SD Solutions often cooperate with startups from all over the globe as we look towards fresh ideas and mind-blowing solutions. While big companies tend to expand time-tested products, a startup team tries to tread a new path. In the IT community, startups gained a particular vibe and many myths around. Does it necessarily mean overtime and too much responsibility? Let’s see how working in a startup impacts a developer’s life.
What is a startup in 2021?
Unlike many people think, not any new company can be proudly named as a startup. It’s a company with a specific culture – a set of shared values, thoughts, and beliefs that shape how people work to reach the company’s goal. Our experience of stuffing startups lets us claim that fitting the culture is as important as hard skills for the candidates.
In this blog post, we aim to help you as an employee understand if startup is your thing.
Who chooses to work for a startup and why?
Start-up culture seems to be more attractive for youth and raises some suspicions among middle-aged people. According to ASA (American Sociology Association), the Millennials and Generation Z respect socially and ethically valued jobs more than well-paid ones. It differs from generation X, which values stability and material growth.
As we cooperate with promising startups who get big funding, instability is more about a fast-changing environment than giving up the ghosts.
So rewriting everything you’ve been working on for months shouldn’t feel like a ball and chain for you, as it’s totally ok for startups.
Why don’t we talk “responsibility” but “ownership”?
Startups of US types provide stock options to employees. Owning stock options attracts talent and makes employees more vested in the business’s success. It turns an employee’s attitude 180 degrees. While responsibility is a state of having a duty, ownership is a direct relation to a project’s success or failure. Any developer in this culture should think as a founder and make decisions.
Do not wait for a strict manual sent to your corporate email on the first working day when you enter a startup.
The smaller team – the wider occupation
A startup is usually a small team where every opinion is important. It means that saying “yes/no” during a discussion is not enough. Startup guys are expected to share their ideas openly and not only in the field of their stack. A front-end developer may initiate some changes to product architecture, and a web designer is free to tune up a marketing strategy. Consequently, there is a risk of biting off more than you can chew and even burning out. That is why the ability to prioritize is crucial. A wide variety of project tasks for a few people will stress those who are used to the “one task in Jira per day” model.
If you seriously say, “But it wasn’t mentioned in my responsibilities list,” it will definitely sound like a good joke for your teammates.
Fitting a startup culture checklist
They say, you never know until you try. It works for working in startup as well. However, we can sum up all above and draw a portrait of one who will be happy in a company like we described in this article.
Future result is enough for your self-motivation.
You like sharing ideas and work closely with different departments.
Work recognition is a must for you.
You are ambitious and eager to create exceptional things.
Coming back to the title of this post: overtime happens both on startups and big corporations. The difference lays in the attitude. One works more because he has to, another one is moved by a desired result.
