HACKER Q&A
📣 powergear

First Engineer at Seed-Stage Startup – Salary, Stock Options Advice?


My company have raised a $2M seed round and been valued at 10M$. There are 2 founders and 4 employees, including 2 devs (I'm one of the devs). I'm Senior Engineer with 4 years experience, working in the company for 2 years (since start of the company). I believe they wouldn't raise the round without my hard work.

I am wondering what a fair salary I should be getting and how many % should I ask for stock options. Thanks in advance HN!

  👤 amirathi Accepted Answer ✓
I'd say market salary + as much equity as you can negotiate between 0.4 to 4%.

Disclaimer: I prefer to be pessimistic about startup equity for employees. It's like buying a lottery ticket where folks running it dictate the odds & have legal mechanisms in place to change the prize money at the very end.

👤 karanbhangui
If you've been there since the start of the company, I'd consider you a founder. I think the whole 0.1-1% order of magnitude equity is a massively raw deal for first employees. I think we need to stop thinking of founders and more about founding teams.

Out of curiosity, what salary and equity did you have for the first two years?