How to get a job at a YC startup after coding bootcamp
Two years ago, fresh out of coding bootcamp, I set the goal of getting a job at a YC startup. At various points along the way, I thought all was hopeless. I was rejected hundreds of times and ignored hundreds of times more. But in the end, I did it! It took 5 months.
My answer for how to get hired at a YC startup is not complicated. Send hundreds of emails. Then, if you still haven’t found a job, send thousands. And send them to founders. Engineers don’t check their emails so they are among the worst people at a company you could email.
YC has >4,000 alumni companies, and most are still active, so thousands of emails is not overstating what’s possible. The best way to find the full list is workatastartup.com. First go through the list and filter by companies hiring engineers—although you should send emails to companies hiring for other roles too. (More shots on goal is always better, and emails are free). Click into the company’s profile, find the founder’s name, and send an email to first_name@company_url.
By all means, do the traditional thing and apply on the jobs page as well. But always send an email.
If this seems pretty easy, that’s because it is. The hard thing is doing it over and over again hundreds of times.
I think this may be somewhat contrarian, but it's really important: Spending your time crafting personalized emails is extremely unwise. Instead, what you should do is spend a few hours refining 1 email—or, if you’re clever write 2-3 emails and run some tests to determine which performs best. Then send it to everyone.
Anything beyond this is a waste of time.
I’ll say it again because it’s truly the most important thing and the thing you’re least likely to actually do. If you want to work for a YC startup, send hundreds maybe thousands of emails and make sure you send them to founders.
Another reason it’s important to email hundreds maybe thousands is that you are going to screw up at least a few interviews. I certainly did. I botched my interviews at Replit, Substack, Eight Sleep, and various other companies on my way to finally getting a job.
This brings me to my second point. As a junior engineer, you’re not being hired for your technical ability. You’re being hired for your POTENTIAL—which means you’d better bring something to the table above and beyond coding. In most cases, the best thing you can bring is a mixture of extreme hard work + ability to communicate.
(An aside: As I look back at my code from two years ago, it stunk! Yet the stuff I was building was critically important to the future of the company. If you join as one of the first few employees, junior engineer or not, you’ll get to build the foundation for all that’s to come. Pretty darn cool.)
To sum up: email thousands of founders, demonstrate a willingness to work uncommonly hard, be concise and compelling in your speech.