If anyone has experience being in this position, please help out with your experience. Current TC: 36L YOE:2.5
2-3%
That seems correct, but unless you want to be part of startup, you will make more on average with f/g offer.
Depends on the TC, how much will they pay you?
Market rate. Should be a 30% bump from current.
In that case, 1-2% is also fine.
5%
Why do you say that ? Is this the norm?
First engineer always (well almost always) don't do well. They get small equity, they work really hard about 70 to 80 hours a week and when they company start getting money they want to replace you with people that have experience with scaling
Luckily I do have experience with scaling. So I guess I should be ok. But 80 hour weeks don't sound good.
+1 to new. Founders want you to have passion and commitment of a founder with 50x less equity and say in decision. Might be good for someone out of college but does not work for ppl with experience
It's so interesting see comments from those who haven't started a startup--it's the hardest shit I've EVER done in my entire life and I'm on my 2nd one. The pain and crap you deal with 3 or so years to then finally get funding and then do you know how hard it is to recruit a talented engineer? 1-2% is ALOT if you hit the jackpot, engineers who think they deserve like 10% for joining a VC-backed startup are jokes, only like <1% of startups can get VC funding from top tier VC firms and that already de-risks a lot for you. And if things fail, a solid CEO/co-founders will help you since they usually have an extensive network already if they are backed by Sequoia, a16z, Benchmark, Greylock, etc. VC firms. It is indeed high risk, high reward, but if you work at the next PayPal, FB, Uber, Lyft, etc. they have gone on to be happy millionaires with higher positions, experience scaling or even bitz-scaling from 0-1,000, etc. that is extremely valuable and if you leave startup and don't go to angel investing or become a VC and want to go back to FAANG, you'll be the guy/girl these suckers work for because you took the risk and they didn't and you'll make 100x to 1000x more money than them and have way more connections while they are stuck in their comfy engineering role (which isn't bad either so it's a matter of ambition and risk/reward). Startups are amazing, I wouldn't be doing anything else but you definitely have to do your research and understand the risks. Really grill the co-founders, especially the CEO, because so much of the startup's success will depend on that person, if you aren't passionate and believe in the mission and don't like him/her or feel something is off, don't take it. And feel free to negotiate what you think you are worth, if you are truly talented a great CEO will recognize that and fight for you. For compensation look at Angelist for salary ranges and equity %, I don't know if your startup is VC-backed, if they aren't and just have YC, then you can ask for more equity like around 5% or so. 10%+ means you a co-founder level and they might be open to that if your expertise and background warrant it. If they are VC-backed with millions in funding, then 10% is out of the question.
99% chance it will be worthless
1% chance he/she will be a millionaire. High risk high gains
Near 100% chance he will be a millionaire if he sticks to FAANG for a decade and doesn't screw it up. Low risk high gain.