That's where I'm at these days. I have over a decade of experience and it's a waste of everyone's time to talk if you aren't offering me six figures.

When I was younger, the talking to me sometimes worked to get me into the job, but it's worth noting that I didn't stay long at those jobs once I realized that the tradeoffs of lower pay weren't worth it. Turnover at a company has substantial cost, so this isn't necessarily good for the employer.

- Significant equity

- Flexible hours

- Usually less bureaucracy and politics

- More opportunity to make a critical impact as an individual contributor

- Usually a higher job title (senior becomes principal, principal becomes director or VP)

Those last two have been a huge help in my career. Early in my career I got a huge amount of experience that would take much much longer at a larger company. And the job title thing adds a bit of a "fake it until you make it" thing. But it came at the price of a lot more stress and less work-life balance.

Whether it is worth it is up to you. I used to think it was but I'm not so sure anymore.

Edit: Added a note on job title.

Only to the extent that you get do decide exactly which 14 hours you want to work each day (except when there is a 2am emergency of course)

I learned something at my first few startups... if you are working 14 hours consistently:

1. You will get burnt out quickly

2. Probably only 6 of those hours are productive.

If you tell employees to work 14 hours they will record 14 hours in their time sheet but they are probably not actually "working" effectively.

Now as the CTO of a startup I consider it my personal mission to grow and improve the product by making sure the team workers more efficient not longer hours. I get the same 6 productive hours out of the team and much happier employees. In fact, it could be a coincidence, but this go around we ship features faster and have less bugs then when I was at a company that demanded 12+ hours.

With that said, I also grew a lot as a person and manager during that time. And learned what is effective and what is ineffective uses of time. If you aren't able to answer the question of what will have the largest impact and what is the best use of time than it is easy to end up with people working 80 hour weeks.

Untrue. Less politics comes from good experienced management and leadership. The more chaos (startups), the more politics. Imo, tech only people who dont navigate politics well are best off in middle sized companies.

I also disagree on flexible hours. Startups are flexible in that you can come late in the morning. You rarely can leave sooner (even if you come in very soon) without major hit and you are expected to participate in more non-work social activities (adding to total inflexible hours).

But yeah, higher job title might be a benefit.

Free extra learning when you're fielding calls at 2 am because the shoelace-and-ducktape release process went belly up and you're expected to be available at all times.

Equity (many say you should value this at 0. I tend to agree)

Title (You get to be senior whatever because all the other seniors in the job market want stability. And money.)

Flexibility in tasks. On the whole, a smaller company will have more people doing a bit of everything. That might be annoying if you just want to focus on one thing, but if you've an interest in React, Keras, talking to clients, Rancher, and devops, it might suit you. You definitely get a lot of exposure to new technologies. When I worked for a "big" company I left when it was obvious I'd never get to work with tech I found interesting.

And the usual things a company might offer. Remote work is one I would find pretty tantalizing. Other places uses free food and beer, though I have a bit of a problem with compulsive eating so dislike the former (and there's plenty of people struggling with addiction who dislike the latter, no doubt).