What a Good Startup Job Ad Would Actually Look Like

I've spent the last four posts in this series being critical of startup job postings. The lottery ticket framing. The equity-as-compensation conflation. The red flags hiding in plain sight.

But criticism is easy. What would I actually do differently?

This post is a thought experiment: if I were hiring for a startup and I genuinely wanted to attract the right people—not just fill a role—what would that job ad actually say?

Maybe nobody would respond to it. Maybe honesty doesn't work in recruiting. But I think it's worth exploring what a startup job ad would look like if it weren't trying to sell a dream.

The Standard Template (And Why It Fails)

Let me first describe what most startup job ads look like. You've seen this template a thousand times:

Let's break down why this doesn't work:

"Full autonomy and creative control" — If I wanted full autonomy and creative control, I'd work for myself. I can have that right now. What do I need you for?

"Chance to shape the direction of the company" — Really? As employee number 8? With investors who have opinions? Shaping direction sounds great until you realize it means you're also responsible when things go wrong, but you don't actually have the authority to prevent them from going wrong.

"Competitive salary plus equity" — As we discussed in Part 4, this conflation is misleading. And "competitive" often means "we looked at what other startups pay and matched it"—which is a race to the bottom.

"Passionate about [buzzword]" — Passion is code for "we want you to work long hours for emotional reasons." Real jobs don't require passion. They require competence and fair compensation.

"Make an impact" — Everyone says this. It means nothing.

What If We Sold Collaboration Instead?

Here's a radical idea: what if a startup job ad sold the team, not the dream?

What if instead of "you'll have autonomy and creative control," the pitch was: "You'll have collaborators who make your work better"?

Think about what actually makes a job good:

• Working with people who are good at what they do
• Having someone else handle the parts you're bad at (or hate)
• Seeing your work actually get used, not languish in a backlog
• Being part of something where your specific contribution matters
• Learning from people who know things you don't

None of this is about lottery tickets. None of this requires billion-dollar outcomes. This is just... a good job.

What a Developer Actually Wants

Let me think through what this looks like for specific roles.

If I'm a developer, what actually makes a job compelling?

Not: "You'll build the product from scratch with full creative control."

That's not actually appealing to most developers. Building from scratch means making a thousand decisions about architecture, tooling, and infrastructure—decisions that might be fun for some, but are exhausting for most. And "creative control" often means "no one else knows what you're building, so you're on your own."

That's a value proposition. That's what collaboration actually means.

Or: "We've already figured out the hard problems—product-market fit, technical architecture, deployment pipeline. You won't be reinventing wheels. You'll be building features that users are waiting for."

That's not exciting in the lottery-ticket sense. But it's actually a good job.

What a Marketer Actually Wants

Same exercise for marketing:

Not: "You'll build our marketing function from the ground up. Unlimited budget potential once we're funded."

Translation: we have no marketing infrastructure, no budget, and you'll be doing everything yourself until some hypothetical future funding round that may never happen.

For a marketer, the worst thing is promising something that doesn't exist yet. A startup that has its operational house in order—that's rare and valuable.

Or: "We have data infrastructure. You'll know what's working. You won't be flying blind with gut feelings and vanity metrics."

Again—not sexy. But actually good.

What a Designer Actually Wants

For designers:

Not: "You'll define our entire design language. Full creative freedom."

Translation: nobody here knows anything about design, we have no opinions, and you'll be fighting an uphill battle to get anyone to implement your work properly.

Or: "We have a design system already—it's not perfect, but it's not nothing. You'll be iterating on something real, not starting from a blank canvas while everyone waits impatiently for you to figure it out."

The Synergy That Actually Matters

Here's what I'm getting at: the value of a startup job isn't the equity lottery ticket. It's the team.

A good startup is a group of people with different but complementary skills who make each other better. The developer is better because they have a designer. The marketer is better because they have engineers who ship. The product person is better because they have data from real customers.

What an Honest Job Ad Would Actually Say

Let me try to write one. For a hypothetical startup hiring a backend developer:

Why This Might Not Work

I have to be honest: I don't know if anyone would respond to this.

We're conditioned to expect a certain kind of job ad. Honesty might read as weakness. Admitting what you're not good at might feel like red flags. Being specific about salary might mean you lose people who wanted to negotiate higher.

But I think there's a self-selection benefit. The people who respond to an honest ad are people who value honesty. They're people who read carefully and think critically. They're probably better fits than people who respond to hype.

And for the startup: if you write an honest ad and no one responds... maybe that's information. Maybe your value proposition isn't as strong as you thought. Maybe you need to fix something before you can hire.

What This Would Mean for Job Seekers

If you're reading startup job ads, imagine if they were all written like this.

You'd know:

• What the actual day-to-day work is
• Who you'd be working with
• What the real compensation is (not "competitive")
• What the company is honest about not being good at
• Whether this is actually a place you'd want to work

And you could compare. Not just "which company has the best lottery ticket?" but "which job is actually the best fit for what I want?"

That's what job searching should be.

The Underlying Principle

Here's what I really believe: a startup that can't write an honest job ad probably isn't ready to hire.

If you can't articulate what the job actually is, you don't know what you need. If you can't be honest about compensation, you're probably not paying fairly. If you can't name your weaknesses, you haven't reflected enough to be a good employer.

Coming Full Circle

I started this series asking whether the startup dream is worth pursuing. My answer, after five posts, is: it depends.

Not on the equity. Not on the dream. Not on the disruption narrative.

It depends on whether the job is actually good. Whether the team is actually good. Whether the work itself is worth doing.

And you can only know that if someone tells you the truth.

This concludes our Startup Reality Check series. Thanks for reading.

Where to go from here:

• If you're just starting out: Part 1: The Startup Dream
• If you're evaluating an offer: Part 3: Making an Informed Bet and Part 4: Equity Isn't Compensation
• If you're considering building your own thing: Our Build Something series