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You've just accepted a job as an engineer at a startup and feeling a bit giddy, but it's starting to dawn on you what you've let yourself in for! Whilst you're a talented engineer, you've not really had to operate as a whole team. In the startup engineer role, it's likely you'll have to take on tasks outside your responsibility. In the last few years, as well as building software, the biggest learning curve has been taking on all the other responsibilities that fall outside the usual definition of an engineering role.

The first thing to clear up - the "startup engineering" role is vague, and goes by a few other names: Lead, Engineering Mnager, VP of Engineering or Chief Technical Officer. But this guide is primiarly aimed at the first technical hires in an early stage startup, but that makes a terrible title for a handbook.

In their simplest form, businesses are successful by doing useful products and services that people are happy to pay for. Those things are thought of as "responibiltiies", which are in turn dellegated to people to do them as part of their "role". In large technical organisations, people usually have very precise roles, and can perform them to an extremely high standard. In an early stage startup that is prerevenue, the budget simply doesn't exist to replicate a large organisation, so you inevitably will be taking on responsibilities that don't fit with your normal role as an engineer. If you're the sort of person that doesn't like the idea of this, you might want to have a chat with the founders about their expectations for the role, and make sure you have alignment.

On the other hand, if you're excited by the idea of getting involved with wider technical responsibilities like devops, testing, security and support, or taking on technical leadership responsibilites like dealing with contractors, hiring talent and dealing with recruiters, meeting with new and existing investors to assure them the startup is great opportunity, as well as the whole sphere of product management, product design and even product marketing, then you've made a great decision. Hopefully some investment has been raised and you won't be wearing all of these hats, but

This is the handbook I wish I had when I was in this position! Concise overviews of all areas of the working life, practical advice and respected frameworks along with sign posts of to more detailed resources. Time is one of the most premimum resources to early stage start ups, so you're not going to want a 500 page tome.

The Stages

The guide is split into the main areas:

  • Is the startup right for you? Understand if the product and team are setup for success.
  • Understand the product, and work towards product/market fit.
  • Building and nuturing the technical team. How to attract talent & be the model colleague.

In established organisations, these roles are usually assigned to people with experience, training and competence in these areas, but in an early stage startup, the budget for the roles doesn't exist, but the responsibilities do, and if they don't get done, the startup will collapse.

ORIGINAL VERSISON (possibly bnetter)

  • Find a clear unmet need, define the product vision & recruit your early adopters.
  • Turning the product vision into a reality. Explore the technology that will deliver the proof-of-concept with the least effort.
  • Building and nuturing the technical team. How to attract talent & be the model colleague.

Before all of that, we need to have an honest audit into the state of the startup, the founders, the package and the common red flags to look for. Human nature has a magical way of ignoring glaring problems and only seen the greener grass, and I'm not sure the perfect opportunity exists, however we should enter into these ventures with realistic expectations.

The Common Challenges

From my experience, there are three main problems that you will face. With any of these being a problem, it's unlikely to work:

  • The vision - if this is weak and not what a big enough audience want, it will likely fail.
  • The founders - if they lack certain skills or attributes, the product will likely fail.
  • The team - if these are bad, the product will likely fail.

Next up, have a look at the Startup Sanity Check, and try to be as rational as possible. Working at an early stage startup is exciting, but don't waste your time with what is clearly a terrible idea.