1st Eng Hire at funded Startup
What are the top 3 items off importance to make the decision to become the first Eng hire at a funded startup? What is the best way to be recruited?
Coffee, vending machine and lunch
Offered growth has to be real. Make it super important that you dont get incessantly pushed downward under new employees with higher titles. Also a lot of equity greater than 1% possibly a lot more.
1. Why do you want to do it? 2. What do you hope to achieve? 3. How long are you willing to do it for?
Been in that position some time back. Here are somethings I considered: - how strongly do you believe in the idea? Are you willing to possibly burn yourself to achieve that? - what are the co-founders backgrounds? Do you think you can learn from them and do you believe they add 10x or more value to the team than you? - are you independent and self motivated? Being a first employee you'll be responsible for company culture as well. You can not just expect to be told what to do. You should be able to figure out what is good for the company yourself. There are several other things to take care: - can they help you with your immigration needs, if you need any. - if the company fails, do you think your skillet will get you a new job soon? - can you take the pay cut and believe in the stock options you are given? And many more. DM me if you have any specific questions.
Find out up front what will be the criteria that needs to be met to get another engineer. Learn what kind of budget and purchase decision making power you will have up front. Find out if you can get contract/agency help with things you aren’t strong at - especially if you haven’t been forced to do full stack work long term before.
You should know and trust the founder/CEO
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