Should I help turnaround a struggling SMB or Hold Out for FAANG?

Question

I used to be an engineering lead at a well-known European fintech, where I had a good career growing from new grad to lead in 3 years. After a couple of years there, I left to travel. The initial goal after coming back was to prep interviews and aim for an IC role in a faang, potentially targeting a company that could help me move to the US (as a non-US citizen).

While doing so, I accepted a short-term consulting gig to audit the tech team of a small B2B food company (~7 figure revenue) that was recently acquired by a fund. They have a technical side, offering a POS platform to their clients, and have a small (3-person) tech team (and significant tech debt).

The business is struggling (declining revenue, but still profitable) and a new leadership team is working to turn the company around. I helped them structure their technical team and helped with some hands on work (e.g modernising ci/cd to move releases from once a month to after every merge etc). My recommendations were well received, and they’ve now offered me a strong equity package to stay on as lead.

I feel torn about the offer. I am weighing it against my initial goal and I'm unsure of how such a move (to a lead role in a non technical SMB) would be seen by future recruiters or hiring managers - especially if I'd like to become an IC again eventually in a faang company.

I'm intrigued because the role is somewhat entrepreneurial and hands on as there is lots to be done to make the business run well again. My concern is that the tech side of things is not very advanced and low scale, and that it may set me back if I want a role as an IC in a much more technical place. Especially given that I progressed to a lead position very quickly in my previous company - I'm worried that not getting more pure hands-on IC experience to level up might eventually slow me down in my career.

Curious to get some different perspectives and would appreciate any advice!

Thank you

Rahul Pandey · Accepted Answer

In a vacuum, it's very, very hard to beat the opportunity of working in FAANG, including:

Smart colleagues
High compensation
Lots of exit opportunities
Impactful work

This food platform has a few issues which give me pause:

Declining revenue, and it doesn't seem like like the company has PMF. This is a bad sign, and good engineering may not (likely will not) solve the business challenges.
You'd be the lead of a very small team, which means your learning opportunities from colleagues will be limited. If learning from 10x engineers is a goal of yours, it's gonna be hard to do that.
There's no brand recognition, esp since they got acquired by a fund which I imagine is more focused on profit than growth.

The reason to join the startup:

You have a goal to do your own company, and the exposure of joining will give you valuable perspective.
You love the vision/roadmap laid out by the leadership of the food company
You are inspired by the caliber and network of the people you'll interact with.

If at least 2 of the above are not happening, I'd stick with the more traditional path of working at a larger, well-established tech company.

Should I help turnaround a struggling SMB or Hold Out for FAANG?

Discussion