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This list would have excluded all the jobs I've had that I loved


Only if you consider all of them hard requirements and failure of any of them to be a showstopper.

The _do_ all make complete sense in the context of evaluating the risk of accepting an offer, which you can then trade off against your own personal acceptable level of risk and the rewards/benefits of the things you might love about that role.

For an early-career engineer, a company with less than 12 months runway and a poorly explained share allocation, but with a friendly/compatible team with a great mentor, and the ability to make contacts and connections in the industry - might be a great choice. Probably not so good for an established mid/senior engineer with a family and a mortgage though...

A company with no clear product market fit, and poor or ordinary answers for the business-related questions, but with a smoking hot technical idea/capability - might be really fun for someone who's had a recent successful exit which means payroll not being made isn't too problematic, and a swing-for-the-fences high-risk/high-reward/high-visibility project is something that sounds exciting and rewarding (even if it plows into the ground spectacularly).


I get that, and frankly I've worked with startups in the past that failed at a lot of these because I felt the culture and people were good even if there were lots of rough edges.

The questions just give you data, choice is still yours. But at least it will be an informed choice.


I think that's a great point - it's less about checking every single one of these boxes and more about knowing what you're getting into.




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