"Able to wear many hats", "High agency", "Ability to go above and beyond". If you really had these attributes you'd be much better off starting your own company.
It’s incredibly common (in and outside of tech) to see someone who is really, really good at 1 (or more) things but sucks at other skills needed to run a successful business. A prime example is someone who can make amazing food but has no clue how to run the other aspect of a restaurant/food business. I have first-hard exposure to this phenomenon.
Maybe you don’t want to raise funds, maybe you don’t want to do sales, maybe you don’t want to talk to clients, maybe you don’t want to be alone in an echo chamber.
There are many valid reasons to partner with one or more people that don’t write code to form a company.
I run my own company, I do everything (some of it badly) and I’d absolutely entertain the idea of bringing on someone who enjoyed and was good at sales and managing clients. I can do both those things and I think I’m above average at it but I don’t enjoy doing it. It stresses me out and feels like a chore. I don’t want total isolation from my clients but I’d love a layer between us. Someone who can say “no” or “our platform doesn’t support that” without feeling stress or low-level guilt or agreeing to add features for free. Someone who enjoys reaching out to new perspective clients (all of mine essentially fell in my lap).
Bottom line good engineers often are not good at the other things needed to build a successful company.
I’ve checked few startup offers with calculator. Math just doesn’t add up.
Unless you’re a founder with >10% stake - you virtually _never_ end up financially better than in hi paying position in a big company (think low faang range +).
Even in the best case scenario.
Surprisingly in some cases i know you’re much better off being among few 100-200 forst employees rather than a founding engineer in a promising startup.
“Founding engineer” is a weird concept - you get stressed and used almost like a founder, but paid ~ like first employees.
Unless it’s a new microsoft or google. But such companies don’t just publish founding ingeneer jobs.
But based on the comments here there will never be a shortage of naive people who buy into all that startup romantics and silly slogans like “money is not everything” (sure, but we speak about jobs here, not about our dreams, don’t we?)
I worked as a founding engineer and the CEO kept saying that I'm basically set for life because he was certain the company would become a ~$10 Billion unicorn. Of course then I thought "Why would he say this if he weren't very certain it would happen", but that bravado optimism I realized was just par for course among founders, and only 1% make it. Your chance of becoming wealthy in 10 years in aggregate are much higher just working for a normal tech company and investing your disposable income.
Founding engineers get 1% of company at best.
With very optimistic 200mil buyout in extremely optimistic 5 years you have 2mil tops.
With conservatively optimistic 400k/year (senior level salaries in a public company in us) you make this in same 5 years without a) relying on luck b) without 80h work week c) with plenty of talented colleagues to learn from etc etc.
This isn’t even about a chance it’s a pure math.
Just like casino is not about the chance, it’s about statistics.
But it promotes idea of “chance” to attract customers.
1. You are emotionally invested in the idea (you truly believe in it) 2. Your passion for whatever it is you do at the company is so high that it doesn't matter where you do it at 3. You need experience or a job
Don't do it for money, of because your friend started the company, or for any other reason
I like having the entire codebase in my head, from the user to the DB. In most jobs, you're lucky to have a small portion of a front or back end loaded in your head. To keep it there, you'd have to spend all your time writing PRs. You may never know the users or interact with any.
I started a company too. We sat in traffic for an hour to meet one VC who turned us down. I was watching the sun set and asked my cofounder what we signed up for. He said, "If we took full time jobs, we'd be here every evening."
"Make 70% as much as FAANG and work twice as hard (from your cozy bedroom in your weird winter wonderland country)" would therefore be a pretty effective sell to me if I genuinely believed in the product. I can feel myself itching for 2-3 years of reckless professionalism, where I eat, sleep and breathe code.
But that's a weird situation. So I guess my general answer is, "Reasonable people in weird situations might want to work as founding engineers."
But some people like exciting things, to dedicate themselves fully to something, even if that something may yield nothing or even a very negative outcome.
Just see how many people die every year doing free solo climbing (climbing without ropes), yet there are still solo climbers. Often, they make 0 money and do this out of pleasure , fun and for being challenged and love of the sport.
Just because you like optimizing your life for the best outcomes (which typically involve less risk), it doesn't mean others will. Some people are just born differently.
Life is there to be lived. I don't work anymore ever as a founding engineer or founder as I've experienced loss and saw it isn't for me, but what happens is that you'll likely end up working for somebody that did that if you don't.
Even the founding engineer gets 10% or 1%, there'll be always the ones that hit the jackpot and build another Amazon, and even though they aren't rich like Jeff, they carry out immense power and got their billions. And they deserve it, because they risked a lot for that.
Being the unlucky one in this isn't fun. I've been there, saw it and it's ugly. But that's just how the universe is. Some will be lucky, that's something I'm sure.
It was still fun though. And I'm still proud of what we built.
If you're trying to launch a business, you'll have no time for engineering. If you're the engineer, you have no time to run the business.
These are two entirely separate jobs that need to be done by different people.
I'm not strictly a founder, but I am the first real engineer this company has had. I love the work, but if I were also responsible for the business itself, neither job would get done. You'd have to be an exceptional superstar to do both.
Why become a founding engineer instead of starting your own business? Because you want to do engineering. The vast, overwhelming majority of people cannot do both.
With Apple, Jobs was the salesman. Without him, Woz would have been an engineer at HP and the modern computing landscape would look very different.
In terms of bringing someone’s else’s vision to life. If the other founder is a good salesman, the engineer should end up sharing the same vision and seek to evolve it and add their own signature on it as well.
It's not really a job people should be hiring/applying for.
https://old.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/1fkruy3/i_want_to...
I enjoy startups because I like how it’s a few folks who are all in and collaborative without as many silos and internal politics.
Not sure I’d want join as the 1st again though. Likely right after they found signs of product market fit and have at least raised a series A
Especially not for someone completely non technical.
Especially not if that person is not someone I can respect (expert in the field, has impressive track record, and i feel they can actually rally a team) to succeed at all costs.
Founding engineers might as well stay at a FANG/good company or do their own thing than waste time. IMO.
You have a better chance of becoming a billionaire founder than winning the lottery. Keep that as motivation lol.
And you think there will be less commitment as a founding engineer? You’re getting 1% equity on a scheduled vesting and you are the one who will build all the tech.
The money wasn't very good compared to the time spent working. However, my best contacts/connections in the entire industry were born from those jobs.
Isn’t „founding engineer” actually starting the company? If not, what does the „founding” mean here?
Same reason freelancers get bad clients. Don't ask me how I know.
You assume that all startups are crippled by dysfunctional mismanagement, but it is not so.