from Hacker News

Ask HN: Affected by the recent funding freeze / mass layoffs? Share your story

by Red_Tarsius on 2/16/25, 9:05 AM with 4 comments

  • by shahbaby on 2/16/25, 1:08 PM

    Joined early stage startup. It was a thin AI wrapper.

    The team was young and inexperienced but I wanted to believe in them. Too bad they did not want to believe in me. Laid off shortly after moving to San Francisco. First time I've ever had to break a lease. I also left the best job of my career to join them.

    My advice to others; don't join startups before they've at least reach series B.

    When you join a company that young there are other risks aside from the product itself. i.e Do they even know what roles they should be hiring for?

    So many red flags that I missed: - emphasis on being in office when all the other engineers worked remote from the other side of the world - overly easy interview process - fake customers (Founder had connections in those companies)

    Hopefully someone else can learn from my mistake.

  • by markus_zhang on 2/16/25, 9:35 PM

    Our team is fine. But hiring freeze means we have to stretch thin. I'm getting burnt out by the ad-hoc tasks and am researching how to coop with it.