[Techonomicon]

I'm tired of the whole "if you're doing x at a startup you're foolish"

You only live once, it's amazing to be an engineer now and have all the choices of being able to actually work somewhere that you ENJOY working at, that you align with and find interesting. If that job happens to pay you $250k / year then great, but if it pays you only $150k and you actually enjoy half your waking hours then seems like you're the real winner.

[5trokerac3]

But in startups that whole "work somewhere or on something you enjoy" is a front. Programming is programming, as long as you find a challenging problem. Everything else is ego.

Some of the most gratifying work I've done is on extremely tedious problems for majorly boring products. The fact that the product is boring and technical lowers the amount of drama around it, allowing you to focus on the programming you love.

The most stressful and least gratifying work I've ever done was on the multiple "sexy" and "ground breaking" products I've worked on. Those products attract snake oil salesmen and shady execs looking to make a quick buck, and who make daily life at the company a nightmare.

Another thing is the $250k/$150k numbers you give. That shows a very valley-centric view. There are parts of the US where you can work for tier 1-2 companies and where that same $150k is the equivalent of $300k in the valley.

[Techonomicon]

> "work somewhere or on something you enjoy"

Definitely not true, and a generalization. I've worked at the shittiest of shitty culture game startups in the early 2010s to places that really strive to build a great culture for everyone at work, is empathetic, and cares about putting employees on a career track they care about.

Just because you haven't been at such a place doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that speaks for everyone.

At this point you can definitely work for interesting startups remotely, I've personally consulted for several in the past year on the side. They use interesting tech, have great people, and are working on interesting problems.

[5trokerac3]

> Definitely not true, and a generalization... Just because you haven't been at such a place doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That in itself is a false assumption and generalization.

Are we talking product or culture? Because, if it's culture, then startup vs. established company doesn't matter anymore. Either can have good or crap culture, and what is good/crap is wholly subjective, and usually more dependent on where the employee is in their life than the company.

For example, I could care less what amenities I have and how nice everyone is if I don't get to go home and put my kids to bed except once in a blue moon. I could care less about working from home if I'm expected to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and work during fire drills that always seem to happen.

The question is, are you in programming primarily because you love the art, are you in it to stroke your ego, because it's bleeding edge, or a combo of both?

Startups convince low-level employees with minuscule equity that they should care as much about the company as the founders through stroking of egos. I'm not making the argument that you shouldn't work for a startup, I'm making the argument that working as a everyday software engineer at a startup is almost always a bad, long-term career investment for experienced engineers.