[cajunboi34213]

Congrats on your success as an entrepreneur. 13 years means you did well at it. Speaking from experience, I won't sugar coat it, you're not hireable. 13 years as a startup CTO/CEO says you're not used to having a boss. Corp jobs are all about stfu and doing what you're told. Most hiring managers will pass on you for someone that's spent X years in a corp most similar to theirs.

That said, it's possible. It's usually someone you know really well that trusts you that will get you back in the game. Or companies known to hire founders, rippling comes to mind.

[throwaway2016a]

> Speaking from experience, I won't sugar coat it, you're not hire-able.

No sugar coating needed. That's why I'm asking this here, because I already had a hunch that was the case and figured if any group of people could have some experience with this situation it is the HN crowd.

[tucaz]

I’d agree with the parent that your biggest challenge is going to be able to deal with a boss.

If you can get through that and make it clear in the process you should be more than fine.

If getting interviews is hard having a title of CTO or founder on your resume you change it to Director or Staff just to get into the process and explain it on the interview.

[foobarbaz33]

Make it clear in the interview you are ready to be a good office drone. Say you "respect the chain of command". Managers love that.

Make it clear you are not a primadona.

You are hire-able. Just wipe away any preconceived judgements.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Can confirm, recently had trouble going back to corporate after working as CTO of VC backed startup. Hiring managers, despite my very good resume, judged me very hard and were nervous about having me on the team.

[throwaway2016a]

How'd you end up pulling through it?

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

I'm going back to my previous employer, where they have a written track record of what I did at the company. But even then, many teams at the company do not want me, and feel like I am both overqualified for the technical roles, but also underqualified/a bad cultural fit to lead a big engineering team

[throwaway2016a]

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like you and I are kind of in the same boat.

Unfortunately my previous employer that wasn't a startup no longer exists (it was 14 years ago after all, they got crushed by the 1..2 punch of the dot com crash and the 2008 recession).