Is this really what working at a startup is like?

New
shiny_new

New

shiny_new
Oct 4, 2021 249 Comments

Been here for 3 months and I was very excited at first. I've spent the bulk of my 30+ year career working for stodgy banks, pharma companies, and hedge funds where although I had a chance to work on some massive systems, it never felt very innovative.

I thought that being in an "engineers first" company was going to be a nice change from having to clear technical decisions with people that had limited exposure to technology. But the reality is just as bad, if not worse.

Two weeks after I joined, they started hiring a bunch of managers, 80% from the same firm the previous CEO used to work at. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they're supposed to be technical, it's painfully obvious they've never worked on any large-scale systems before. My colleagues, all of them bright and clever, have very little experience in the craft of software and database design.

The result is that we have just about every open-source app running without any thought to how these things integrate into an architecture or a big picture. There are no comments in the code (and they're not self-commenting), no unit tests, no code reviews, no design documents .. hell - there are no specs, even! Right now, the managers have embarked on a major re-architecture but it's all according to the engineering manager's "vision" - which is microservices. Why? I have no idea. They get pissed off if I asked them to articulate the reasons.

I've found myself with very little power to change anything here. People don't want to hear about having to do unit tests, or database backups, or written specs. Some of their database designs are so bad, that even my polite suggestions to do it correctly is met with a collective rejection. I see them heading to disaster and there's nothing I can do to help them.

I'm getting well paid, but I've stopped offering any opinions without being asked (and I haven't been asked). I'll just grab stuff off the backlogs once they come in, even if I'm contributing to their demise. Then either they IPO before the shit hits the fan, the fire me, or they fold.

#tech #startups

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 TOP 249 Comments
  • “80% from the same firm the previous CEO “

    Run
    Oct 4, 2021 7
    • Google
      uffty

      Go to company page Google

      uffty
      I find that Xooglers do this quite a bit. Would you run if they were all poached from a good company?
      Oct 10, 2021
    • it also seems to me that management is "just for short-term money". maybe sprinkle words "microservices" to attract more short term money but eventually go to next place and repeat.
      but I'm also not saying that unit tests and backups are what startups need.
      OP be careful, usually "suggestions to leadership" end up your own headache and no one else. they gave signal by not considering all opinions.
      Oct 10, 2021
  • Amazon
    Canadian72

    Go to company page Amazon

    Canadian72
    I think as a start up, getting thing done is more important than tech debts
    Oct 4, 2021 10
    • New
      a_man_from

      New

      a_man_from
      I interviewed with one of the well funded seriesB security startup. They are highly successful with big enterprise clients and close to 10M ARR. The interviewers (well experienced) focused on engineering best practices like TDD, Object oriented design principles, Django/Python best practices, documentations etc., There wasn’t a single leetcode style questions. If you are not writing unit test cases at the bare minimum, you are most likely setting yourself up for failure down the road.
      Oct 10, 2021
    • Apple
      kratosgow

      Go to company page Apple

      kratosgow
      I was an intern on a new product team at Google. 40% of the weekly discussions were dedicated to resolving tech debt, and they’d often spend entire weeks just clearing up tech debt
      Oct 10, 2021
  • New / Data
    cVGV0

    New Data

     cVGV0
    I don't like start-ups although I am working in one
    Oct 4, 2021 7
    • Yeah. I would pay a lot of attention to the resumes of CEO, CPO, CTO and CMO. Ideally you want to see them having done other successful startup before, but you also want to see that they have experience operating in a large company, at senior level. That gives you some confidence that they can scale the company when time comes.

      Even this doesn't guarantee success, but is usually a good litmus test.
      Oct 10, 2021
    • SoFi
      mirth001

      Go to company page SoFi

      mirth001
      💯 don't join a startup because it is cool. The founders and senior leadership ideally should have solid big companies and startup execution experience.
      Oct 10, 2021
  • You had me at no database backups. What!? Are your prod databases not being backed up?
    Oct 4, 2021 12
    • why aren’t you using aws or some service that takes care of that for you
      Oct 10, 2021
    • Tableau / Eng
      Avian

      Go to company page Tableau Eng

       Avian
      Not everything has to be in the cloud, even now, especially given the 1GB scale of data they have. That said, it's tough to argue against the convenience and potential scalability. And given the level of foolishness demonstrated by "no production backups" it seems they need all the handholding they can get. Overall, I have to vote for "run." But op should also take a hard look at his soft skills. You really should be able to drive some change.

      You also need to understand that the feature / tech debt balance *needs* to be different in startups vs enterprises.
      Oct 10, 2021
  • Splunk / Eng
    NarendraM

    Go to company page Splunk Eng

     NarendraM
    Thats the reason why most startups fail
    Oct 4, 2021 2
    • Not true. Architecture is important but not critical for survival. If business is successful, they will hire expensive engineers in the pre-IPO gold rush. Even Google did so. Their early codebase was shit and was rewritten multiple times.
      Oct 10, 2021
    • Splunk / Product
      TC=350K

      Go to company page Splunk Product

       TC=350K
      Your take is partially true. To start the business, there needs to be atleast a decent architecture. In op's case its just all open source things baked up. In Google's case Larry and Sergey had decentish knowledge since they were phds and not a bunch of ignorant managers like in op's case
      Oct 10, 2021