lol, the penalty for breaking that law is a warning and notice to correct or a penalty of up to $500.

I’m holding off on celebrating til they come back with a formal offer. I’ll continue working on my resume.

I could be starting as early as next month, in which case I will need to quit the milk carton gig. I looked at my school schedule and I’m wide open on tuesdays/thursdays and I have large gaps every other day of the week I can come in.

18 units and a real job sounds scary, but I’d actually end up having more free time I think because of actually having weekends off.

all in all a pretty good day and one i think i can be proud of, despite my email **** uppery.

i dont know if this is creepy or not but doing a lot of background research on the higher ups, and these guys are pretty heavy hitters with some really legit companies in their backgrounds. the company got a ****load of funding from venture capital too.

i don't think it's some scrub company and like I said I believe their product is really good, I already did a lot of reading about it before.

Greg,

You hit tab and it leaves text entry and highlights the first button (which I think is send?) And then space is the same as enter? I think. I don't have Gmail open. That's how I ost from desktop here, though.

J,

I'm glad you got the offer and are excited about it. Like Victor, I'm amused or troubled by them bagging on your technical skills. For me, the concern is that I feel you really enjoy writing code and building stuff, and you are looking to start your first job. On the other side, it sounds like the employer wants you to be a project manager. Which you might in fact be great at. But it might stunt your growth as a developer, even if they give you the title. A job pushing cards around in jira or pivotal tracker is not going to help advance your career if what you actually want to do is be a lead or senior developer.

I could easily be misunderstanding, though.

It looks like you're getting strong negotiation advice, and some more people saying there's no reason not to keep interviewing. The only thing I'll add is that your not wanting to interview more because you hate it is actually a really good reason to go on more interviews.

Good luck. I'm glad that you have decided to change things about a life you're not happy with. Overcoming inertia is hard, and is the first step.

Lol that's amazing. I figured it wasn't much but that is essentially just a law to make headlines.

whatever the hotkey combo is I've done it accidentally like 3 times in the past week.

I did have this thought and concern as well today, but the hiring manager stressed that I would definitely be doing programming and everyone on the team is expected to contribute code when they see things that need to be done so this encouraged me.

I think it fits my strengths really well and honestly this is more the type of career I saw for myself, I just thought that I would have to start in lowly programming positions to eventually get there, starting out in this type of position seems really great to me. I guess there's a possibility it doesn't work out, and I price myself out of future low position type of development jobs. I am really 100% confident in my ability to do something like this though and unless the company goes under or is actually horrible to work for, I know I could thrive there.

I did have a conversation with the CEO about leadership roles in the interview because he asked about it, and told him i was very comfortable in that role and it's something I saw for myself in the future, but right now I want to round out my technical knowledge. I thought he was just asking because he wanted to get a sense of how I was working on a team, not because they'd seriously consider me for a position like that. That interview was the only one that I felt went really well.

It seems pretty unusual for a brand new CS grad to get offered a job like this, even if the real job is not software engineer and is something like scrum manager or product manager and i won't be doing much development and a lot of client interaction - but my background is pretty unusual too.

They all said over and over how strong my communication skills are which I know is a really valued trait in this field because most devs suck at it, so I guess I have that going for me. I'm not really too sure what i did or said to give them that impression. I know I'm polite and I did have a pretty good banter with the database guy when I didn't know the answer to a single thing he wanted to talk about, so I shifted the conversation towards his background and asked specific questions about their implementations.

Larry gave me some great advice on my resume so tomorrow morning when I have a clearer head I'm going to get a start on fixing it and writing a cover letter, then I'm going to apply to blizzard and a handful of local companies.

hopefully this place comes back with a formal offer quickly and i can start making more concrete plans. By the end of the summer I want to be out of my current apartment and into a nice place of my own. I think I can get a decent 1 bedroom for $1400-1600 a month.

It's tempting to stay here because of the free rent but I think I really need to get out. Girls hate this place and it is gross and my landlady is annoying. And I like living by myself.

IF this new job wants me to start next month it's 100% I need to put in my two weeks in soon at the milk carton which will be an easy decision because otherwise the workload would be impossible.

If they want me to start in June, it's a more difficult equation - I could see myself keeping 1 shift on the weekend just to have something to get me outside and as a safety net.

J,

It’s not terribly unusual for software companies to have a parallel technical project management track. Microsoft for one has always had something like that.

Sounds like you’re feeling pretty good about them, but if you want a second opinion PM me the company name and I’m happy to take a look for you.

P.m. sent. I did just realize that at 9 AM on a Thursday there were only like five people in the office and they were all the major people.

Ah **** I just remembered about my cat. I can't leave her, no way I move while she's still alive. she grew up here as a kitten and is outdoor only, no way I can displace her and idk if I could leave her.

Yep true story (and I think most people here realize that)

Really depends on location. I have seen between 50k-90k in Southern California. Range is really wide. And equity should just be treated as play money or $0.

This is a big win for you! You never want to do any salary negotiations over the phone since chances are, they have more experience doing it than you. However with your circumstances I think I would understand why you would not want to negotiate, since it is a nerve wracking. You'll regret it in a few months if you don't negotiate but luckily for you, switching jobs later should be easy after a year of experience.

jmakin - run your resume by ED as well if he's willing to take a look. Also pay close attention to everything he's said in this thread, he has given you some excellent advice and has been dead-on in pretty much everything he's said.

Googling the company execs is not only not creepy, it's very smart. Same with reading exec bios on the corporate website. It's an excellent thing to drop in an interview along the lines of "Your bio referenced your role as X at Y company, what are some of the differences you've found here at Z in your current role? What made you decide to come to Z?" etc.

You also want to google the VC funds/angels that have invested as well. If you haven't already asked about their exit strategy, you want to do that and then compare what they say against the VC behavioral history. If you can find other people who have worked for other portfolio companies in the past thru maturity, you'll also want to ask them what happened during their time.

and don't install Hearthstone on that laptop!

I laughed pretty good at the second part of your 3rd paragraph. He should also ask to look at the cap table, speak to the largest customer, and ask for the contact info of the last 5 employees who left!

LL - I always asked for a look at the cap table, and usually already knew enough about the largest customer already. Finding people who have worked for other portfolio companies isn't very tough if you put some effort in, and they are a valuable resource for understanding actual exit strategies and how they affect the worker bees. If you are laughing, it's most likely because you don't understand this. That's fine if you're happy with being ignorant, but let's not restrict jmakin's options with your own Big Truck salesguy limitations!

I wouldn't get a masters unless you know that you want to teach. In computer science you'll learn more on the job than in school by a wide margin. And, you'll be earning money and advancing your career as well.

I hate to say it, but Chop is correct. J, feel free to PM me your resume. I’m not in a tech field, as you know, but I have looked at thousands over my career and would be happy to take a look.

I am ok with this statement if you are referring to this specific instance, but if you're saying this as a general rule then I strongly disagree.

This sounds like awesome advice for someone with, say, 3+ years of experience, but someone at entry level simply won't be able to effectively evaluate their responses to these questions at this stage (and this is of course totally fine).

Running the firm name past El D is a great idea, though.

+1 on the research not being creepy. As chopstick mentions, you might have a nugget to drop into an interview.

Make sure to poke around the website of any company you're interviewing with too, so that you can discuss what they're doing at some level.

If nothing else, you're showing that you have interest in a company and their product.

Chop, LL, j:


That. The more senior you get, the more important those questions and that research gets. At this point, j should just try and make sure it’s a legit place with decent opportunities to do good work, rather than worry about what his small number of stock options might be worth someday.

If he were weighing multiple offers, I might suggest asking some of those questions to help make an apples to apples comparison between them, but that’s not the case here.

J should come back to chop’s post in a year or two or three when he has some experience under his belt and is looking to make a move.

J - I’m not familiar with those specific investors (not a red flag, there’s only one Bay Area investor and they are a relatively new fund) but at first glance it looks like a legit biz with some solid people. I can’t evaluate the odds of success because it’s much lower on the stack than stuff I’m experienced in (applications vs this type of lower-level data infrastructure), so it all just looks like a bunch of buzzwords to me.

However, they raised $5M+ about two years ago, so unless they ramped up revenues pretty quickly, they are likely in fundraising mode now or soon. So that might be the one question I ask of them - are you planning to raise more money, and if so when? But it’s not really a big deal for you. What if they say yeah we only have six months runway left and are in the process of trying to raise a 15M series b. If they succeed, great. If they fail, well, you’ll either get acquihired into a stronger company or be looking for a job with some solid software company experience under your belt. So it’s not crucial to find out before accepting, and I’m sure you’ll get a good sense of that timeline once you start working there.

Chop,

The questions i would ask are not the same as the ones jmakin should ask.

Crazy I know!

From my limited research, the stock from this company is likely never going to be worth anything, but for jmakins first job that is totally fine and not important at all!

It's always hilarious when people use situations like this to flex.

In my previous role I reported to the Chair of the Board of the company I worked so I've likely forgotten more about this subject than you know, chop.

Jmakin's current priorities 1-10 are improving his situation and mental health. His goal isn't to join the next Snapchat as employee #5. He needs a better foundation and to get a start in the industry. This is a stepping stone in so many ways for him.

plus jmakin is excited and happy for his role. so thats worth a lot. I do think there are some red flags here but whatver. its a million times better than his alternatives.

Maybe I missed something but IMO a lot of what people are calling "red flags" can be explained away by the standard laziness/disorganization that tons of startups seem to have.