Ask HN: What reasonable person would work as a founding engineer?

I do wonder too.

I’ve checked few startup offers with calculator. Math just doesn’t add up.

Unless you’re a founder with >10% stake - you virtually _never_ end up financially better than in hi paying position in a big company (think low faang range +).

Even in the best case scenario.

Surprisingly in some cases i know you’re much better off being among few 100-200 forst employees rather than a founding engineer in a promising startup.

“Founding engineer” is a weird concept - you get stressed and used almost like a founder, but paid ~ like first employees.

Unless it’s a new microsoft or google. But such companies don’t just publish founding ingeneer jobs.

But based on the comments here there will never be a shortage of naive people who buy into all that startup romantics and silly slogans like “money is not everything” (sure, but we speak about jobs here, not about our dreams, don’t we?)

Well, I'd probably do it, and I think I'd even be good at it. But that's because I have my own "extreme position": I live in Finland and do not want to move back to my home country the US at the current time. My contribution would have to be fully remote, barring any company-paid trips.

"Make 70% as much as FAANG and work twice as hard (from your cozy bedroom in your weird winter wonderland country)" would therefore be a pretty effective sell to me if I genuinely believed in the product. I can feel myself itching for 2-3 years of reckless professionalism, where I eat, sleep and breathe code.

But that's a weird situation. So I guess my general answer is, "Reasonable people in weird situations might want to work as founding engineers."

It's not a rational choice. By using statistics on startup bankruptcy data, you'd come to the conclusion that it isn't worth it.

But some people like exciting things, to dedicate themselves fully to something, even if that something may yield nothing or even a very negative outcome.

Just see how many people die every year doing free solo climbing (climbing without ropes), yet there are still solo climbers. Often, they make 0 money and do this out of pleasure , fun and for being challenged and love of the sport.

Just because you like optimizing your life for the best outcomes (which typically involve less risk), it doesn't mean others will. Some people are just born differently.

Life is there to be lived. I don't work anymore ever as a founding engineer or founder as I've experienced loss and saw it isn't for me, but what happens is that you'll likely end up working for somebody that did that if you don't.

Even the founding engineer gets 10% or 1%, there'll be always the ones that hit the jackpot and build another Amazon, and even though they aren't rich like Jeff, they carry out immense power and got their billions. And they deserve it, because they risked a lot for that.

Being the unlucky one in this isn't fun. I've been there, saw it and it's ugly. But that's just how the universe is. Some will be lucky, that's something I'm sure.

You can extend this argument to internal promotions as well, most companies expect you to first perform at the next level before you are considered for a promotion. Essentially it boggles down to being at the right place at the right time. The attributes you listed are not sufficient to run a company, you might require capital, you might require political support, you might require land or some natural resources and stuff that is not purely in your hands.

Companies are never a “if you build it, they will come”-type of thing. You need sales/marketing/etc (and that can all be one person). Sometimes you can have engineer/sales/marketing/etc all in 1 person but it’s rare.

It’s incredibly common (in and outside of tech) to see someone who is really, really good at 1 (or more) things but sucks at other skills needed to run a successful business. A prime example is someone who can make amazing food but has no clue how to run the other aspect of a restaurant/food business. I have first-hard exposure to this phenomenon.

Maybe you don’t want to raise funds, maybe you don’t want to do sales, maybe you don’t want to talk to clients, maybe you don’t want to be alone in an echo chamber.

There are many valid reasons to partner with one or more people that don’t write code to form a company.

I run my own company, I do everything (some of it badly) and I’d absolutely entertain the idea of bringing on someone who enjoyed and was good at sales and managing clients. I can do both those things and I think I’m above average at it but I don’t enjoy doing it. It stresses me out and feels like a chore. I don’t want total isolation from my clients but I’d love a layer between us. Someone who can say “no” or “our platform doesn’t support that” without feeling stress or low-level guilt or agreeing to add features for free. Someone who enjoys reaching out to new perspective clients (all of mine essentially fell in my lap).

Bottom line good engineers often are not good at the other things needed to build a successful company.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

It could be that the engineer is the one with the idea and the less technical person is needed to sell it. I know I hate sales, I’m betting the same is true for most engineers. Without someone to get out there and sell, it’s just a hobby.

With Apple, Jobs was the salesman. Without him, Woz would have been an engineer at HP and the modern computing landscape would look very different.

In terms of bringing someone’s else’s vision to life. If the other founder is a good salesman, the engineer should end up sharing the same vision and seek to evolve it and add their own signature on it as well.

Because the business/sales/marketing people around me actually bring value and I can't do it myself without them.

Not everyone wants to start their own company. As a founding engineer, you can make a significant impact, gain valuable experience, and potentially reap rewards through equity—without bearing all the risks and responsibilities of being a founder.

It's not always about the money. My dream job is being paid to build things, and not dealing with spending half the day figuring out that someone else broke the build because a dependency of a dependency no longer supports arrays.

I like having the entire codebase in my head, from the user to the DB. In most jobs, you're lucky to have a small portion of a front or back end loaded in your head. To keep it there, you'd have to spend all your time writing PRs. You may never know the users or interact with any.

I started a company too. We sat in traffic for an hour to meet one VC who turned us down. I was watching the sun set and asked my cofounder what we signed up for. He said, "If we took full time jobs, we'd be here every evening."

You forgot to mention the high probability of getting laid off in less than 12 monnths :)

I was a "founding engineer" twice.

The money wasn't very good compared to the time spent working. However, my best contacts/connections in the entire industry were born from those jobs.

It makes sense if the non-technical cofounder brings in industry insight or a portfolio of contacts that they can translate into revenue once the MVP is ready.

I will work for a non-technical founder who has connection to a market I'm interested in.

> 80 hour work-weeks

You assume that all startups are crippled by dysfunctional mismanagement, but it is not so.

Depends on equity. Standard equity for founding engineers is definitely way too low; the chance of the company failing is still 100x higher than if you join as engineer #10, but you don't get 100x the equity (unlike the founders!).

Being able to run a successful business and being a great engineer are two entirely separate and non-overlapping skillsets.

If you're trying to launch a business, you'll have no time for engineering. If you're the engineer, you have no time to run the business.

These are two entirely separate jobs that need to be done by different people.

I'm not strictly a founder, but I am the first real engineer this company has had. I love the work, but if I were also responsible for the business itself, neither job would get done. You'd have to be an exceptional superstar to do both.

Why become a founding engineer instead of starting your own business? Because you want to do engineering. The vast, overwhelming majority of people cannot do both.

> If you really had these attributes you'd be much better off starting your own company.

Isn’t „founding engineer” actually starting the company? If not, what does the „founding” mean here?

As a technical person, swe and founder, I would never join as a “founding engineer” for 1% equity. Or less (most people are stingy and offer some bs)

Especially not for someone completely non technical.

Especially not if that person is not someone I can respect (expert in the field, has impressive track record, and i feel they can actually rally a team) to succeed at all costs.

Founding engineers might as well stay at a FANG/good company or do their own thing than waste time. IMO.

You have a better chance of becoming a billionaire founder than winning the lottery. Keep that as motivation lol.