Two offers, base within 2k of each other. One is a senior title at a 40 person company where I'd be the third person on a new team. The other is a non-senior title at a company everyone has heard of, on an established team. I'm six years in and want to be running things in about three years. No equity worth modelling at either. Which one gets me there faster?
For the specific goal of running things in three years, the small company, and it isn't close. On a three person team you will make decisions in month two that you'd wait four years to touch at the big place. Nobody is going to hand you scope at a company where forty people are already ahead of you in the queue.
The honest cost: your senior title there is worth roughly one level less on the open market, so if you leave in two years you may find yourself negotiating back down. That's a real tax and people underestimate it. But titles are a lagging indicator and stories are a leading one. "I built the reporting stack from nothing and hired two people" travels better than a title at any size of company.
The title deflation thing is exactly what I was worried about and nobody had put a size on it for me. One level down is a price I'd pay.
Only really bites if you leave early. Stay three years and deliver something, and nobody is auditing your title against headcount.
Different angle: at 40 people with no meaningful equity, check the runway. Ask how long they're funded for and what the plan is after. "Running things in three years" needs the company to exist in three years, and that's a real question rather than a rude one.
Whoever your direct manager would be matters more than either of these things. Meet both of them again if you can, and ask what happened to the last two people who reported to them. Great manager at a mediocre company beats the reverse every time in my experience.
Asked both. The startup one told me about two people who'd moved up and one who left and why. The other gave me a very polished non-answer.
The big name is worth most early in a career and least in the middle. At six years in you're past the point where it opens doors on its own. I'd weight it low.
@four_percent_fi · 11mo ago · 2 replies
Ask both places one question: who was the last person promoted into the role you want, and how long did it take. The big company will have a documented answer and a queue. The startup will either have a real answer or an uncomfortable pause, and the pause is itself the answer.
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@coworking_cass · 11mo ago
I ask this at every final round now. The quality of the answer sorts companies faster than anything else I've tried.
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