Ask HN: Startup failed after years of work – Can I even get a job now?

I shut down my first major startup at 28 after 6 years of back-breaking work. In the process, I raised $xx million, experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. I was devastated and burnt out, and it took a long time to fully process everything and move on.

It's great that you're planning out your next steps now. Finding a decent-paying job to make ends meet is first priority. From what you've revealed in this thread, I'm confident you'll figure something out quickly.

Eventually, after the stress from shutting down the company and finding a new job dies down, you'll have time to do some serious reflecting on what's come to pass. It doesn't sound like you're at that stage yet, but here's some advice when you reach it:

1) Recognize What Was Lost

Don't get stuck in denial. Be honest with yourself about what you've lost, and don't try to trivialize it (yet). Perhaps you had giant hopes and dreams and they were crushed. Perhaps you feel like shit because you didn't meet your goals. Whatever it is, lay it out and don't hold back.

2) Recognize What You've Gained

We tend to lose sight of the positives during a time of crisis/failure, but trust me, even if you can't see them right now, they exist :). Being the founder of a startup is one of the highest pressure jobs you can ask for. That pressure can feel like shit sometimes, but it also forces you to grow. That growth is valuable, in and of itself. Perhaps you grew your engineering skill set. Perhaps you became a savier business person. And, perhaps there were tangible assets or friendships that you gained -- those count too.

3) Honestly Assess the Situation

One thing I hate more than anything else is when people say "I wouldn't have chosen it any other way". Fuck that haha. The stress of shutting down a company and operating in close-to-failure mode sucks! Running a wildly successful company would have been much preferred.

That said, also be honest about how it's not all bad. You grew as a person and there are lessons you learned (or can learn) from the experience. And, you have an awesome story to tell one day :).

Don't label yourself as a failure. Your company was a failure. You failed to achieve your goal. You are not a failure.

4) Recalibrate Your Values and Move Forward

So, why are YOU not a failure? To answer this question, you have to take a hard look at your personal values. What do you think is important in life? What are you chasing after?

To me, values are the measuring sticks by which people quantify success in life. Whether or not we realize it, we constantly measure our actions against our values, and how we 'measure up' determines our self-worth.

If what you value most in life is being a successful founder, you are gonna feel like shit!

But, what if what you value most in life is becoming the best version of yourself OR acting with integrity OR contributing postiviely to society?

In my opinion, there's no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' values, but some values sure are hard to live up to (primarily because they're largely outside our control). The good thing is you can change your values to make sure they realistically align with your life.

If your values are straight, you're ready to move forward. Take some time off if you need it to completely unwind. The motivation will come back with time -- it's only human to have drive. Good luck!

I think your quite hireable. Working on your own startup for so long must have diversified your skills. Your profile could very well be suitable for a product or an engineering manager role. As you can wear multiple hats.

31 is an awesome age - don't worry too much about that.

Since you have been shipping real products, adding them to your portfolio would add a lot of value.

There are also ample remote oppertunitues nowadays. Here is a curated list of remote job boards -

Recommended

https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs

https://www.producthunt.com/jobs?remote_ok=true

https://www.producthunt.com/jobs

https://remoteok.io/

https://weworkremotely.com/

https://remote.com/

Others

https://codefund.io/jobs

https://www.remotejob.rocks/

https://www.remotelyawesomejobs.com/

https://www.flexjobs.com/

https://www.workingnomads.co/

https://remotive.io/

https://www.skipthedrive.com/

https://www.remotey.com/

https://angel.co/jobs

https://remotehub.io/

https://remoters.net/jobs/

https://wellpaid.io/

Good luck!

You might be surprised how in-demand you turn out to be once you start applying for jobs.

With this: "I've been coding for a long time, shipping real products to real customers", you're already ahead of many job applicants. Plenty of startups or established companies are looking for people with that kind of experience.

Your self-esteem and self-belief has likely taken a hit as you've spent a long time feeling like a failure.

I know the feeling well; it happened to me, and it took quite a while to work my way out of it.

The best thing to do is to be kind to yourself and take it easy for a while. You're not a failure. The thing you worked on didn't work out but that's fine, there are plenty of super-talented, capable people whose companies didn't work out through no fault of their own.

Take it gently work-wise; perhaps try to find some small contracts with small teams that you can work on in part-time, remote engagements.

But if you get yourself on a path where you're delivering projects and getting positive feedback from the people you're working with, slowly but surely things will turn around and before you know it you could be in a very good place.

Good luck to you. Feel free to reach out if you want more personalised advice (email in profile).

Some questions for you to think about:

* What do you want to do? What excited you about your work at your startup? Do you want to keep doing that sort of thing, or are you looking for a change?

* What kind of environment do you want? Startups are awesome - I've worked for 3 of them. But big companies can be awesome too - I work for one now. They're a different experience. Are you looking to stay in startup mode? Are you looking for something bigger? Even within startups, there is the product discovery phase and the scaling up phase - do you find one more interesting than the other?

* How big is your startup? If you start applying to larger tech companies, they'll look at the scale of your work (were you architecting for multiple dev teams? Or did you startup consist mostly of one team? What scale did you reach in terms of number of customers or complexity?)

* Did you develop domain expertise in a particular area that you could leverage and you'd want to? If you've been focusing on the same problem for 7 years, chances are you have developed a rare expertise in an area, and you probably have insights that would make you uniquely qualified for certain roles out there.

I was in a similar situation 3 years ago. Like other people said, I'd focus on growth-stage startups (Stripe, Checkr, Airbnb, Opendoor, etc). I found their interviews more practical and approachable than Facebook, Google, etc. Most of the places I interviewed had me writing and running real code on my own computer.

I spent about a month prepping with:

* Cracking the Coding Interview

* https://www.interviewcake.com: curated set of ~50 questions with excellent step-by-step hints that don't immediately spoil the whole problem. Well worth the $250 — I didn't do any Leetcode-style problems aside from these.

* https://interviewing.io: Real, anonymous phone screens. This was amazing for me because I hadn't done a technical interview in 4 years and going through a real interview with a real person is totally different than practice problems.

Companies in SF will cover your costs to interview and usually will give you a relocation bonus as well, so don't discount moving down here :)