (made a post on here earlier).
Thanks. I'll look at it. I'm actually not looking to move until mid-summer. Given that this is a tiny company, I'm more inclined to give 2-3 months' notice than the standard 2 weeks.
Not a parent, but I think the best thing you can do for your kids is to lead a good life yourself -- where good is by your own standards.
> I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.
I must say -- you describe your skills similarly to most people I know who are seriously good. Really good people recognize there's a lot of stuff out there they don't know and would benefit from learning.
one that a future employer won't have heard of-- do for (or to) one's career Do you believe your future employer has heard of every company that has ever employed a software developer? Sure they won't be like wow that guy worked at Google, but they also won't say he has been living in his mom's basement for the past three years. It will be up to you to convey what you have been doing professionally in that time.
Each day spent without releasing an MVP is a day of lost opportunity that could've been spent elsewhere.
A large company isn't necessarily a bad thing either as it'll help you accumulate savings in your early years (which are the most important years to accumulate savings so you can put it to work generating interest, capital gains, etc. so that the power of compounding works passively for you). There's some chart out there somewhere comparing savings compounded early on vs. someone that started later and the difference when you retire is huge.
Plus sometimes you learn alot about how big companies processes work, how they make purchases, contacts, etc. that will help you later on in life if you do intend to go back to a startup world or start your own.
Good luck!
Fortunately, I didn't have to ever live through this first-hand. And that was by far my favorite aspect of working at a big company, I knew that I was working on something that tens of millions of people would use, and it would be a significant part of their lives.
Go for it! There's plenty you'll learn and you can get financially rewarded a lot more than many startups.
Remember, as a programmer: they need you more than you need them. There are plenty of other places to work.
Your advice also makes sense if all you are concerned about is the size of your paycheck. But we all have different goals at different time, taking a good look at which ones are currently important to the OP will help him/her find a happier spot in life.
Damn right. A kick in the pants for which I thank you.
CEO said he didn't intend on having me attend investor meetings because blah, blah I was too green. I figured I'd work hard for 6 months and change his mind. Never happened. At the time, I didn't see the need to go to investor meetings, didn't see that they'd be a good use of my time. But now, with a CEO who meets with customers and investors alone, he actually can call all the shots unquestioned because he's the only one with knowledge of what they need.
He was actually honest with me, before I even started, that he didn't think I was true co-founder material... by saying that he'd not be bringing me in on investor meetings. I was just naive and thought I could "prove myself". And I only got to double-digit equity because of going on deferred cash for so many months (far more than he thought it'd take to get VC). I just let myself deny it, figuring I'd win him over with 12 months of hard work. It never happened, and now my attitude is weak, my work ethic has become mediocre, and I just need to change everything: circumstances and attitude.
HN sometimes has an attitude of "oh, you aren't a founder? you suck" but that isn't true at all. If you do have the itch to take on founder challenges, don't let this stop you from trying again, in a domain where you are credible and with a balanced founding team. Or, stop worrying about it now, put yourself in places where you will pick up these skills from mentors, you will wake up in a few years with the skills and credibility to found a company of this magnitude.
On the flipside, upper management is usually not a good place for (ex-)developers (which means less money). Maybe it's just my perception of things, but it seems like you already have to be a part of the upper management club to join the upper management club, if that makes sense.
Another bad point is you have to deal with people that you will never be sure how they even got a job. This can be very frustrating at times because sometimes these people can hold a position of power, and you just have to learn to say "yes sir" in the face of an obviously-bad decision -- in fact, you may be experiencing this right now.
Finally, you there can be a huge amount of bureaucracy that you have to deal with and this can be frustrating if you're the type that just wants to get stuff done.
After joining corporate, you might not want to join a startup because your job is "cushy" and you don't want to take on that much risk. You will be "comfortable." And if you're ok with that, I say go for it, it's not so bad as everyone here thinks it is :)
Happy side note: 10 years later I'm running my own startup (only founder) and it's great. However, working in big companies between the two was definitely helpful.
I would not rule out other, perhaps funded startups, during your job search. You won't get as big a piece of the action as a founder, but that may be irrelevant, depending on where you land.
On the other hand, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You seem to deeply desire autonomy. The are two truths about autonomy. First, one is never fully autonomous, there are always customers that will hold you accountable. Second, autonomy has it's price. The most successful entrepreneurs usually have a long stream of failures in their wake. It's about taking and applying the lessons from the failures, redoubling efforts, sometimes living an austere lifestyle while figuring out how to keep the bills paid, and trying again. Like I said, it's not for everyone. I have many times considered leaving my venture for the stability of a steady paycheck at a "regular" job. I would be much less concerned about the future for my family and children. But I know that choice would be a choice to accept a mediocre vision for my children, cutting off access to the best toys/learning tools, schools, etc. and I want better than that for them. I believe the same mediocrity would ripple through my career path as well. That pressure has caused me to apply the past lessons, and take risks, some of which are paying off.
The bottom line, reward comes with risk. At a corporate job, the big wigs and shareholders are taking most of the risk, so they get most of the reward.
Your CEO, from the limited information you have presented, sounds perhaps like he is more charismatic than he is in possession of the skills necessary to steer your venture toward profitability. If he has time to check in on all the guys 2-4 times a day, it sounds to me like he has run out of ideas or has no real sense of direction for doing what is needed, securing customers or funding, or just choosing a vision for a product and keeping the lid on the feature set until v1.0 is achieved. I am also wondering what kind of legal agreements you have in writing for your startup. He sounds like he is setting himself up to be the lone founder, claim the lion's share of the spoils, and screw you and the other co-founders.
>Strategically, what should I be doing to maximize my chances of getting a decent big-company job?
I had a hell of a time getting interviews as a 'co-founder', and ultimately ended up changing my title to 'lead developer'. YMMV.
BTW, at 3 years in, you guys aren't "startup"-ing anything. You're playing around at best. Time to get out and get some experience.
It did wonders for me. Not only did I learn all the things I couldn't with startups (managing 200+ webservers, 75 DBs, tables with over 100 million rows etc...) but I was able to fine tune exactly what I DO want in a career.
Every opportunity offers something unique so its just a matter of extracting the things that benefit you until the point at which it becomes boring or you stagnate. Then move on :)
The overall experience is that it's hard to foresee what workplace factors are important to you. Perhaps the ones you take for granted, but won't be at the other place.
After leaving the startup, I had high hopes for better organized workplace at larger company. Boy, I was wrong.
Untill I took a goot root at the large company, I never imagined programmers and managers could create so many, countless even, artificial problems. Every tool in our toolbox was inadequate, but changing that was next to impossible (decisions taken at the uppermost level). Most people exhibited the ``don't touch it if it works'' attitude that drove me almost crazy. The software would pass the tests but a lot of weirdness was swept under the proverbial rug with copious amounts of special-cased code. Software delivery took months. We were implementing features in an ungainly way, and had no way of reporting a much better implementation of very similar feature was possible on this hardware. The list goes on...
Now I'm happy at a 60 strong company. We aren't a software shop, but a small dev team builds software for internal use, marketing purposes and for our co-operants. We iterate quickly and deliver features in between 3 hours and 3 weeks. Every person in team has vertical responsibility -- oversees all steps of development of his feature. We are in touch with users (both internal and external ones) and work with them closely (that turned out to be an important factor to me I never appreciated before -- I thought I'm a lone wolf, turns out it's not the case).
But the best thing for me: people genuinely like using my software. Feels great! :-)
If you really have the attitude "it's not my fault... I'm just a developer" then you should look for a job at a larger company where work processes are institutionalized. And if you get the temptation to do startup life again start your own thing on the side WITHOUT a co-founder so you don't have any temptation to fall into this mindset again.
Without assigning fault, it isn't good that you're abdicating the responsibility to define the business and get customers, and then balking when your partner makes demands. You've settled into a subordinate position and your post basically reads as if you want to switch to another alpha male since this one doesn't seem capable of driving growth.
I don't mean this to sound critical, but life doesn't work this way, or at least it never has for me and most of the people I know. When you start a business you have to do almost everything (if only because most other people can't). So - sure - work somewhere insulated from the market to support yourself and and force yourself to be more entrepreneurial by starting a side business.
I have settled into "just a developer" mindset, because every time I raise issues, I lose. I pointed out things that were screwed up a long time ago, and they never changed. I guess, subconsciously, I've just accepted that I'm not an alpha male, at least not yet. I'd love to be wrong on that, but I've felt "beta" for more than a year.
I've no problem with the equity number. My issues are: (1) I don't really have any power, and (2) I'm not having fun anymore, so if we don't make money I'm wasting time. For the first 18 months at this job, I could honestly say that even if we made zero and my deferred back pay never came, it would've been worth my while because I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.
I don't think I'm an alpha male, though I wouldn't step as far as "not worth keeping". I make decisions about when to confront and when not and sometimes they're the right ones, sometimes not.
Best of luck with whatever road you head down.
I was thinking about quitting for a long time, but didn't do so. I felt loyalty, I was green, I was the developer guy, I didn't really know how businesses are created, yadda, yadda. At the same time I felt that things were not right, we were not going to the right direction.
After some years I decided to quit. Being broke was the last straw. I was also becoming toxic, a hostage, I had to quit to save myself and the start-up.
It was a bit hard to find a corporate job, because I didn't develop any good connections to the industry during my start-up time. Eventually I landed a job in a big company. It wasn't the best of jobs, but got me started in my current career. After two years I got a call from a manager that quit from that company. That's how I got my next corporate job. Then after three years, the same manager called me again and I got my current corporate job. And now I called that manager and some other ex-colleagues to offer job opportunities. You get the picture.
In hindsight quitting was the best decision I ever made. Two years after I left the start-up lost funding and went bust. Steady income improved my life significantly, I paid off debts, started saving, travelled, had real vacations. Almost all the stress and pain in my life was gone.
The only thing I regret is that I didn't quit earlier. I didn't believe in the start-up, but I kept hanging around, I was wasting my time. Since this experience I have made the decision to trust my gut feelings. If I feel something is wrong, I'll trust myself. So far this has served me well. I keep large savings. The idea is that if I ever need to make a jump to the void, then I'm able to do it.
My advice based on my own experiences:
- If you are finished, get out, because you are wasting your time and potentially other people's time.
- To maximize your chances to get a job in a big company look for a good match. When I quit I applied to all sorts of interesting jobs, but never got a reply. I did graphics programming, and unsurprisingly I was eventually hired by a company that desperately needed a graphics programmer.
Career credit: Depends entirely on what you have done at the start up and how it fits with the target company/role.
The answers aside, life decisions are not popularity contests. You need to do what makes most sense for you and most importantly, what sits right with you. Outstanding HN karma does not pay anyone's bills :)
Early stage companies are much like relationships, they don't always work out. You need to know where the invisible line that demarcates your being good for the company and being bad for it lies. Sometimes, the propensity of things/people you love and care for the most to cause you more harm than even your worst enemy is incredible. Stay on the right side of the line.
Not everyone will like you all the time, you can't do everything right all the time, nor will good fortune follow you all the time. When it is bad, lie low, survive, find your way out. When it is good, pay it forward and make up for the bad you have done.
Good luck :)
I have nothing against working for a funded startup at this point.
Dude, drop what you're doing and get out.
Surprisingly, I've found that the frequency of releases is a good indicator of how happy I'll be. A release every week or two is very comfortable without huge pressure. Releases every few months are hell. Death marches, endless requirements documents, way too much process, lack of tools, cant get something because it wasnt budgeted last year. You get the picture.