I'm sorry to hear about your experience.

Anecdata, but I interviewed for a marketing role at a 10-person startup in 2013. I asked questions #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 - and the company was more than happy to 1) answer immediately, or 2) say "I don't know, but let me find out." I should have asked the other questions (especially the relo package!), but I was young, naive, and not tactful enough to ask tougher questions in a "cooperative" manner.

IMO it's insane to work for a company if they're evasive about the value of your equity (#4-8). That's tantamount to lying about comp. You can usually find out how much they've raised on Crunchbase, and you can napkin-math their burn by eyeballing the team (#9-13; payroll is the dominant expense for most startups). #14 seems like a weird question to ask, but YMMV.

I would take their answer to the product-market fit question with a heaping pinch of salt (what are they going to say, "no"? and PMF means something different to everyone), and listen closely to the "feedback from customers" answer.

>Outside of the room, the Engineering team laughs at your questions, Operations and the CEO give each other quizzical looks before laughing too, and they go on to the next candidate.

This is such a short sighted perspective that it's laughable.

Good management will see that the candidate is thinking about joining the team as a long-term commitment and isn't just making a job change for a pay increase over their last/current role. It shows that candidate is showing up for the same reason the company exists -- to be fairly compensated for services rendered.

A leadership team that laughs at these questions are going to lose long-term, and should be avoided by potential employees and VC alike.

Edit: grammarz

Unfortunately, they aren’t avoided by VC’s, which means that as a potential employee you quite often run into them.

I don't understand why this comment is the top one right now. Has this been people's experience? I have asked all these questions (pretty much) and have gotten almost everything answered. Answers regarding revenues where a little obfuscate or a range was given.

Some startups are reluctant to tell you how many shares are outstanding in the company (happened to my wife). They say you get 100,000 options, but will not tell you the info needed to properly estimate the potential value of those options. In my wife's case, they just said to trust them that it was a valuable offer.

> In my wife's case, they just said to trust them that it was a valuable offer.

Wow, that's rich! You trust us, but we can't trust you. That dissonance pretty much makes it an auto-fail.

Not sure how this works elsewhere, but in the UK you can find public documents submitted by companies (including private ones) on the Companies House website and find out how many shares are outstanding (as well as some basic information about current shareholders).

Delaware - where most of these startups are incorporated - does have a way for employee-investors to get this information

Except you have to be an employee share or options holder already

And you have to sue for it (or launch an administrative proceeding)

/facepalm

Not a thing in the US for private companies.

In the US, corporations are filed with one of the 50 states. The information that becomes public record varies by state, but you can always get the registered agent and some basic information about it (date it was created, name, etc). Sometimes that includes share counts, sometimes it doesn't. You can also generally pay a nominal fee (tens of dollars) to get an official copy of filing documents.

Some people feel cagey about saying how many have been issued (or even what stakes the investors have), but anyone that doesn’t share authorized is either confused or deceptive.

I would say though, don’t assume malice! Some people really believe that they’re supposed to keep this secret to protect their investor info or something.

The context of the probing questions proposed is that of joining a startup.

If during the interview and negotiation process, a hiring manager (probably a large equity holder) at a startup company can't give me details regarding their equity, funding, board makeup, business strategy, work environment, competitors, challenges they're facing, and how I fit in to their strategy... why would I bother working with them? There are plenty of startup companies that will give me that information in order to sell me on joining them.

If they aren't serious enough to consider each hire vital enough to put some cards on the table, then I'm not about to waste my time working for them.

Further, there are plenty of non-startup companies I can go make a big paycheck at with 9-5 hours.

> "We are a private company and don't share this information."

I'm on the management side (was CEO CircleCI, now CTO darklang) and we would absolutely answer all these questions. It's a complete red flag for any company that would recruit an employee without telling them what they're actually getting.

It's reasonable to keep the answers to Qs 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14 and 15 until later in the hiring process when you're close to an offer, so long as you give directionally-correct answers first.

Personally, I would answer everything except 5 in a first interview (and that's only cause I'd have to look up the exact numbers).

So true! I've interviewed with several startups (about 50-60) in the past, over the course of 5 years. I had offers from most of them, while some of them rejected me after the interviews (for whatever reasons they had). Your comment is so close to reality (based on my interactions). Some laugh, some genuinely have no clue, some act arrogant (you can either join based on whatever limited information is provided, or leave), and some say they don't share any such information.

I've worked at two startups in the past. The first startup tanked. When interviewing for the next role, I did ask these questions, but had no luck. Ended up taking an offer with 15% increase over my last role. Two years of work, and I find out that this startup too, is on its way down. Eventually ended up moving to a big company.

I don't think it would be a stretch to think the ones that can answer most of these would be the outliers that make it past two years.

You must have been doing multiple interviews per month, every month, for those five years in order to get to the stage of getting an offer from a majority of the 60 companies. That sounds exhausting!

I did. Once I joined the companies that did not openly answer my questions during interviews (about finances, strike price, etc.), I ended up realizing all the negatives/problems of the companies from the inside.

Then on, I had only two choices: (1) ignore the problems and not worry about future, or (2) act fast and start interviewing until I have options if something goes wrong. I chose the second option, and hence a lot of interviewing.

I would answer all of those questions. I have, in fact, answered versions of many of them in interviews.

I've noticed candidates who have had a bad experience at a previous startup often try to find a circumspect way to ask if we're profitable and if we're going to run out of money. Those are good and fair questions that I'm happy to answer.

I'm sure some companies would demure on some of these if the answers are uncomfortable. I hope not many would laugh!

For an engineering position I suggest candidates also ask if they can review some of the code they'd be working on like a recent pull request.

The company doesn't have to answer every question but it would be a huge red flag if the company could not answer any of them.

and your lack of higher salary history will be a huge red flag to your rental, credit, auto, mortgage, and accredited investor application

Joining a startup is not how you get a higher salary. For many, it’s a pay cut.

nit: there's no such thing as an accredited investor application.

Some issuers need more robust information than a self certification

Getting this information is done in the form of an application

I don’t understand what you’re (sarcastically) trying to get at here. That if you ask questions you can’t get a reasonably high salary?

oh it means that you won't get hired

It seems like you have the perception that top talent is easy to hire. In my experience that hasn't been true at big or small companies, and if a candidate is exceptional companies will go the extra mile to get them. And if we're talking about early stage startups the power dynamic is totally reversed - the senior candidate actually has a ton of negotiating power because a startup can't compete on salary with FAANG companies, and good candidates know it.

Good senior people are selective and want to know a lot about the companies they might be joining. If they didn't ask perceptive questions I'd think it was a red flag.

I mean seriously, a startup is trying to hire a senior engineer, is offering less base salary than Google, stock with an average value of nothing and they don't even want to answer the hard questions? How would they ever hire anyone good?

The only people I'd give a pass on not knowing asking good questions in an interview are interns or new grads.

Exactly this. An employee who thinks he won't get hired, if he asks questions very relevant for him, is probably a bad hire in the first place. And for the top talent employee the startup needs, not answering the questions is a huge red flag. If you are good, you can select between so many options and most of them pay better than a startup.

So if you ask questions about the company, you won't get hired?

correct

Seeing this as the top comment, I expected the questions to be intrusive or silly, but I actually found them to be almost entirely the table stakes of what I'd want to know before joining a small private company that proposes to offset a lower salary offer with equity. You need these questions answered because it's a private company with no public disclosures you can look up!

I understand the cynicism behind this comment, but hopefully if you have one offer you are considering, you have a few more offers as well.

If you are worried about making rent, then perhaps your evaluation criteria would be different, such as "will this pay the bills, and will I be okay working here for the next 2 years."

This is ridiculous. The vast majority, of not all, of these questions are easily and readily answered by interviewers day in and day out. Not asking any of them is the read flag that makes people wonder if your even serious about taking the job or just there for interview practice.

This is not my experience. All of the private startups I interviewed for gave me this information when I asked during the final stage of the interview.

I think these are all reasonable questions to ask a startup with no established reputation. If all you want is a 30% increase, these startups are probably not the fit for you to begin with.

Most of the questions are appropriate to ask when an offer has been extended (but not yet accepted). There are plenty of high paying jobs at companies that can answer these questions.

It has not been my experience, coaching/advising a bunch of people through interviews with tech companies over the last few years, that most of this information is hard to get.

Assuming these questions are asked in the offer phase, I don't see a single question here that is out of line or which is even unusual. I have answered all of them myself.

If you need to worry that much about the rent payment as a software engineer in current times you either lack skill (in interviewing or on job) or sold yourself way under worth.

There's a ton of circumstances that could put even a software engineer into financial trouble. Don't assume that a software engineer automatically equals a high savings.

I assume high pay. Personal financial troubles don't really put you in a negative negotiation position with an abundance of job options.