Yeah, I get recruiting emails from startups all the time but I don't even want to talk to them because somehow it feels rude to bring up the elephant in the room - I'd have to win the lottery at your startup to make up for the loss in joining it. I'm not sure if this is saying big techs have too much money or VC investors are not willing to compete for talent.
If you are a top talent there really is no upside of joining a startup anymore - even as a founder. It's terribly depressing.
FAANG pays orders of magnitudes better, has better benefits, has flexible work locations and schedules, is working on the most leading edge stuff (autonomous everything, AR, VR, GreenTech etc...) contributes to FOSS, gives leadership opportunities etc...
I'm not sure when this shift happened, but I do remember the tipping point in 2016 when Apple recruited the best PhD away from my company after 6 tries and gave him a 3x pay raise (400k/yr - what startup can afford that for one person?), with the ability to work on self-driving cars.
I'm not sure how it would be possible to compete with that, and don't blame him for leaving.
That would be two more zeros. You sure they’re paying two more zeros for a dev job?
PhD or no, if your skills are good enough for FAANG, I would love to offer you competitive comp in New York, LA, or three lower cost of living university + fintech towns in SE, S, and SW.
The FAANGS are sure not paying an extra zero over what we can offer.
"orders of magnitude" is obviously an exaggeration, but I do agree with everything else. Plus Google or equivalent is going to be a relatively stable low-stress 9-5 job, whereas a smaller company is going to expect you to work longer and wear multiple hats.
I declined multiple 6 figure salary + RSU offered positions with FAANGs due to on-site requirements in CA/SF. What can you competitively offer? Remotely?
