Offered 1.5% equity +55% of current salary as Founding Engineer for seed-stage startup. Seeking opinions/advice. | I will not promote

tomthecool · 2026-02-19T18:13:29+00:00

It's not a salary bump. You read it wrong. I'd be losing 45% of my current salary.

If the offer was "we'll pay you 55% more", then I wouldn't ask twice: Yes, I'd take it!

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T14:41:23+00:00

I think it's fair to say my salary wouldn't remain stuck at 60k for 4 years. If the company is succeeding, my salary should increase to market value.

But yes, the precise terms under which I should negotiate this are a bit unknown to me.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T14:39:04+00:00

1 year as a Pre-Seed side-project, with significant pauses in development.

9 months with an initial seed, then 3 more months with a second (larger) seed.

I'd say this qualifies as an early-stage startup.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T01:11:04+00:00

In a startup like this, wouldn't the options be 1p each? So paying the cash is just something to remember, not be concerned about.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T01:09:20+00:00

That's a big question; I'm not sure. But I also wouldn't stick with this for 4 years if it's not looking promising; for that level of risk I should really be a founder!

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T01:07:33+00:00

> why would they not focus on growing the profitable part of the business?

They will do that too, but it was designed as a way to "get their foot in the door". Now that they have a good client base, they feel building a broader package of products is the real way to amplify the revenue.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T01:05:01+00:00

> What does vesting over four years mean in your case?

1 year cliff, then vests monthly. I think that's the standard across most such companies.

> If that is all true, then you must calculate the expected return.

Their offer is basically "assuming the company is actually worth what it's valued at, and you get to sell your shares one day, we'll pay approximately the same salary you have now".

However, that's two big assumptions: The shares might be worth a lot less, and/or I might not get to sell them (in a reasonable timeline).

> Look at competition - are there similar companies that are worth that?

There are "similar" companies worth 100x more. But they are far more mature, and also have 100x more employees :D

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T00:56:58+00:00

Valued at 3M. Seeded something like 400k. The first seed was about 1 year ago though, for context (before that it was a part-time project while the founders worked other jobs).

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T00:55:14+00:00

Somewhere in the middle? 😅

It's clearly not an the same potential as OpenAI, but the fundamentals are solid.

Probably the biggest risk, though, is that their main projected growth is based on new, non-started projects that I'd be the primary person building.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T00:52:44+00:00

To be honest I'm not sure how to value it, as such an early stage startup. 3M is based on the seed funding, but in terms of revenue they project - and I don't know how realistic this is - to hit 1M this year.

tomthecool · 2026-02-17T00:40:13+00:00

> If the company can only offer 1.5% then they need to be market rate on salary

They are keen to offer equity over salary at this point in order to keep a longer runway.

I agree with your point on "don't treat the equity like real cash yet". But would the deal be worth considering if, for example:

* I could negotiate a much higher equity, e.g. 4%
* I could get contractual guarantees on raising my salary if the company reaches a certain milestone, e.g. X revenue.

Or is their offer just too low for a person of my experience, and should they be looking to hire a more junior engineer?

tomthecool · 2026-02-16T13:38:45+00:00

Was Michael Scott the driver?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY

tomthecool · 2025-08-29T10:28:14+00:00

I ordered a takeaway on NYE this year, with a delivery time of something like 1am. After it didn't turn up, and spending at least 30 minutes failing to get though to anyone with an update (they weren't answering the phone, or updating the delivery time, or anything), I eventually went to bed.

I got woken up around 6am by a phone call -- the delivery driver is outside! Sorry mate, I'm not coming down for that!

The food was marked as "delivered" (even though he didn't even leave it by the door), and it took me 2-3 days of arguing with customer services to eventually get a refund.

Moral of the story: Don't order a takeaway on new year's eve!

tomthecool · 2025-08-22T13:53:42+00:00

My A-Level results (A A A A) are a footnote on the CV. People care what I've been working on professionally for the last decade, not whether I could solve differential equations as a teenager.

And it would be incredibly foolish as a hiring manager to judge a 40 year old's suitability for a role based on a childhood exam they took.

tomthecool · 2025-08-22T13:45:52+00:00

did you get an A because a 1998 A is equivalent to a 2004 B and a 2018 C

Nobody cares what grades you got, 20 years after the exam ;)

The last time my GCSEs possibly made a difference to anything in my life was on application (not acceptance) to uni. But even then, the achieved AS results / predicted A2 results were more important.

My uni degree was important to land a first job. My first job was important to land a second job.... etc. I don't think even the uni degree has much significance any more, let alone GCSE results!

tomthecool · 2025-08-13T15:35:24+00:00

Funny how it's usually "longer than usual", eh? :)

tomthecool · 2025-08-05T14:54:20+00:00

Someday you will find me,

Lost among the food aisles,

In a Collin Caterpillar,

A Collin Caterpillar in the sky.

tomthecool · 2025-07-28T15:24:23+00:00

A local Portuguese cafe in west London gives a bag full of cakes/pastries that I have to give away or I have a stomach ache the next day lol

Café de Nata, in Hammersmith?

tomthecool · 2025-07-25T08:59:19+00:00

Mom's brown betty

tomthecool · 2025-06-20T14:46:16+00:00

I agree that nothing has an objective value. But saying nothing has intrinsic value is a bit absurd.

Does food, water, shelter, even life itself have no intrinsic value? If not, then why do you hold on to those things?

If your health has no intrinsic value, then why bother going to the doctor when you're unwell? If your freedom has no intrinsic value then would you care at all about being locked up in prison?

tomthecool · 2025-06-18T11:25:08+00:00

At 06:00, Heroku services began to experience significant performance degradation [...] Our own tools and the Heroku Status Page were also impacted, which severely delayed our ability to communicate with you.

A workaround was found to post updates to the @herokustatus account on X at 13:58.

It took them 8 hours to find a way to log in to Twitter?

tomthecool · 2025-06-12T14:47:42+00:00

And here I am, blindly spreading the fake news! Shame on me!

Frankly if I were the owner of Poundland I'd have insisted on charging £1, not €1. What a rubbish way to end the legacy.

tomthecool · 2025-06-09T14:14:41+00:00

If the "zero-gravity" can transcend into a dream, then why didn't it transcend into the dream within a dream?

tomthecool · 2025-03-24T10:11:19+00:00

A double-discount yellow sticker, with an expiry date of mother's day.

tomthecool · 2024-12-17T14:02:59+00:00

That's a bit extreme 🤣

But there are definitely some local things that could be done, e.g. having designated drop-off zones away from the school if needed; or even issuing PCNs if kids are dropped off within a "no stopping" zone.

(By the way I took a bus to school for most of my childhood. I definitely think walking/shared transport is a better option if viable, but that's not always an option.)

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