Join an existing team or be first dev on greenfield?
Posted by alee463@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 37 comments
Given the choice to start in an already established product and team vs bent the lead/1st engineer on a new initiative. Which one would you choose and why? Greenfield will have slightly lower pay but with a sizable amount of equity .
Leading_Yoghurt_5323@reddit
at your YOE, greenfield makes sense if you want ownership and are ok with uncertainty… otherwise established product is safer and usually less stressful
annoying_cyclist@reddit
Both options have risk. Your new greenfield project could be a bet that the company walks away from, and if you're off in a corner building solo or with a few other new hires you might not have time to build internal connections to vouch for you if there are layoffs. On the other hand, you could struggle to ramp up on a mature project that has a lot of tech debt, fit in with an existing team, or perform at the standard of that team in the time they expect. You're hopefully reverse interviewing to hedge these risks: digging into the why of the greenfield project and asking yourself if you find it convincing, trying to figure out details of the established product/team so you can see if you'll mesh with them.
In terms of career growth, I think both options teach you different things, and I think engineers should try both over the course of their careers. You might find that you prefer one or the other, but you'll be a better engineer from experiencing both work styles. So, maybe worth asking yourself where you've spent time up until now. If you've mostly worked on brownfield systems and never built something yourself from scratch, you'll probably learn a lot from leading a greenfield project. If you've primarily been in positions where you're either leading new projects or watching someone else lead new projects, you might have a lot to learn from ramping up on an existing mature project and learning how to be productive.
Vega62a@reddit
I got the opportunity to work on a greenfield project a couple of years ago. It made a massive impact for my team, got me promoted, delivered me a lot of personal dollars, and earned me enough political capital to choose my future projects.
Work on that greenfield project if you have the chance, it's fucking amazing.
GlobalCurry@reddit
Prefer greenfield but sometime brownfield is fine for stability lol
UntestedMethod@reddit
It really depends. From a technical perspective, I would choose the greenfield one, but from a realistic perspective, I would choose whichever one I believe in the most.
Ultimately, if you think the business founder is competent enough to deliver and make the company into a success, then the greenfield could be more interesting and an incredible way to rapidly build some skills and knowledge.
Base on my own experience with startups, if I get even the slightest inkling that the business founder is out to lunch or is a cheapskate, then I immediately become extremely skeptical of the entire endeavour.
Obviously there is a risk that it might flop. Either from a technical side, or from a business side. The technical side you would have responsibility for, so that part is up to you to decide how confident you are in yourself and the technical team. From the business side, the non-technical team could be terrible. You'll want to scrutinize the leadership assigned to every department, from CEO to design to sales, marketing, account/project management, etc. Even scrutinize the investors for their history of decision-making as well as how much additional runway they might allow if things start falling behind initial projections.
In general, big red flags would be if the business is underfunded or has unrealistic expectations afa the time and effort required.
If they challenge your time/cost estimates, it's a bad sign - you're the technical expert giving your opinion to someone who is not a technical expert, they have no honest reason to challenge your estimates unless they have a 3rd party technical expert auditing it - but if they do that then it can often signal a lack of trust in you which is yet another bad sign with negative outcomes down the line.
If they think the product can be developed in less time than you tell them, it's bad sign - they are delusional and will put the responsibility on you to deliver on their delusions unless you stand your ground from the beginning and nip it in the bud.
If they think the product can be developed by too small of a team, it's a bad sign - they are again delusional and will put the responsibility on you to deliver on their delusions unless you stand your ground from the beginning and nip it in the bud.
kobbled@reddit
depends on how established, future roadmap, etc. for the established product. greenfield is higher risk, no revenue generated means easy to cut if the company comes on hard times, and the project may fail, but usually more opportunity for visibility + if you like cowboy developing then that's where you want to be.
Spartapwn@reddit
First engineer on greenfield, by a mile
trwolfe13@reddit
I started doing this for the first time in my ~15 year career late last year. Having the opportunity to not make the mistakes of my predecessors, and really get the foundations right, made me realise how much I missed just getting stuck in after mostly mentoring teams and babysitting product. 10/10 experience.
flamingspew@reddit
I make it a point to always work greenfield. It‘s harder because things change mid-sentence but you get a creative workout. I have done brownfield maybe 2 years of my 20+
Feeling-Bad757@reddit
Same tried brownfield for 6 months in between to check I can work on other people's mess.. decided I'm much happier just working on my mess
jasmine_tea_@reddit
Similar here, it was always a no-brainer.
likeittight_@reddit
Join the team.
Also could you let me know where this greenfield project is so I can warn others. Names, contact info, salary ranges, etc.
tictacotictaco@reddit
It depends on where you feel like you are. I don't feel like I could have, rightfully, been the first dev on a totally new project, until around now or so. I've been a dev for 8 years, and I've finally been around long enough to see quite a bit, fix a lot, add a lot, and work with a couple various cloud envs.
Sw429@reddit
Agreed. Starting a greenfield project can be really fun and exciting, but it's really easy to drown in the ambiguity and ever-shifting requirements. Many a bloated mess started as a greenfield project led by someone who wasn't ready for it.
Snipercide@reddit
Not going to decide for you.. but some points to consider:
If it's the same company, then I'd argue the Greenfield should be paid higher, as there will be far more responsibility put on you. - So if you choose the Greenfield, ask to be paid the same as the other one, if not more.
Of course the established product will be the safer option.. and probably less stressful, because of shared responsibility in a team.
Greenfield can be amazing if everything goes well. You will have the most knowledge of it, so you will make yourself very valuable to the company. However, a lot of high expectations and stress will come with it. - If it's not a "core" product or "revenue generating".. then there is a high risk it gets binned when costs need cutting.
jasmine_tea_@reddit
This was always a no-brainer. I always choose equity+reasonable pay working on startups/greenfield.
alee463@reddit (OP)
Can you elaborate? I can imagine appreciating the upside and freedom, esp with llms it feels like solo greenfield will be relatively smooth. But the main product will be stable and core to the business
jasmine_tea_@reddit
I like having the chance of hitting it big through equity/shared profits/shared ownership, rather than having a fixed income and it never having the chance to change while being with that company.
That's the big attractor, aside from the fun of figuring out the tech stack on your own.
Is it possible for you to negotiate profit share in addition to equity? Do you need the bigger paycheck? If the latter, then you should go with the company that has the older product.
alee463@reddit (OP)
It’s not substantially larger paycheck, (10-20k). The equity stuff is still negotiable, ceo I was interviewing with yesterday presented these two choices. The comp structure for this new team isn’t decided yet. I gave rough figures (135k , 5%) but probably can negotiate (more base for less equity etc).
Need to figure out what 5% means exactly, from my understanding that’s a shit tone of equity for a first engineer
jasmine_tea_@reddit
I would try to see if you could possibly negotiate something with more liquidity.. like a small percentage of the revenues generated in exchange for a little less equity. It depends how comfortable you feel negotiating this.
All in all, it really depends on what you want, where you want to be in 5-10 years, etc. What would your day-to-day look like at either company? Which team do you prefer to work with? Only you can answer these.
alee463@reddit (OP)
Yeah revenue share might be a good call. Will look into that. TBH a large part of me believes either the this or the next role will be my last dev job with how things are unfolding. It’s two roles at the same company. This other opportunity was presented to me by the ceo during the interview. Up until now I’ve been interviewing for a role on the core team. The engineers and cto I interviewed with on the core team were very chill.
A lot of it will be how well I’m supported on the greenfield project
jasmine_tea_@reddit
I feel the same way, I wonder if my current job will be my last. Not in a bad way, btw. Just that things are changing.
likeittight_@reddit
Join the team.
Also could you let me know where this greenfield project is so I can warn others. Names, contact info, salary ranges, etc.
alee463@reddit (OP)
😂
mescini@reddit
New projects are fun and exciting, but depending on the business might pivot which gets frustrating at times. There’s also no guarantee it’ll be successful. I was a lead engineer for a greenfield SaaS and we were doing well for a couple of years but eventually sales pipeline dried up, there was no money for invention, and the company went to a support hibernation mode. I’ve moved on a long time ago but it’s definitely a risk and happens more often than you would think.
This is less likely to happen to established products, not impossible though. Greenfields are well worth it if you enjoy good honest work, I’ve had loads of fun.
alee463@reddit (OP)
You guys don’t think that a new product can have some risk vs an older product that is considered core/“revenue generating”?
DocLego@reddit
Oh, definitely. No guarantees the new project is successful. It just sounds more fun.
DocLego@reddit
Greenfield. I always enjoy building something new more than figuring out how someone else did their thing.
roodammy44@reddit
Every time I work at a startup I tell myself I will never work at a startup again.
Tons of stress, leaders who are not professional and tend to have unusual personalities who want to join high risk, high stress positions. Less money and the vast majority of the time the equity ends up worthless.
It’s a mystery to me how the tech world has glamourised working for startups. I suppose the 0.01% who make out better in the end get most of the coverage.
alee463@reddit (OP)
Pickings are slim, I’ve been out of work for a long time now (almost two years)
No-Economics-8239@reddit
I used to prefer having strong mentors on a project I can learn from and taking a back seat. Now I would like to think I've become that mentor. Being able to start from scratch and do things the way I want is now much preferable to trying and follow in the footsteps of others and trying to figure out where they were coming from and what invisible compromises or business rules they were trying to fill. There are still plenty of ways to learn new things and get outside perspectives and ideas and assistance. There are typically few ways to recover lost tribal knowledge.
The risk to starting from scratch is that you don't know what you're doing. The risk to following in the footsteps of others is both you not knowing what your doing, and those you are following not knowing what they are doing.
alee463@reddit (OP)
I’ve come to learn that most of the seniors I looked towards for guidance didn’t know what they were doing either. As is in life in general
GoodishCoder@reddit
Greenfield is generally more enjoyable because you get to avoid some of the stupid decisions that you have to work with in legacy projects. Eventually more devs come on and have to deal with your stupid decisions but that's a problem for later.
VRT303@reddit
Greenfield is fun until it isn't anymore and needs to be ready by X no matter what.
Famous-Composer5628@reddit
If you are a brand new engineer then I will caution against greenfield.
I joined a new company (faang) and all of us me the rest of the team and manager were new.
We struggled almost a year to get our groove cos we didn’t even know how to develop and had no idea how to navigate the bureaucracy of the company. We were set up to fail and had little help.
We were given a lot of greenfield projects, took over existing team’s tier1 services and basically screwed their projects (they were owners and had been at the company for years) they were salty and didn’t really support us, rightfully so.
And yea 3 years later none of us are on that team.
So greenfield is usually great but if it’s a totally new team in an established org with stack ranking you will have a rough on biarding
spez_eats_nazi_ass@reddit
Greenfield every time. Just remember a successful greenfield eventually becomes legacy. That becomes a very different challenge.
Independent-Newt2009@reddit
If the greenfield has funding, definitely greenfield. You can always selectively pull in experts on the greenfield project.
Only time I prefer an existing team is when there’s an amazing engineer you are trying to work with or it’s a product you genuinely love