Side Effects of working at startups
I am a 6 yrs experienced Software developer and part of a mid-stage startup. This is my third job; I have been working here for 3 years. I was involved here as one of the core engineers at the start in developing the overall platform, After that, my growth as an engineer stagnated for 2 years .
Constant importance and priority are given to business requirements and hacky work getting pushed to production in the name of fast iterations and business impact every week.
My engineering manager lacks proper engineering skills and doesn't respect engineers even after their impact on the company and constantly keeps saying the engineering team doesn't contribute to the revenue of the company despite us pushing work that improves business positively.
Last year around November, around 80% of the engineering team was subtly suggested to start looking out for work (basically a soft layoff) because management was too scared of a social media backlash
Due to all this,2 years' worth of technical debt has accumulated on the overall codebase and apart from giving justification for every code improvement that we try to make there, we still have to work on business/product requirements.
My growth as an engineer has stopped and I am worried about missing out on the latest developments in the tech industry, especially with AI in the picture, and want to make my skillset somewhat AI-proof. I have come back to hands-on coding this year , so that's a positive start. I am considering taking a 3-4 month break after resigning from my company to study, develop side projects, develop a portfolio etc
Has anyone else been in this boat ? How did you come out strong?
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
I relate to this on so many levels
Boss is a jackass who acts tough within team but is scared in front of other stakeholders. He nags us for updates, is super micromanaging and yet his team performs the worst in the entire org.
Also the CEO is super bullish on AI which has made our spends on ChatGPT API really high. The AI features are actually pretty trash - they feel janky and incomplete. Almost like the people working on them didn’t really care.
You know what’s worse ? Company that’s not a startup anymore but calls itself one so it doesn’t have to improve its culture.
Yuuuup ,yuuup
All in the name of urgency,"motivation" for quick results and because someone decided to give feedback on a feature rolled out 5 months before and wants his/her requirement implemented the next day
bro how’s the culture of razorpay? have heard so many good things about tech innovations.
Daily standups with CEO one in morning and one in evening, with posting updates on your daily work on Slack 💀
And not even single day he will appreciate someone, but rather will say nasty things
And what more is nobody leaves early everyone just works till late nights idk why, and even if you leave early, ya you are in people’s and CEOs eyes on hot list
Dude the CEO's lack of appreciation and regular updates on slack is on point. The same has been happening with me
Buddy, in a startup, chaos is the new normal! No worries, just remember "Har mushkil ka hal hota hai". Upgrade yourself, never stop learning.
Startup = Fuckup
What would you want an ideal startup to do at 0-1, fulfilling everyone's growth, satisfaction, features shipment....? Think like a CEO while answering and reason how you would achieve it
I thought like a CEO for the past two years and that's why I am in this situation. I understand the 0-1 journey to stabilize business as well but where do you draw the line then?
Would less number of engineers have helped? Like bare minimum with a damn high salary increment.
I know of such startups(matured now but still startups) which are paying 50LPA for SDE2 with 4 hours of work daily.
If you feel that your growth has been stagnant, then leave asap. One shall move out at a point.
Thanks alot man!
It feels good to hear some encouragement and not hear the good old 'Market is bad, don't do anything' , my counter point to it has always been that I put 2 years of time and effort in enabling another company's success,I can definitely put that effort in my career 😄
