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Comment by _ys5p | Hacker News Reader

Would actually love some of y’all’s advice about something like this: I graduated college in May and started a Sales Engineering role at a cybersecurity company. I had offers a a few startups but because of health reasons and the really good insurance, I couldn’t turn this role down.

Now that the health issues are behind me, I have the ability to move to SF and work with a team of robotic engineers on a new project they’re building. Only caveat is I’d be doing it purely for learning; I don’t have the skills necessary to provide value to the team yet.

Haven’t talked details all the way through with the founder I’m talking to, but I think it could be an incredible learning experience. We’re syncing up after Christmas, anyone have any suggestions on what to ask or input on the situation in general?

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I'm not going to tell you outright not to do it. It sounds fun, and SF is a good location to be in tech right now. However, there are some major red flags around you quitting your job, moving to one of the most expensive locales in the world, for an unpaid role.

* Be prepared for a potentially lengthy period of employment. The market is not what it once was, especially early in your career, and interview cycles are long.

* Consider that startup founders in SF have a high appetite for risk, may be very charismatic and persuasive, and ultimately will bear none of the consequences if this doesn't work out well for you. Sadly, founders can be exploitative too, and asking you to move to SF to work for free sounds exploitative.

* There are a lot of good options out there! Speaking as someone who broke into the SF tech scene after starting my career outside of it, the first few companies/job offers are going to sound unbelievably amazing. That's because they are sales pitches, sold to you by professional salespeople. Over time, once you have seen some of those promises fail to work out, you may view the sales pitches with skepticism. There are going to be more amazing opportunities, and some of them will pay.

Having said all that: I once quit my job and spent down my savings to work on a passion project. And I once left my hometown and set sail for SF, too (although I was paid for that.) Ultimately, if you have a good social safety net and good skills, you will probably be alright, even if you do something a little bit wild like this.

If you have a strong network of support for housing and/or returning/new health issues, there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of that to pursue your passion while you’re young. That being said: In other industries, this is known as “being paid in exposure”. It rarely translates into real monetary value, and it’s usually a sign that your client/startup would like you to work for free. Your time is worth more than you think. So by all means go for it if it seems exciting, but if any any point it doesn’t pass the vibe check, walk out sooner rather than later. You can get exposure to robotics elsewhere.

The other commenters already have you a good heads-up about the risks with thr SF robotics position.

I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that there is a lot to learn still at your current job. Dive deep into Sales Engineering and learn as much as you can from the non-engineer salespeople at your job. Those skills are very valuable on their own, and you're already in a good place to learn them. You'll have time to dive deeper into engineering/development at your next job...

So in the current economic/tech-job environment you have a fairly secure job, a whopping 7 months of experience since graduating and you think it's a reasonable idea to quit to take on an unpaid role with a startup...unless you happen to have millions stashed away, or a fallback plan - I can't imagine why anyone would think this is a responsible idea.

Do whatever you want. Life is short, and even if you are making the wrong decision, you will learn a lot from the experience. The saying, “don’t go counting other people’s money” comes to mind here. If the OP is young (probably is if recently graduated), they have more opportunity (time) to rebound from the experience if it turns out to be the wrong path. Make your financial mistakes when young if you’re going to make them.

> Do whatever you want.

Of course. Having said that you have to take a look around and decide if the conditions are remotely in your favor, right now, and when/if things don't pane out in 6-12 months. The economy (not the stock market) isn't great, finding another job without much experience in the current state of the tech industry might look even more bleak. I graduated right after the dot com bubble burst. I took the calls from recruiters offering me sign-on bonuses and other crazy stuff during the bubble - I declined and chose to finish school instead. A year later after graduating I moved to Boston and heard first-hand accounts of developers driving cabs to make ends meet when things imploded.

It's one thing to take a high risk / high reward chance, but swapping a steady good-paying job for effectively an unspecified unpaid role doesn't seem like that. If he's willing to work unpaid, he's more likely to get a low-ball offer if/when the company decides to employ him.

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