How do you manage your personal career goals when having to wear multiple hats at work because it's a startup?

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

for folks who work at a startup and wish to continue with them.

Product Marketing Manager

for folks who work at a startup and wish to continue with them.- Grapevine

I feel like this is a general problem that people who join startups in really early stages face. They get hired to do a function, then once the startup picks up, someone more senior gets hired and they’re practically demoted. 

This is happening third time to me, but still haven’t figured how to deal with it. The first time, someone from Stanford got hired and I felt really insecure about it. We got along pretty well but I couldn’t take that we were of the same age and this person was managing me despite me being around in the company for longer. 

That person left, my function was changed as well and again after a year, I was layered by another person. 

I just joined a new company four months ago and feel like the same thing is about to happen. I know they’re hiring someone. Makes me feel anxious about how I’ll lose ownership of things I’ve been doing and I haven’t even gotten the chance to prove myself yet. 

Do I just wait it out? Or talk to the founders about it? I understand where they come from, they do what’s best for the company. But I feel like I should look out for myself as well.

Startup folks - How did you get ahead in your career after being layered?

Growth Manager

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

I mean early teams at series a plus.. I am 38. And if yes, how do you do it while being a good performer?

Is it okay to think about work life balance while working in a startup

Software Engineer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Ask me anything! I work in engineering and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have on what it’s like to work in a startup.

This one’s for the startup people

Founder

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I am working in a Pre Seed GenAI Startup (2020 Founded) as Head of Engineering (Team of 20 with 5-6 in Engineering, No CTO) 

It's been 3.5 years (3yrs Full Time + 6mon Internship) Previously it is in EdTech now in GenAI Space 

My CTC is 8 LPA + 0.45% ESOPs (10-12L in 25cr valuation). 
Skills: Nodejs, Nextjs, Monorepos, MongoDB, AWS, Serverless

1-2yrs ago we were thinking about scaling the tech team, etc but then that EdTech model started failing and then we went to a war time after that we pivoted currently also we are burning money revenue is there but very less (25% of the expense)

I was of the view that I want to lead teams and scale products That's why I was there in the team It can be the case tomorrow if we scale 

but Now I am confused whether I should switch my job and or stick with the startup maybe the startup grow tomorrow or a big VC fund us to scale (as I have ESOPs) or it will just be a waste of time or opportunity cost

Please guide 🙏 Anyone with a similar startup experience would really appreciate your help 🙏

Need Career Guidance in Tech (Switch or Not?)

I feel there is no light for this tunnel for many more months to come. 11150+ Applications for 1 Post. Can't imagine the level of competition.

11,100+ applicants for 1 Job, Is market really getting better as mainstream says?

Analyst

Hi Folks,

Want to understand what makes you stay at a startup vs shop around in other companies or leave after 6months- an year? 

Please tell things other than initial compensation because you can always find someone paying more. Assume a market standard here.

How to get people to stay at a startup?

I recently worked at a startup and it was terrible. 

To be honest, I still worked at one of the better ones but it just sucked. 

Some of the clear downsides I see 

- Survival mode leads to chaos. You can be treated anyway and asked to leave whenever  even though you left big opportunities to be here 
- Brand loss to find next job (Big problem)
- Trying to make you feel unworthy(Doesn't bother me but I have seen people lose self confidence)
- Loss of opportunity to build real skills like building sustainable teams for the long run

I think over all working at a startup especially early teams is a losing proposition. Do it only if -
 - you know the founders/team well 
- you know the industry and market well and it is a bet you personally believe in
- you are secure enough in life that if you go back to your job, you will easily get employed 


For middle class kids, startups are the worst bets one can take.

Working at startups is terrible

Product Designer

Wanted to say Hi, what do you do, how do you see current phase of your life, how do you look at your career so far, and what do you plan to do in next 5 years, etc.

Any 40+ Grapeviners here?

Solution Architect

Q to employees working in startups..do you folks have visibility about the runway left for your startup?

And is your company actively looking to raise funds in this market?

Runway of your startup

Startup ecosystem seems to be going through a tough time recently.

with less money infused in the market, and all the big player laying off employees, companies stooping so low in the name of cutting down the cost and news about some companies treating their employees like shit.


Still my optimistic ass believes that it can’t all be that bad, right? and things might get better.


Here’s my question to the community, what are some companies you would like to work for and why(apart from money 😉)?

What are some startups that you’d  like to work for?

Staff Engineer

Hi folks, thinking of writing a regular mini blog here about my learnings being a generalist in the ecosystem.
I currently handle growth at an ecom startup and have previously been through 2-3 startups + a large corporate in my 7 year career.

#1: Why you should not stay only in startups

Recently started reflecting on salaries of many peers who are also startup folks and trying to see where it stands.
There are 3 cohorts:
a. People who started out in Big 4/Corporate & then became a generalist: They've been underpaid the most. First pay was 4-5L, and when they transitioned to startups, started at 7-9L. Over time, growing from there is difficult without MBA.

b. People who have forever been in startups: They earn more than A on average. But here too, there is a delta in their salaries vs. people with same YoE who went to an MBA and are in corporate now. Side note: I've seen this cohort has usually loved what they've done, and being in startups definitely has positively impacted their thought process.

c. People who went to a corporate/big tech etc. mid way: This cohort has done the best long term. Their pay got recalibrated when they went to a larger company in the middle through their career, and when they rejoined startups, they were respected more in salary negotiation.

This is to anybody out there who is a generalist and sees a similar path. Try to sandwich a proper, large company in your career. It gives you perspective on whether you like it and if startups is really your preferred route. And it also recalibrates your pay.

Startups will limit you basis your last salary. Corporates have standards basis bands. Just something to think over.

NOTE: Do share feedback, if this makes sense. And if you'd like to read more of these too.

The Generalist - #1: Why you should not stay only in startups

Not only compensation, corporates help you to learn saying “NO” to not-related tasks. I see young startup folks in the name of “learning” are forced to do anything and everything. In my first startup role, I was handling the responsibilities of a PM + ops, which burnt me like anything without any significant skills gain. Corporate taught me delegation, saying “No” to things which aren’t part of your team.

Product Manager

Corporate Strategist

Amul says you should interview all the time 

Manas says this is not smart

Today's E-lafda: Manas v/s Amul

I am 3 years into my career and I have deep passion for Software engineering. I genuinely like it. I want to become a better engineer by going deep. But since the time of my internships in college, I have always been fascinated by startups and want to have one of my own. Now I have an idea(again very passionate about) and I’m working on it but my dilemma is that if I run a startup, it’s going to take me away from my other interest of engineering. Any thoughts?

Biggest dilemma of my life

I'm a final year grad student who is working as an intern in a startup. It's a small team, and I'm the owner of 2 projects. Recently I've been feeling overworked and underpaid. I'm an intern who is working at the capabilities of a full-time and more. How do I have this conversation with my boss?

How do i tell my boss I'm overworked

About me: 25M working in a super early stage startup for 1yr.

The startup is only 2 yrs old with seed funding. 2 pivots, but none worked. The 3rd pivot is interesting and we still don't know if it'll work 


I want to understand the life of an Early employee, how do you manage to keep hope, or when to call it quits?

Have vested esops. Also feel if I can get 1.5X cash salary if i switch

When to quit an early stage startup

I'm a marketer with 4 years of experience working with startups, corporates across different industries.
One thing I'm realizing is that having a single source of income is just not sustainable anymore.

Also, I've been dreaming to go indie hacking or take the solopreneurship route for quite some time now.

But the biggest barrier has been the commitments I've got at my job.

If any of you have started a side hustle or are planning to start one, how are you balancing it with your day job?

What are the challenges you faced/are facing and how have you overcome them?

Currently working in an early stage SaaS startup

Is it possible to start a side hustle while working at a startup?

I have 2 job offers in hand and now am a bit confused. Need your advice on decision-making,

1st offer - Jaipur location - investing and trading company, offering me an Equity Research Analyst role with a profit-sharing in the new business division which they are developing.

2nd offer - Bangalore-based startup, recently raised $550k, has 18 months of runway, the current scale is low.. they are offering me mixed roles - 50% of the time will go into Social Media and Content, 30% in Business and 20% in Finance. ESOPs will be based on 6-8 months of performance.

Now I have 2 career paths in mind:

1) I want to do CFA and get into the core finance side... it might also lead me to the VC, PE, or IB side.

2) Startup - I have done startup in the past but failed. I want to do startup again but currently want to join a good startup where I can learn from experienced people.

I don't know how I should go about deciding b/w these 2 career paths.

If you were in my shoes, how would you make a decision?

Have 2 job offers - Confused to choose one

Equity Research

Looking for responses people from both sides

Which place is best to work, a startup or corporate? Which will ignite you to be an entrepreneur?

Social Media Manager

Hello grapevines!
Need your help/opinion here.
I work for a big corp. ~6YOE. 48L.

The work culture here seems a bit off. Constant pressure to compete and snatch the work and prove oneself. Chaos is being glorified. Onsite team is unresponsive and hiding information. Asking for a KT is being judged upon(expectation is apparently to read through the code). Everyone is trying to earn brownie points by impressing the manage because no one seems to know what to work upon. Technical ability is being looked down upon in the name of domain knowledge.

I switched recently to upskill and grow, but seems like it was a wrong choice.

I’m looking for early stage startups to switch to. I know the current market situation is bad, but I’d take the risk as long as I’m getting to expose myself to good problem statements and less bullshit.

Looking to join early stage startups

I've 3 yoe, currently working in a very small startup as full-stack dev. Company's revenue is declining from Q4 last year.

Every month layoffs are happening in each team. Last week, a dev was laid off from my team.

No hike till now, working here from last 1.5 years. Although, got performance bonus twice.

I want to work on a few ideas, tried to work on weekends but it led to burn out and started affecting my health, suffered from mental fatigue.

Please suggest.

for folks who work at a startup and wish to continue with them.

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