Leaving Corporate for a Tech Startup

It's been over two years since Rob, my line manager in two previous roles, asked me to join his tech consultancy start-up. I was in a good position at the time, well within my comfort zone, able to get by without pushing myself too hard. Just two months after taking out the mortgage on my first home, perhaps stupidly, I gave up that comfort and security to join Rob and Ali for the ride and see where it went. Spoiler: it was the best career move I could have made.

How does startup life compare with corporate?

When starting previous roles, there was usually a battle-tested process for onboarding a new employee. A handbook listing the systems to use, and often a buddy for a fortnight to help you find your feet. Not at a startup. At the time there was only a CEO, a COO and a Sales Director. Coming in as their first permanent engineer, I found myself asking questions like "Who can invite me to our Git?" and "Who can give me access to our Azure subscription?" The most common answer was, "You'll have to set that up first."

For me, that was a fantastic opportunity to bring together everything from my earlier experience, particularly the interest I had taken in developer experience engineering, which is really just making engineers' lives better, and to set up the right technical stack for the future of BearTech. This is, of course, the same position every senior technical hire has walked into before me, and it doesn't always work out perfectly. Looking back, though, I think we got it about right.

You have to wear many hats at a startup. In previous jobs I worked with some very good product managers. Here you often find yourself doing that job too. There is no longer someone to ask which fields a form needs. You could ask the customer, but more often they would rather lean on your expertise, so you learn to wear the product hat with confidence.

Which is better?

It is certainly hard work at a startup. But if I could go back two and a bit years and make the decision again, I would join BearTech every time. There is real satisfaction in knowing that virtually every piece of software shipped out of our metaphorical doors has my hand in it. The daily challenges that at a large corporate would be handed to someone else are exactly the kind of thing that gets me out of bed. It also helps when your boss recognises the hard work and lets you knock off at midday on a Friday, which I am glad to say has happened more than a few times.