In his first Substack post, Ben Cutter reflects on what it's like to leave a 12-year tenure at a large tech company and join a five-person startup as a founding engineer. He walks through the infrastructure, guardrails, and developer experience you take for granted in big tech, and contrasts that with the reality of building everything from scratch at an early-stage company.
"Every decision you make has an impact on moving towards (or away from) your product goals. This can be intimidating, but is incredibly rewarding."
Ben also previews upcoming posts on using AI to balance code delivery speed and quality as a solo engineer, and on right-sizing traditional engineering best practices for startup life.