Thriving as a Founding Engineer: Lessons From the Trenches

Thriving as a Founding Engineer: Lessons From the Trenches -

by: Gergely Orosz url: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/thriving-as-a-founding-engineer?utm_source=substack&publication_id=458709&post_id=138288230&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=2iqgt&triedRedirect=true

Highlights

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• The goal of a founding engineer. Find product-market-fit (PMF) before the money runs out. It’s a race against time. • Approaches for success. Choose engineering approaches based on how much uncertainty exists, balance scope/quality/timeline, and more. • Tech debt. Startups can use tech debt to achieve a PMF quicker, in ways which large companies don’t. Tech debt can be an advantage early on, so use it! • Talking to customers and end-users. Spend some time away from the code, interacting with customers and end-users directly. • Process problems are features at startups, not bugs! Expect plenty of things to break, and fixing them to not be a priority. This may be purposeful, and you may encounter extreme cases, like a successful startup with no version control. • Why join an early-stage startup. Impact, learning, seeing all parts of the business, and more. • Why avoid early-stage startups. Long hours, compensation, and uncertainty are challenges. (View Highlight)