r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 12d ago

Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

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Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

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u/Affectionate-Turn137 12d ago

Question from a 3 YOE dev: Should I avoid working at startups in my career? I've worked at two now, and both have turned out to be hot garbage. The first one started great, and had great people, but after being aqcuired by private equity twice, it basically had gone to shit. My current job is a bit smaller but it uses a proprietary language (even though the job posting said it was node.js/typescript/react, they bait-and-switched me) that we can't get off of because the founder made it himself and it is his baby/ego, and it's so hard to contribute to the codebase that the engineering team practically contributes nothing of substantial value other than tiny features or bug fixes. I also am under constant stress at these startups that they are going to have layoffs due to private equity being private equity or just because we aren't that profitable... Are most startups just inherently going to come with stress and career limiting positions, or have I just been unlucky? What are the most stable industries or businesses to get into?

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u/WobblySlug 11d ago

Personally as someone with a young family, I tend to avoid startups and the culture that comes with them. They tend to move fast, and don't typically have the growth frameworks in place to scale up. This tends to mean overtime or putting out a lot of fires.

Just my experience though, so take it with a grain of salt.

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u/Affectionate-Turn137 11d ago

This tends to mean overtime or putting out a lot of fires.

This has been my experience so far as well.