I think the benefit of working at startups is similar to the benefit of working for smaller companies in general. With a small team you'll get to touch more of the stack, and maybe even parts outside of your job domain altogether. In my first job I was the 2nd developer, the first was the CIO. In addition to writing most of the code for this project, I set up the entire production network including load balancers, database replication, firewalls, etc. I even picked out our hardware and physically installed it in the rack we rented at a local ATT data center. Now that's an extreme case obviously, but you will never get anything close to that broad of a base of experience working for a BigCo.

I’m intrigued by your idea of alternative compensation. Care to expand?

Are you thinking like bonuses for growth? Deferred bonuses?

Not OP but I've been thinking about this as cofounder of a "hard tech" company. If we live long enough that we're in a position to hire real talent we can't compete on total yearly comp. The business just won't be able to afford a 500k a year engineer for years.

However right now FAANG companies generally do not offer either the following:

- Reduced work weeks

- Remote work

I've talked to several staff and principle engineers who've told me that for the right company they'd take a massive paycut to work remotely 3-4 days a week. I've had the opportunity to work a 3 day week while making enough to support myself and I have to say, it's incredibly freeing. I don't think this is a sensible offering for anything below a Staff engineer, but it could be a promising path to get truly top talent.

I work at one of the FAANGMs and my group of about 700 engineers are all allowed to be 100% remote if they want to be. It’s actually promoted by our leadership.

I'm curious: which FAANGM? And where could I find the job openings for that group?