For the past week I have been at AltSpace's annual indie-hacking retreat and it has been a real eye opener. AltSpace hosts this event once a year, bringing together a few dozen indie hackers form across the subcontinent (shout-out to Harish from Sri Lanka). The crowd was amazing - a group of people just pulling money in quantities great and small from the Internet.
And if one thing has been reinforced in my mind it is this - big companies are legacy. Much of our thinking around a career in software is also legacy. In the future, most people are going to work for small companies. There will be no more big companies created after today. New companies will more look like roving bands of itinerant hackers doing between $1-$20 mill ARR. Too small for VCs (what will happen to them?) but hey that's not chump change for a small team.
And so it is that I am coming to more and more appreciate the role of the Founding Engineer and the Founding Team. Once a founder has gathered together some resources, this is the first thing he does -- hire the founding team. And such founding teams can be excellent learning. If you're young and can go to work in such a founding team for a good engineer and builder, you will learn a lot.
For me personally, working with founders is so much more rewarding than working through multiple channels of legal and human resources that guard the very high paying roles. Founders move fast and close hires at astonishing speed. And I find that I really enjoy this. So I am already veering a little towards working more with Founders and early stage cos to put together founding teams and also to help grow them.
Already I am working on several Founding Engineer roles with cracked founders. I fully expect the demand for seasoned founding engineers, those who can work in ambiguity and with almost no specs, those who can ship fast with one eye to the long term health of the codebase, those who can hire, train and mentor juniors to become productive - such kind of people are going to become very valuable indeed.
And if one thing has been reinforced in my mind it is this - big companies are legacy. Much of our thinking around a career in software is also legacy. In the future, most people are going to work for small companies. There will be no more big companies created after today. New companies will more look like roving bands of itinerant hackers doing between $1-$20 mill ARR. Too small for VCs (what will happen to them?) but hey that's not chump change for a small team.
And so it is that I am coming to more and more appreciate the role of the Founding Engineer and the Founding Team. Once a founder has gathered together some resources, this is the first thing he does -- hire the founding team. And such founding teams can be excellent learning. If you're young and can go to work in such a founding team for a good engineer and builder, you will learn a lot.
For me personally, working with founders is so much more rewarding than working through multiple channels of legal and human resources that guard the very high paying roles. Founders move fast and close hires at astonishing speed. And I find that I really enjoy this. So I am already veering a little towards working more with Founders and early stage cos to put together founding teams and also to help grow them.
Already I am working on several Founding Engineer roles with cracked founders. I fully expect the demand for seasoned founding engineers, those who can work in ambiguity and with almost no specs, those who can ship fast with one eye to the long term health of the codebase, those who can hire, train and mentor juniors to become productive - such kind of people are going to become very valuable indeed.