Ask HN: Cofounder vs. Founding Engineer

1 points by herval 4y ago ↗ HN

Hey HN! Launching a hypothetical here to get your thoughts going. Not a situation I’m going through right now, just wondering what folks think.

Say you’re joining an early stage that just raised some cash, but doesn’t yet have a team. What would you expect the difference to be between joining as a tech co-founder and joining as a founding engineer, in terms of compensation, attributions and responsibilities?

Same question, but reversed: suppose you’re looking for someone to own the tech side of said early stage business. How would your expectation differ for someone joining as a tech cofounder vs founding engineer?

3 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 19.2 ms ] thread

emrah 4y ago ↗

Engineer vs cofounder is a huge difference, mole hill vs mount everest.

Generally you get to be a technical cofounder when the other cofounder is non-technical. You gotta have someone who knows the tech side

Engineer is an employee, founding or not. The term founding is misleading here, just means "the first one", will likely turn into a CTO eventually.

innagadadavida 4y ago ↗

Titles at an early stage are mostly useless. Just look at the equity - founders get >10% normally the founding engineer probably like 1%.

Most employees will not make it big unless it is the next FB or Uber.

herval 4y ago ↗

Besides the equity, would you expect any responsibility differences?