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How to Not Get Screwed over as a Software Engineer [video] | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com · 10,497 words · saved by 1 readers

This is the true risk of startups, and, if you're looking to maximize your earnings, it's best to either join a big tech company or start your own startup owning most of the equity, perhaps as a side hustle while you grow it enough to be profitable. But getting "founding engineer" level equity on the order of 0.5% (before dilution!) seems to basically be a scam, where you're working 2x the amount for lower salaries than the market, all while having some nebulous carrot dangling in front of you for a reward that may never come, most likely, or even if it does, the value is so small as to not make up even on a per-hour basis the amount you spent working at the startup. 0.5% at an early stage with below market compensation, no refreshers with future rounds, negligible comp increase with future rounds, and below-market salary is indeed a scam. A lot of startups are happy to operate this way. On the other hand, getting 0.5% equity in addition to market rate salary (or adjusted to market rat

One of the top comments on the YouTube video attached to the article talks about how someone wasted their 20s working as the founding engineer (employee #6 of a 6-person startup) and when the company exited for $100 MM, they only got 100k and are still working at 40 years of age while the other 5, presumably having cofounder-level equity, are retired. This is the true risk of startups, and, if you're looking to maximize your earnings, it's best to either join a big tech company or start your own startup owning most of the equity, perhaps as a side hustle while you grow it enough to be…

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