Preface

Posting about getting into companies is a tricky topic for me. Back in Apr 2023¹, I said my goal with this blog was:

My goal is only post about things that I will find useful for future me (and which therefore may be useful to you).

I will try not to brag or stroke my ego, but provide information that is valuable to future me. If you think I crossed the line, let me know, and I will adjust my language. If you want more specifics, contact me.²

---

My Target Company

This is a lot more personal than I usually intend this blog to be, however my target company is obviously the basis for my entire application process.

The People

At the start, I undervalued working with pleasant people. If I am planning to spend at minimum 8 hours a day with them, they have to be cool.

This is a fully vibes-based requirement. A company’s onsite is a great time to figure whether the team is chill.³

I also think good people are more likely to do good in general. I want to work with/for good people 😄.⁴

The Problem

I want interesting problems.

Copying from my recurse application⁵, interesting problems look like the following to me

Interesting project/product to me is:

• Technically interesting - I need to satisfy my urge to solve puzzle-like problems
• Brings value - giving people something of value and doing general worldly good improves my self-worth
• Something I have passion for - a base emotional connection from a variety of factors (definitely the most fuzzy qualification)

Interesting project/product to me does not require (assume disjunction):

• Purely technically challenging
• Generating large monetary returns
• Attached to lots of prestige
• In a defined area of tech (e.g. machine learning)

The Company

There are two dimensions to classify companies by that are important for me - company size and Product/market fit.⁶

Company Size

Size	Description	Example
1 - 2	Founding a startup	New YC Company
2 - 10	Small Startup	https://detail.dev
10 - 100	Mid-size Startup/Small Company	https://perplexity.ai
100 - 1,000	Medium Size Company	https://huggingface.co
1,000 - 100,000	Big Tech	https://amazon.com

I decided that I wanted to join a Small Startup⁷ (having just come away from Big Tech⁸).

Product/market Fit

Marc Andreessen coined the term⁹ as:

Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.

Stage:	Before Product/market Fit
Definition:	No defined product or a market to satisfy, yet
Example:	https://detail.dev, https://www.meta.com/quest/, and most startups today
Stage:	Achieving Product/market Fit
Definition:	Validation of market, product goes from 0 to 0.5/1
Example:	https://perplexity.ai and https://azure.com
Stage:	After Product/market Fit
Definition:	Scale until you fill your market, product goes from 1 to 100
Example:	https://aws.amazon.com and https://irealpro.com

Company size weakly correlates (but does not causate) Product/market fit. For example, I would argue that https://twitter.com has not really achieved Product/market fit. Additionally, these are very subjective classifications.

I want to create something from the ground up, and therefore I need to join something that is Before Product/market Fit¹⁰

The Role

It is disingenuous to say that I don’t want to be the center of the action. Ultimately, I want to be the one who gets to solve the hard problems and architect¹¹. I also want to be the person entrusted to do the janitorial work.¹²

Qualifying those statements is difficult, here is a list of examples:

Good	vs	Bad
Help define a design		Given a design to implement
Given problems important to the business		Hand-held with softball problems
Given Janitorial Work		Never given janitorial work
Ownership over service components		Job is just solving disjoint tickets
Involved in the prioritization of problems		Told what to do without consultation

Red Flags

There are a few Red Flags that can disqualify a company for me (I very rarely saw this)

• Low Compensation/Equity
• Weird Company Setup
• Over-indexing on specific tech stacks
• Egregious over-valuation

…and any other weird stuff

Application Process

Finding Companies

The goal is get into companies similar to “My Target Company”, which means I have to consider companies that I haven’t heard of before.

flowchart TB
   classDef colors fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack

   rec([Recommendations from other people])
   yc([Y Combinator - Work at a Startup Profile])
   crawl([Exa Crawler with an Agent])
   vc([Some sparing vc portfolios])
   pool([Pool of potential companies ~500])
   filter([Companies that I want to apply to ~30])
   consider([Companies actually in consideration ~5])

   rec --> pool
   yc --> pool
   crawl --> pool
   vc --> pool
   pool --> filter
   filter --> consider

   class rec colors
   class yc colors
   class crawl colors
   class vc colors
   class pool colors
   class filter colors
   class consider colors

   linkStyle 0 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack
   linkStyle 1 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack
   linkStyle 2 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack
   linkStyle 3 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack
   linkStyle 4 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack
   linkStyle 5 fill:#3f3f3f,color:#dcdccc,stroke-width:1.5px,stroke:#dcdccc,font-family:Hack

What I would have done differently:

• Create a bigger pool (~1000) and maybe do the first pass with an LLM
• More recommendations from people that I know
• Put observability into the process (instead of just a random org-mode list)
• Apply to even less companies (or at least ladder the applications by preference)

Applications

I did not do any referrals or LinkedIn messaging. I really just applied through the forms/interview process on the company websites.

Interviews

The interview styles of companies were actually somewhat different. I will describe four interview processes I had.

Style 1 - The Classic

1. 15m - Basic screening round
2. 30m - Tech screen round(s) with leetcode or classic system design
3. 90m - Some combination of behavioral rounds with members of the team
4. 6h - Onsite with system design question/behavioral conversations
5. Offer

Style 2 - The Take-home

1. 15m - Basic screening round
2. 72h - A take-home that spans 1-3 days
3. 6h - Super Day - some combination of behavioral or tech rounds (in-person or virtual)
4. Offer

Style 3 - The Onsite Project

1. 15m - Basic screening round
2. 30m - Tech screen round(s) with a leetcode-ish problem
3. 8h - Onsite, but it’s just a project that spans the day
4. Offer

Style 4 - The FAANG

1. 1h - Tech screen round with leetcode problem (async)
2. 30m - Tech interview with leetcode or classic system design
3. Offer

Style 5 - What I would do ⭐

1. 45m - Basic screening round - Screen the candidate and make sure they don’t waste their time on a take home
   • 15m - Background questions
   • 30m - Dive into one of their projects
2. 48h - Two day open-ended takehome (the classic - create our company’s product) - Make sure they can code and create something and publish it into the real world.
3. 4h - Quick in-person onsite with pair-programming round/meet the team - Make sure they are good people and convince them to join the team. Also check for red flags.

Compensation Conversation

Compensation was not a major decision factor for me. The only question I asked was “is there an opportunity for more equity” to every offer. I believe in tying my incentives with the company, and taking an equity heavy offer was a good way to do that.

Decision Process

I am very thankful to have gotten into way more places than I would have guessed. I was lucky enough to turn down opportunities that, in isolation, I would have accepted in a heartbeat.

The decision process was very difficult; harder than choosing which college to go to.

Asking for Advice

Advice from friends and family is actually quite noisy. There is a pretty heavy bias towards companies they know/that have clout. In my opinion, low acceptance rates are not a good reason to enter a company. Additionally, my preference to Small Startup meant that recognition may not be what I want.

However, if someone is willing to give you the time to maintain context through the application process, their input can be very valuable.

The Questionnaire

I ended up making my final decision by essentially rephrasing my target company into a questionnaire that I filled out for each of my options.

Company Growth	Personal Growth	Career Growth
Short term and long term plans?	How do Peer Relationships look?	Clout?
How are investors?	How do Mentor Relationships look?	Position in company?
Team competency?	What role will I have?
Commitments to other companies	Are the problems interesting?
Strength of existing tech

I gave each of the questions a score and did not equalize the weighting for each of the categories (e.g. I care less about Career Growth than Personal Growth). Through that I came up with my final decision.

---

Postface

This post is very different from my other posts, however I think it still ties to the goal of providing information to my future self. I hope I take the following away:

• If I need to search for a job again, understand what techniques worked/didn’t work
• Record the application/decision making frameworks I created for the future
• If I need to create an interview cycle, I can draw from my learnings in this experience
• I want to post mortem this decision later (for positive or negattive reasons)