Growing your career
Company stage
Big tech, growth-stage and early startup trade learning, scope, pay and risk. Pick the trade for this season.
Most engineers optimize the next ticket and hope a career emerges. Company stage is the first lever: you are trading learning, scope, cash and variance. You will still be wrong sometimes. The point is to be wrong for reasons you chose.
As of 2025–2026, exact numbers move with markets; the shape of the trade is stable. Big tech pays you in process and liquidity. Early startups pay you in scope and variance. Growth-stage is often the sweet spot for "I want SDE2/SDE3 skills fast without betting the house."
Concept
Optionality is how many good next moves remain open. A strong brand, a scarce specialty, savings and a network increase it. Golden handcuffs and a résumé of only narrow CRUD can decrease it even if the paycheck looks fine today.
Walking through the trade
| Stage | Learning | Scope | Pay (cash + liquid equity) | Risk | Best when you want |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big tech / large product co. | Deep systems, process, scale | Often narrower; politics thicker | Usually highest expected cash + liquid RSUs | Lower job risk per role; higher boredom risk | Mentorship density, brand, financial baseline |
| Growth-stage (Series B–D-ish) | Ship speed + some scale | Wider seats; still some structure | Competitive; equity maybe meaningful | Medium — product or market can miss | Ownership with some scaffolding |
| Early startup (pre-seed–A) | Extreme range; chaos | Huge if you can handle ambiguity | Lower cash; equity lottery ticket | High — see what a startup is | Max learning rate and ownership |
Trade-off
Optimize for learning vs. optimize for comp. Early career (roughly first 5–8 years), leaning learning and scope usually wins because skills and reputation compound. Later, you may deliberately optimize cash, lifestyle or mission. Doing all three at once is rare; pick a primary for this season.
Patrick McKenzie's advice still applies: do not market yourself as a pure "programmer." Describe the business outcomes you create — revenue protected, cost removed, risk reduced. That framing matters in interviews, promo packets and startup equity conversations alike.
Write hard constraints first: visa, location, dependents, health, how much equity variance you can absorb. A "dream" early-startup role that breaks your visa or sleep is mispriced risk, not ambition.
Common mistakes
- Picking a logo and ignoring stage. The trade is learning vs cash vs variance.
- Optimizing all three at once. Pick a primary for this season.
- Ignoring constraints. Visa, dependents and runway dominate strategy documents that pretend they do not.
Check yourself
- You want SDE2 skills fast and cannot absorb a failed seed. Which stage is the usual fit?
Growth-stage: ownership with some scaffolding, without betting the house.
- What does optionality mean here?
How many good next moves remain open — brand, specialty, savings, network — vs golden handcuffs and a narrow résumé.
Key takeaways
- Stage trades learning, scope, pay and risk; pick consciously.
- Early years usually lean learning and scope; later you may lean cash or mission.
- Constraints first; then optimize inside them.
Further learning
Don't Call Yourself A Programmer (Patrick McKenzie)Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Softwarekalzumeus.comNext: choosing teams.
Related
Career strategy
Choosing companies, teams and specialties deliberately: big tech vs startups, generalist vs specialist.
What a startup is
Startups are companies designed to grow fast. That one constraint explains funding, equity, and why most of them fail.
Choosing teams
Over a two-year window, manager plus business importance plus technical growth usually beats the company logo.