One thing I would advise people to keep an eye out for in a small company/startup is bosses who really push the notion that they are your friend or the company is like a family or whatever. While it might be true that you are very friendly with them, the business always comes first to the business owner, no matter what they say. They’re not really “for the people”. They’ll sacrifice you in a second if they have to. So don’t allow them to manipulate you into working excessive overtime or anything like that, in the name of doing what’s best for your “friend” the business owner, or your “family” the team you work with. It’s easy to fall into that mindset and overwork yourself for other peoples’ gain, so just be aware of that. Although I’m obviously a bit cynical these days, I’ve seen it happen first hand in more than one workplace, and I’ve seen it happen to other people I know, so it’s not rare. It can be avoided though if you are aware of it and push back against unfair requests, and you can gain a lot of varied experience at a smaller business.

Definitely noticed all that! The one caveat is the added bureaucracy in big tech where decisions are made based on office politics than their merits

As someone who's currently looking for a startup role, most of these observations are consistent with my expectations. I am choosing this path in order to be able to have more ownership over my work and hopefully progress my career much faster towards leadership (which is where I am meant to be), but I am not expecting a huge payday and am expecting demanding work. At the end of the day, though, I know that even in a startup, I'll make more than enough money to live well, and I feel that the long-term effects of the hyper-growth for even just a few years will be well worth it.

Thanks for your insight!

Thank you John for sharing your experience with us. Definitely, to get the expected results, we have to spend an unsustainable amount of hours. I always wonder if this is because I don't have the necessary skills or if the bar is too high.

Thanks. I love ur vids. Can you please make videos on system design?

Very informative, thank you John. There's one more angle you didn't touch upon: Name recognition of your employer. Do you think it's a significant advantage to have the name of big tech company on your resume over a lesser known start up?

Very interesting insight. On the compensation question, I would stress that there is a big difference between the US and the rest of the world. The level of (over-?)compensation you get at the big tech companies in the US makes it naturally almost impossible for a startup to align with. However this may be very different elsewhere. For example, in Europe, a senior-level SW engineer at a big, well-known company will be paid around 70-90k/year, maybe even less, depending on the industry. Therefore a relatively successful startup would not have the same issue for proposing packages that are competitive in the area.

As I consider this sort of startup vs big company tradeoff, a big deal for me is my motivation and interest in the work I'm doing. Often I hear about a startup that's building some new thing and I think "Wow, that's so cool - I'd love to work on that!" but I don't often think that about the products the big companies create. Perhaps it's because the work startups are doing is often presented in a very focused way, whereas when I think about e.g., Microsoft, I just think "Well, they do Windows and Cloud and some other stuff - sounds boring", but maybe I'd be more excited if I thought about the specifics of e.g., Cloud (say - efficient job scheduling on virtual machines). With COVID I've been thinking much more about my interest and motivation for the job I have and what I'm working on. I've found that over the last two years I'm less and less excited to get up and work in the morning, and I think if you work for a small startup there's a greater likelihood you're really invested in the thing you're building. I now place more value on that aspect and I'd imagine startups, in general, provide a greater opportunity for engagement and investment in your work.

From a long term perspective, does it make sense to join a great startup (series D, profitable, rapidly growing revenue, huge obvious growth opportunity in market, great customer feedback, great employee feedback), get a few title bumps, and then move to FAANG on the basis of those titles, or join a FAANG and work your way up the ladder there?

why do VCs and accelerators always make it sound like startup path is a no brainer.

But if you are working at. some non FANG MNC and you get a late series or pre IPO startup and if its good then it heavily favours joining the startup atleast as per my experience