Conflicted about Founding Engineer Role
A big tech engineer ($250k, 2.5 YOE) is considering a founding engineer role at a pre-revenue food SaaS startup for $160k and 3% equity. They would build the entire product as the first technical employee, essentially acting as a technical co-founder with less upside. The engineer is torn between seeking startup experience and feeling the deal is financially poor.
Background
- The poster works in "big tech" (e.g., Google, Meta, Amazon) with 2.5 years of experience earning $250k total comp — well above typical salary for that tenure. Leaving for $160k means a 36% pay cut.
- A "founding engineer" (#1 employee) is the first technical hire, expected to build the entire product. This is different from a "technical co-founder," who gets a much larger equity stake (usually 10-50%) from day one. The poster feels they're doing a co-founder's work for an employee's upside.
- Seed round: $3M raised at a $10M valuation. "Pre-revenue, pre-product" means the company has no customers and nothing built yet — the risk is extremely high.
- 3% equity at a $10M valuation is worth ~$300k on paper. But the poster needs the company to exit at $100M+ (a 10x outcome) in 5-6 years for the equity to meaningfully compensate for the salary cut — extremely rare in startups.
- The remark "not sure SaaS will be viable" reflects a live debate in tech: if AI agents can build or replace software features, the traditional model of charging monthly subscriptions for static software may be disrupted.