New grad here, will be joining a 50 person Series B startup in SF. Love the culture, team, work life balance, and comp is decent. I’m worried that I won’t have the kind of progression in salary and role as I would at FAANG, since startups have a flatter structure. Honestly, seeing some of these baller 300-500k TC numbers at FAANG for E5/L5/etc. positions make my eyes water. I’m worried that my salary will be stuck in the sub 200k at a startup. Money isn’t everything but a couple hundred grand is a huge enough difference to matter. I like my company but am worried about hitting a ceiling vs the prospect of being a senior eng at FAANG making 400k. Thoughts? Should I look to jump ship to FAANG? 140k base, 30k bonus, .05% equity
New grad? You’re doing exactly what you should be doing. Working at a startup makes somebody much more versatile in my opinion, remember you have to get promoted to have the high TC. And your TC is still quite good for a new grad. You’re in a great position. FAANG will always be there and if you didn’t intern at one, they’re easier to penetrate with 3 yoe.
I actually interned at several FAANGs, but joined a startup because although comp was a bit lower, I felt like I could get more technical experience and have a larger scope of responsibility. But as said above I’m starting to worry that the ceiling of potential is lower since the company isn’t solving the same scale of problems as say Google.
No offense. Chances are if you join Google, you likely won’t end up solving Gmail scale problems too.
The bet on the startup is either that you love the mission or you expect growth to outpace FAANG. Choose your dream and path. Stick with it! If you leave you’ll wonder what would happen if you had stayed. As the position you are in now, the grass looks greener. There’s a whole debate on what is safe vs potential upside. Not easy to quantify.
Honestly I have a somewhat cynical view of the tech scene so I prefer cash or liquidatable (i.e. publicly traded) equity compensation so I won’t tied to some promise of some future growth and IPO in a bubble that I think can burst in the near future
You get so much more breadth of experience at a startup and make more impact as opposed to doing a rote task at a big company. If you’re actually effective, that route will put you in position to leapfrog a few seniority levels and get where you want to be quicker. Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers
That was my thinking when I decided to join the startup, glad to hear others confirm that opinion
I did the reverse - started at google because the name was sexy and quickly realized I legitimately didn’t matter. It’d be 5 years til I was in my managers desk, another 5 with good behavior to be a measly director. If you’re in the position to make this choice as a new grad, you’ve already won. You got this shit, work hard and enjoy it
FANG FOMO! (:
Says you work at Uber?
Posting for friend, he doesn’t have Blind
Why not?