Why I left a $200K job to join a startup?
Journey
Welcome 3 new members who joined us! We're a community of Salesforce SA, BA, Devs and admins! If you enjoy this post, forward to a friend of yours, so they can join us.
In June 2024, I made a decision that surprised many: I left a $200K job at a Fortune 1000 company to join a startup. On paper, I had it all - a position at a company with over 65,000 employees, amazing work-life balance, a great manager, a stellar team, and clients who valued my work.
It seemed like the dream job for many. So why would anyone leave such a comfortable position to work for a startup?
To summarize in one sentence, it was this: I was bored.
Yes, I was bored to my bones! I would finish most of my work in half the time and the rest I would just waste in non-essential tasks. I was learning Salesforce technology but I wasn’t learning it fast enough. I was feeling too comfortable and it was killing me because of stagnation.
And other reasons beyond boredom?
An Insect:
I felt like an insect, tasked to do only one thing: to deliver projects to client – nothing less, nothing more. But I yearned for more.
I wanted to understand how businesses truly operate. My curiosity was beyond Salesforce implementations to Sales Operations, Accounting, Finance, HR, and Marketing. How do all these pieces fit together to make a successful company? This is really hard to understand in a 65k employees company when your work is just a drop in a vast ocean.
The Startup Adventure:
The startup environment offered exactly what I was missing. In a smaller company, you're not just part of the process - you help create it. You work closely with a tight-knit team to define workflows, test them, and continuously improve. You get to interact more often with people in Sales, Operations, Marketing.
And the most important thing? You make mistakes, you learn from them and you improve upon them and that happens fast! And why does it happen fast? Because of constraints.
The Beauty of Constraints
Startups operate with limited resources, both in terms of people and capital. These constraints force you to become more efficient, more creative, and more productive. You learn to do more with less, and to do it fast! In the process you will hit roadblocks but you learn to pivot and iterate till you find a solution.
Looking back, what seemed like a risky move to others is a path to accelerated growth. In a startup, every day brings new challenges and learning opportunities. Yes, there's more uncertainty, but with that comes the chance to have a real impact and prove your skin in the game.
This isn't just about leaving a comfortable job - it's about choosing growth over comfort, learning over stability, and impact over security!