New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: What is the definition of a “founding engineer”?
Ask HN: What is the definition of a “founding engineer”?
2 by hn_throwaway_99 | 0 comments on Hacker News.
I'm asking this question in response to this thread: https://ift.tt/Y5s7W0f. The reason I'm asking is because the comp listed in that thread is "in the $160-180K range and equity around 1.5-2.0%". I'm assuming that actual founders (not "founding engineers") will have equity stakes that are an order of magnitude more at that point in the company (though perhaps much lower cash salaries? not sure). Now, of course, actual founders at this point have already done a ton more work and had more initial risk - they came up with the idea, did the work to get into YC, etc. But, going forward, the founding engineer is probably going to be working just as hard as the founders, and has just as much risk as the whole thing going belly up. So, I don't mean this to come across as overly negative, but being a "founding engineer" seems like a pretty bad deal. If the company hits, you are going to have put in nearly as much work as the founders, but will be probably making ~10x less in equity. If the company fails, you're out of a job but are otherwise in a similar boat as the founders. I guess my overall point is, if you're considering being a "founding engineer", why not just become a founder? Case in point, Nathan Blecharczyk, who was CTO and basically original engineer for AirBnB, was an actual cofounder and is now worth multi billions of dollars. If he were a "founding engineer", he would probably put in nearly as much work, for 10x or more less payoff. Would be interested in folks with more experience who could actually comment on the economics and thoughts on the risk/reward of this. Perhaps I'm just reacting to the phrase "founding engineer", because it seems like it's trying to conflate the role of founder with much less of the benefit.
2 by hn_throwaway_99 | 0 comments on Hacker News.
I'm asking this question in response to this thread: https://ift.tt/Y5s7W0f. The reason I'm asking is because the comp listed in that thread is "in the $160-180K range and equity around 1.5-2.0%". I'm assuming that actual founders (not "founding engineers") will have equity stakes that are an order of magnitude more at that point in the company (though perhaps much lower cash salaries? not sure). Now, of course, actual founders at this point have already done a ton more work and had more initial risk - they came up with the idea, did the work to get into YC, etc. But, going forward, the founding engineer is probably going to be working just as hard as the founders, and has just as much risk as the whole thing going belly up. So, I don't mean this to come across as overly negative, but being a "founding engineer" seems like a pretty bad deal. If the company hits, you are going to have put in nearly as much work as the founders, but will be probably making ~10x less in equity. If the company fails, you're out of a job but are otherwise in a similar boat as the founders. I guess my overall point is, if you're considering being a "founding engineer", why not just become a founder? Case in point, Nathan Blecharczyk, who was CTO and basically original engineer for AirBnB, was an actual cofounder and is now worth multi billions of dollars. If he were a "founding engineer", he would probably put in nearly as much work, for 10x or more less payoff. Would be interested in folks with more experience who could actually comment on the economics and thoughts on the risk/reward of this. Perhaps I'm just reacting to the phrase "founding engineer", because it seems like it's trying to conflate the role of founder with much less of the benefit.
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