Fast checkout referral

New
flyingah

New

flyingah
Dec 30, 2021 38 Comments

We are hiring for all positions.

Some facts and prospects of the company:

We are gonna double Eng teams in 2022.
We are still in series B as of the end of 2021.
We have grown more than 10x, and launched new products after the closing of series B (Jan 2021)

Please find your interests https://www.fast.co/careers and DM me for referral.

Update: received too many requests for referral. We currently mainly consider candidates with 2+YOE.

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  • New
    narcpi2

    New

    narcpi2
    An offer that I received from Fast had a few red flags.

    1. They used an old strike price to compute the offer's TC, but also said that the new strike price that will be assigned to me will be much higher, which actually lowers the value of the offer. This is one of the dirty tactics that startups with not so competitive TC use to compete with other competitive offers which many candidates can fall for it if they don’t understand how options and strike price work.

    When I presented a much lower offer value with the higher strike price that I will be assigned, the recruiter just moved on to the next topic and avoided answering the question that I asked. Awkward dynamics.

    (e.g. option strike price of $5 with fair market value (FMV) $40 gives me an immediate $35 profit value per option. However, the value of the option will be much lower with a higher strike price (e.g. $35 strike price with FMV $40 -> $5 profit per option). Obviously, this doesn’t matter that much if the startup 2x, 4x, 10x in valuation over time, but it is still very dishonest, and Fast was the only startup that used irrelevant strike price to calculate the offer’s value. Not to mention, it costs significantly more to exercise options to earn a right to sell stock.

    2. Even with the above TC over-estimation, their TC was significantly lower than other startup/company offers that I have received. I brought counteroffers from other companies to them and they simply couldn’t match them. The recruiter keeps telling me “Once our valuation goes above $xxB in a few years, our TC will likely surpass other offers you got”. However, I don’t want to wait for Fast’s valuation to rise 5x-10x in order for their offer to be “competitive” against other startup offers that I can accept today. Not to mention, other startup company’s valuation will also rise at the same time when Fast’s valuation is rising.

    3. Despite being in an early stage, they refused to disclose equity %, which likely implies that equity % is not that competitive. Equity % is one of the best ways to evaluate and compare one offer to the other.

    To be honest, the offer is not that competitive at all, so I heavily disagree that they are throwing out very competitive offers like what OP said "top TC".

    However, SWEs and EM/D that I have met in the interview loop were all seemed good people to work with. It was just a huge letdown when their sourcer hyped so much about the next big thing (e.g. next Uber), but the offer was on the low end
    Dec 30, 2021 3
    • New
      flyingah

      New

      flyingah
      OP
      thanks for raising up your concerns. list replies to each item you mentioned.
      1. If the recruiters told you what was described above, My guess is that Fast is soon to close the series C(there are lots of Rumors about the C round internally, but there is no official news yet) and you will join after C. You can ask recruiters to clarify. Otherwise, I think what recruiters said is a bullshit

      2. The problem is about how to evaluate the start up TC. In the base part, fast can beat most of big companies. However, You can not compare B/C round options value (FMV - strike) with pre-IPO/public trading RSU literally. For 1 example， you can spend your own money in second market to buy Fanng stock, but you cannot buy early startup option/stock since only big investors have the opportunity. There is a good blog about how to evaluate the startup offer in terms of employee scale : https://www.codingvc.com/p/analyzing-angellist-job-postings-part-2-salary-and-equity-benchmarks If you need to wait for 5x-10x growth to let current offer to catch up with other offers, agree that it does not make any sense to join. In my case, I joined Fast from a Faang company, and Fast only matched my TC up to 75%. My logic is: if the Fast valuation goes up by 50%，the equity part will be equal to the equity part of my previous job, and I expect the Fast valuation will go up at least 200% in series C, and also expect this will happen in less than 1 year.

      3. As mentioned in my another reply, recruiters provide the number of shares you are offered, the approximate valuation of company and the FMV, you can calculate your share percentage yourself. You are more talented than recruiters to do this calculation. If you do not know, I suggest you to go through basic concepts first, like this blog https://carta.com/blog/equity-101-stock-economics/

      From the 3 concerns you brought up, I did not see deliberately misleading info recruiter gave.

      I have the following personally opinions:

      If you are risk averse： join a public company whose stock price is less likely to crash when market goes down.
      If you can tolerate low risk, join hot pre-IPO.
      If you enjoy and can tolerate high risk, join early startup;
      when deciding which early startup to join, choosing the right company is much more important than whether you can get 25% more equity from early startup candidates.
      Dec 30, 2021
    • I agree with narcpi2 reply. I had a very very similar experience .
      Dec 31, 2021
  • Fast is not open about their equity.
    They did not reveal total number of shares in the pool. And the offer they shared with me was less than what I was making.
    They were trying to convince me that equity is going to sky rocket.
    Dec 30, 2021 2
    • Shopify
      frtxkm

      Go to company page Shopify

      frtxkm
      Huge red flag
      Dec 30, 2021
    • New
      flyingah

      New

      flyingah
      OP
      Fast is transparent about the equity (you can find other posts in blind saying so as well). Recruiters will share you your number of shares, approximate company valuation and FMV. isn’t it straightforward to calculate the approximately total number of shares？

      Sorry to hear that Fast cloud not match your current TC. I had similar experience. The most decisive factor here is how much upside you believe a serial B startup has. If you do not believe an early startup(not specific to Fast） can sky rocket, you’d better not join.
      Dec 30, 2021
  • New
    flyingah

    New

    flyingah
    OP
    Hi, I think for all the talents who are exploring opportunities in blind, I believe you will do your own research about the candidate company bc finalizing your next job is big enough for you to do your own research. I do think the following information may be helpful tho:

    For TC: Fast can provide top TC in current new hire market. (Honestly, if you joined big companies years ago, Fast can not beat your current TC given the appreciation of your RSU). Personally, I joined fast bc I believe there will be a big upside based on its valuation at the moment.

    Diff between Fast vs bolt: honestly, I do not see any big diff, there may be some subtle diff tho. The products the two companies are working on have no moat so far. The biggest challenge of the business is the required grunt work to integrate with sellers. This grunt work may be the moat preventing other companies from starting this type of business. So joining fast or bolt? Do your own research, and look at their products, investors and current valuations.
    Dec 30, 2021 3
  • Yahoo
    IClueless

    Go to company page Yahoo

    IClueless
    I prefer slow
    Dec 30, 2021 1
  • Uber
    jfxsft

    Go to company page Uber

    jfxsft
    This aged well
    Apr 1 2