Say you’re joining an early stage that just raised some cash, but doesn’t yet have a team. What would you expect the difference to be between joining as a tech co-founder and joining as a founding engineer, in terms of compensation, attributions and responsibilities?
Same question, but reversed: suppose you’re looking for someone to own the tech side of said early stage business. How would your expectation differ for someone joining as a tech cofounder vs founding engineer?
Generally you get to be a technical cofounder when the other cofounder is non-technical. You gotta have someone who knows the tech side
Engineer is an employee, founding or not. The term founding is misleading here, just means "the first one", will likely turn into a CTO eventually.
Most employees will not make it big unless it is the next FB or Uber.