What percentage of startup can a founding developer ask for?
I have been working with a founder as a "founding engineer." Basically, what happened was - we got introduced via a friend. The founder has great credentials, i.e., IIT + IIM, and his idea is great as well, which made me start work for him. Prior to working with me, he had 2 developers who left him, and he showed me a shitty non-fully-functional product and told me I have to pick it up from there. As time went on, we started having discussions about current things and what we should achieve in the coming time. The already built thing was so bad that I scraped it completely. I then set up new services(design, code, CI/CD, logs, hosting) and completely deployed their infra on AWS. I did all the things from gathering requirements to make the product shippable. Now we are 70-80% done with the work, planning to launch it this year's end. I was offered 2.5% in the beginning, which went up till 5%, and now he is saying he will give me something between 5-10%(promised higher side of this 5-10). This happened once I told him about my current compensation. Considering that I basically made the whole product from scratch and the only support I had from him were requirements and him providing me with frontend from his vibe-coded lovable project, what percentage should I get? Is the current thing he is offering good, or should I ask for more? He hasn't registered the company yet as well and keeps telling me he will do it in some time. Is this a red flag? What are other things I should take care of?
Current situation: I am one of the greatest performers in my current team and that guy is asking me that once the MVP is launched and the funding is raised I will have to leave and he will give me 30% hike.
One interview, 1000+ job opportunities
Take a 10-min AI interview to qualify for numerous real jobs auto-matched to your profile 🔑
I would suggest not quitting your job unless the founder has a good amount of experience actually building and scaling revenue generating startups before.
Keep the equity close to 10% , and set a boundary /timeline for incorporation. If he doesn't incorporate by the stipulated time period, i would suggest to stop working for him. There are plenty of IIT IIM founders who take people for a ride without proper planning.
Yes, planning to leave my current job only after funding is raised. For incorporation, I will try to push him. I think I dont have the option to leave at this point since I have dedicated a lot of time(evenings and weekends) building this.