I started this newsletter to share the ups and downs that I have been through over the past ten years. The title or content inspire from movie "Inside Out". I thought it would be fun to connect our rollercoaster of emotions to key moments from my journey as a founding engineer in the startup world. My goal is to offer some valuable lessons and relatable stories for anyone going through the wild ride of being a founding engineer.
EPS 1 - Introduction: The founding Engineer
EPS 2 - The Most Hyped (Joy) Moment: Choosing Tech Stack!
EPS 3 - The Anxiety Moment: Now vs Next
EPS 4 - The Embarrassment Moment: Go Live or Go Home
EPS 5 - The Angry Moment: Make Some Noise
If you are a software engineer who plans to build or join a tech startup from scratch, I have seen, both inside and outside organizations, how teams build products from zero to million-dollar valuations. Some succeed, and some fail.
“A founding engineer is one of the first few hires (or software engineers) that join a startup”
In practice, when you are early in a startup (seed or pre-seed), you might want to ship the product as fast as you can, called a MVP. But in reality, your first idea will most likely to fail. So, do not fall in love with the founder's idea on day one; look at the problem objectively. Encourage them to discover multiple ideas and plan how they can test them effectively and at a low cost.
Then as Founding Engineers, what’s key ingredient to be successful ? This is my secret sauce to become successful as a Founding Engineer.
- A generalist, fullstack
- Avoid Hype driven development, use boring technology or existing solution.
- Do not put your attachment into your code, Design -> Test -> Learn -> Repeat -> Pivot 😛
- Willing to work +56 hour/weeks
- Be resourceful. Read engineering newsletters, podcast or learn from the experts.
- Develop analytical skills and focus on measurable impact.
In addition to all of that, the founding engineer must communicate with non-technical folks, both within the organization and outside of the company. The founding engineer may act like customer service, listening to customer feedback. Some founding engineers even become de facto UX designers, exploring other apps, reading a lot of design best practices, and then implementing it.
The longest iteration I have experienced was when I built an e-grocery startup in Indonesia. It took two years and multiple pivots to achieve product-market fit. Now, I have been building e-groceries for eight years—time flies, and people come and go. Choosing the technology stack becomes a key driver in how quickly you can find product-market fit. I had chosen the fanciest technology but ended up pivoting. Then your fancy tech stack becomes useless, but at least I learned some cool stuff (Hype Driven).
The funny thing is, the latest tech stack I used was Firebase Realtime Database. Then, magic happened. We iterated super fast, needing only one week to launch the product and test the market. We iterated the product so quickly that within the next six months, we built a mobile app. In the following years, our team completely rewrote Firebase Realtime Database to a conventional architecture (REST API with GraphQL) due to scalability issues.
Make it work, make it right, make it fast, In that order
I personally recommended becoming the Founding Engineer. It is a challenging journey but not everybody is fit to become a Founding Engineer. In the next chapter, I will share the most hyped and joy moment when you become a founding engineer: Choosing the tech stack