The Unwritten Rules of Titles

Episode Transcript

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Alicia Thomas (00:03): Hey, I'm Alicia and you're listening to Non-Founder Crew, your insider guide to surviving and succeeding in tech startups.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Non-Founder Crew Podcast. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm so glad you found us. And if you're a returning listener, thrilled you found value and are coming back for more. In today's episode, we're focusing on titles, leveling, and getting what you actually want at a startup.

Here's the thing. If you've never been inside a company as it's being built, you probably have no idea how decisions about job titles and levels actually get made. And honestly, that blind spot can really work against you when it comes to advocating for yourself. So we're going to dive into how these decisions are often made with insights and context from someone who has been there before in the trenches, my dear friend, mentor, and former colleague, Sam Melnick.

(00:56): Sam has seen a lot. He's climbed the ladder at a bunch of companies, including several that have gone on to be acquired. Sam has worked across customer success, marketing, and has grown into leadership roles. I have been lucky enough to work with him at two different startups. First at Lattice Engines, which was later acquired by Dun & Bradstreet, where we were on different teams, but I bonded with him over water cooler chatter. Frankly, his desk was on the way to the kitchen and I constantly like to walk around when I work. So he and I ended up chatting a lot. And then at Postscript, where he joined me as a senior leader on the marketing team. Today, he now runs that team as the VP of marketing. Sam is also someone that I consider a member of my personal board of advisors. So he's someone I turn to for career advice and his opinion on many things in regards to startup life and frankly, what I should do.

(01:49):He's here to tackle some common misconceptions and tell you how things really go down behind the scenes as a manager. Sam has perspective, inside Scoop, and advice to help you better understand how it all works. This is a juicy one you won't want to miss it.

(02:07): I am so excited to have you on the show. We are here to talk about such a big topic that I think so many people don't think about. When I was chatting with you trying to figure out what we wanted to talk about, immediately you were like, "Titles." You're like, "I could spend all day talking about titles." And I was like, "Ooh, that's a really interesting point and something that I think people overlook and assume they just know. " They have been in a company before or a bigger company and they come and join a startup and they're like, "I know how that works. Put in my two years and I'm going to get promoted." And then they see how things actually get made and they're like, "Oh, what? " When you think about building a company, what do you think are the unwritten rules in terms of how an organization is built that people should know about?

Sam Melnick (02:57): Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing about titles is there's a lot of layers here. It has to do with company size. It has to do with your specific role. It has to do with your manager. It has to do with how much you put into it. So it's kind of like when I think of titles, building an organization and the unwritten rules are, one is you have to read the room and the room or the rules aren't going to be written anywhere usually. And even when they are, there's always a nuance to it. Second is you need to be clear on what you want because if you are not clear on what you want as part of that organization being built as a non-founder, then you're kind of at the whims of the organization regardless, even more so. And I think the third is the rules will change.

(03:56): So that's the unwritten rule and they sometimes and often it won't be explicitly told you. Often it's implicit or kind of passively aggressively when there's a sea change that happens. So those are the things that first come to mind.

Alicia Thomas (04:11): I think context is super important when we talk about building companies. Joining a seed stage company and joining a series B are going to be totally different experiences.

Sam Melnick (04:22): Yep.

Alicia Thomas (04:23): When you look back at your career, were there different types of organizations that you joined? How did you navigate figuring out what the growth looked like in those different size companies?

Sam Melnick (04:33): Yeah. I mean, I think I've had a few different experiences. I've been fortunate. I think the first thing is founders, when you're working directly with founders or interfacing directly with founders, they don't care about title because there's nowhere for them to go and they're trying to build this business to a certain size, to an exit, to an outcome. You have to understand that. And I think the second is you have more control over it at times, particularly if you're working closely with founders. So I have a couple of experiences where I've literally written my own job description and title and created it, and that's because of strong founder alignment or trust. Other times you join a ... I haven't been at huge organizations, but a 200 or 250 person organization that's a series C or on the precipice of a series D or whatnot, and they have leveling in place, or there are those rules that are out there, and you kind of have to settle in versus write your own job description.

(05:35): So I think that's important to when I mentioned reading the room. So thinking about that of how have you joined, where have you joined? And founder alignment is really important early stage when you're thinking about titles or you're spot in the organization as a whole.

Alicia Thomas (05:55):

Okay. So founder alignment, you mentioned it a couple of times. What does that mean to you? People are like, "Ooh, that sounds important, but I don't

Sam Melnick (06:01):

Know what that means." Yeah. I actually had somebody say, there's a new sales leader. He came into an organization that I was at for, I don't know, four years at this point. And after four years at an organization, you've seen a lot, you're going to get jaded, you're probably a little tired because these startups are hard. And he came to me and he's like, "You have a lot of founder equity. And you've talked about equity, you will talk about equity, but this isn't the type of stock option equity." It's like, how much trust does the founder have in you? And that's what I kind of mean by founder alignment. One, do you have the trust of the founder? And second is, do they trust you to the extent will they will hand you a big important project? Will they advocate for you to get a title or promotion or whatnot when maybe it's not the right time?

(06:53):

And then lastly, will they let you kind of go do what you want because you've shown that you will deliver the goods for the business? So that's kind of what I mean. And when you have that alignment or that equity, it opens up opportunities for you, but it doesn't come easily.

Alicia Thomas (07:11):

Yeah. I want to dive more into creating your own role at a startup. I think we will get there because that's a big juicy topic that you and I have both gone through and can speak to at length. I think that's kind of the interesting part of our careers, candidly. But I want to dial it back and talk about an organization going from a couple of people to scaling and joining and you often get these obscure titles or everybody is software engineer or product marketing manager. The differentiation between Levels doesn't really exist. It's pretty flat for a while. I'm curious to get your take about leveling being added too early and why that's such a big important topic that I think a lot of maybe non-founder employees don't realize when they join. It's easy to come in and be like, "Well, clearly I have five years more experience than this person over here.

(08:09):

My job title should be different." But thinking about skilling organization, what you've seen and maybe some mistakes you've seen by leveling being too early or maybe even the why behind why we're giving those titles that are so obscure or vague, I should say.

Sam Melnick (08:25):

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a good question on that. And titles can flip quickly where early on in particular, titles are very free to give out for our startups, particularly when they're like a seed or an A, and maybe you can command more on the open market, but you're committed to the mission and it's easy to get someone, "Oh yeah, they're doing good work. They're a director," even if maybe they're senior manager or manager or whatnot. And then there comes to be a point where that flips when maybe it's a round has been raised, maybe you've bit, maybe they need to bring in an executive to run the X, Y, Z department. And the mistakes I would say are one, from an organizational or managerial perspective, you're not doing org planning far enough in the future. So as a manager, you should be saying, "Okay, well, if I level this person to a director or a VP or a senior manager or whatnot, what is that going to mean for Alicia or Sally or whomever?" But more so, what's that going to mean in six months or 12 months once we've grown 60% or when we've gone from 30 people to 60 people or 120 people?

(09:37):

Or what does my organization look like potentially in two years? Because you can box yourself in as a manager or a leadership team. And at that point it becomes really uncomfortable because you've got someone who probably is still valued, but are they a director? Are they senior director? And what happens when you do bring in the person who is like a director at a series C, it creates awkwardness. And then as an employee when you're going into it or a professional, it's like understanding the why behind taking or advocating for a title. I can't tell people, and I tell this to my team, I can't tell you what your priorities are. You have to decide that, but it becomes really easy to play the status game with a title and just do the latter for the sake of getting that senior manager and getting that director, but understanding why and then thinking about what are the ramifications of that either at that company or your next job, I think you just got to be thoughtful about that before you just say, "I want that director title or

Alicia Thomas (10:41):

Whatever." The motivation behind titles, right?

Alicia Thomas (10:44):

That's something that you and I have talked about at length a lot throughout the years, right? Why is director? That's a great example. There's so many people who are at senior manager and they're like, "I just need to be director." I don't know why. That's the point of agony for so many people in tech, if I just become director. I love your explanation when we talked before about the why. Can you give your overview of understanding the why and what you're asking for?

Sam Melnick (11:10):

Yeah. So understanding the why and what you're asking for is like, what is that going to get you? Why are you asking for that title? Is it because you have earned it and then when we talk about levels, some organizations have definitions of what a director is, some don't. And have you checked those boxes or is it to make sure that your voice is heard in a specific room? Is it like a career goal of yours that is really important because you're going to be marketable or is it just because that feels like the right thing to be done and you should be asking for it? I think the other is like, is it easy to advocate for someone to get a title increase, a ton more equity of like a solid whatever, 10, 15, 20% increase in comp? And so as a professional and a team, hopefully you get that opportunity in the limelight or whatnot, but when you're not in that position, being clear on what is your priorities?

(12:14):

Is it comp? Is it equity? Is it title? Is it maybe the opportunity to take on a big project? It's hard to get all four of those at once. So understanding your why and which one of those are important at that moment or season or whatever in the career is important.

Alicia Thomas (12:30):

It's easy for folks to look at their peers, especially if they've been at another company or people who are at their own age and be like, "Well, that person's a VP and I have more experience than them." It's like this whole comparison game, keeping up with the Joneses, but title edition is my joke. I look at that and I'm like, "Oh, some people who have gotten big titles, they're kind of boxing theirself in and they're kind of really shooting themselves in the foot, especially if the company grows." I know you've experienced some of that too, right?

Sam Melnick (12:58): Yeah. I mean, and you have to be okay with that too when you take on a larger title. So I took on a VP of marketing role and it was an awesome opportunity. It was a Series B startup and at a certain point, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to do it. I'll try it. " And they did it for three years. And then at that point I was like, my family dynamics had changed. I was ready to try something else, but I wanted to still invest in the company. And you're like, "Where do you go from VP of marketing?" And I was fortunate again that I had that founder alignment and equity, and that was one of the times where I built a different role. But even moving from VP of marketing to literally a made up role, that was awkward. It was a bit of an ego hit at times because I'm like, "I can do the VP of marketing." I was getting recruited to do other VP of marketing and now I chose to do this and it's this weird made up title that I'm excited about, but how does that represent me in market and what are people thinking?

(13:49): And that's honestly best case scenario where you find a home in the organization and the founders trust you enough to let you make up a role. Often that means it's probably time to move on and then you have to decide, can I get the same level elsewhere? Do I have to go down to a director or senior director? And again, titles carry a lot, this weird, I don't know, we've talked about this, titles carry this weight that's almost heavier than your comp.

Alicia Thomas (14:20): Because it's externally, it's signaling, I have this level or I am valued for a lot of people, which that's a whole other conversation we could have a podcast on, your self-value tied to your job title, which is very complicated for a lot of people. But I think back to a conversation I had with one of my mentors and I was looking to change jobs and she and I were talking and I was like, "Well, they won't give me the title that I want. " And she's like, "Alicia, titles don't matter. Titles are bullshit." And I could see where she was coming from, but in the same moment I pushed back and I was like, I think if you've gone more senior and you've already gotten that high title, you can say that, right? If I want to go be a manager somewhere at a big company or whatever or change it, it doesn't really matter.

(15:06): If you've been proven already and people can kind of see that, that's one thing. But if you are in the process of building your career, it's still early days, I actually think title really does matter. I think back to hiring people on my own teams and people pushing to want to be senior manager and you're in a tough spot, right? You're trying to attract the best talent, but you're also trying to not piss off the rest of the team candidly because you want to hire great people, you're trying to reason with them and you're like, "Cool. If I bring you in, then half the rest of the marketing department is going to be like, why am I not a senior whatever?" It's an interesting game you have to play as a manager too because you also don't want to be like give everybody everything they want because then when it comes time to have to negotiate for your team and try and get them raises or try and get them promotions, you're kind of like out of the gate, you're already too far ahead.

(16:03): I'm curious in your own managing, I know right now you're managing a team of folks, how do you approach this conversation and titles? And you talked about the why and figuring out what the motivation is, but is that something that you think people just kind of don't really grasp at a startup? What is that conversation like? At least what have you had on your team?

Sam Melnick (16:24): Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, just that comment from your manager, I agree. It's such an easy thing to say once you've reached your goal and it's such a kind of throwaway bullshit kind of comment to be honest. And I sometimes think that, but I hope I don't. I try not to say it because that's not fair or true. I can't tell you what's important as like my ... I can't tell you, Alicia, or anyone on my team what's important. So I think that's the first thing. I think in terms of how that conversation goes is I try to lower the stakes before you get to a performance review time. Because once you're in the performance review, it's really hard to change things, both as a manager and as an employee, unless that employee's going to go out there and get leverage and bring out a competing job offer, which that's a whole nother topic too of how to deal with that.

(17:19): But I try to no surprises. And how that looks for me is lower the stakes of the conversation and it's like, what is important to you right now? And say like, "What's important to you right now could change in six months." And then I'll say like, okay, title, comp, experience, being a manager, not particularly for ICs, another topic probably for, hey, we got a list of like six podcasts we could do here, being a manager or not, equity, making sure you're set up to succeed outside of life. I try and put all of that on the table and then ask them to come back to me and think about it, like what is important and how do you stack rank them? And then if they say title is first, I ask them why. I say, I can't tell you why. I have opinions. I'm in a position again of privilege where I've had a VP title for years at this point.

(18:13): So it's like I can't be like, "Well, that's a stupid answer because it's not. " It's their answer. It's not my answer. It's like insanely personal, but I try and help them think through it so they're not just saying title for the sake of title.

Alicia Thomas (18:26): Not everyone, I suppose, especially people who are now more aware of work-life balance. Not everyone is title chasing, but for those who are, oftentimes when people come to me and they're like, "I'm so frustrated. I want to be the next level or whatever." I want to say to them, and I do say to them often, "Does the company need a person in that senior position?" If you have an event marketing manager as an example, does the company need a director? That is a strategic position within the business that you have to really zoom out and have a different context than an operator. And that conversation I think can be really challenging and frustrating for a lot of people because it's the needs of the business first. You're there and you're there to learn and find your way and do great work. But I think at the end of the day, it really comes down to what does the company need to grow and hit the goals?

Sam Melnick (19:18): Sometimes as a manager, you want to give person the title, but it's just not possible. And sometimes it's not the manager's fault or sometimes that conversation. It's like, "Yeah, I'd love to give you a director title, but we're a 60 person company that's trying to get profitable. And if you need that, you should go somewhere else. And I hope you give me enough lead time to do a handoff." And that sucks as a manager, but the alternative is you end up in these organizations where everyone's a director and then nobody's happy with it because like, oh, well, if Alicia's director and Paul's a director, I should be a senior director then. And it's like this race to the bottom where titles suddenly are devalued and eventually someone has to clean that up and it's not comfortable or fun for everybody.

Alicia Thomas (20:08): I mean, you can't have a company that's all VPs. I worked at one like that. I was like, "There's more VPs here than there are just operators. How is this working?" That's something you have to go back and really, I mean, talk about expense and burn rate Gs, but you have to go back and really start to look at the org chart and be like, "We've maybe gone a little off course here."

Sam Melnick (20:30): Think the other thing is from a employee perspective or professional perspective or someone on a team, and I'm bad at this, put yourself in your manager's shoes and it's like there's a lot of layers. I talk about titles being layers for the individual, but for the organization as well. The first layer is like, is this person worthy or are they at the point where they have earned the title bump? And there's a lot that goes into that. And then there's like, how does that play against my current org and my future org? Because again, you have to be thinking six to 12 months ahead. And then there's like, as a manager, you have peers. I have VP and senior director and director peers that are in customer success, that are in engineering, that are in product. And it's like, if I promote this person, what does that do to them?

(21:19): And then similarly for the people or HR department, generally in my experience, HR is going to support a manager and a senior manager, but they will say, "Hey, this could create X or Y." And that's not a reason, particularly that last one of organizationally not to promote someone as a manager. But if you're thinking about the company as a whole, you think about those second and third order effects because that's how you grow a business. That is how you grow a business. You have to think about the company as a whole and yeah, it's not easy. And have a little, little, just a smidge of empathy for your manager. Not too much, but just a smidge.

Alicia Thomas (21:59): I think it's worth calling out here too that we don't often remember for most founders, I'd say the majority, it's their first time being a founder. Maybe they've been at a tech company before. Gosh, I hope so. But that side of the business, especially if you're a technical founder, is just completely a different way of thinking and operating. And yeah, we'd love to give everybody the senior software engineer title or make everybody happy and not focus on that. And frankly, it's probably not top of mind. It's more like, how are we going to pay the bills or make our investors happy? But I think a lot of non-founder employees forget that like, "Oh, how come they're not thinking about me? " And it's like, well, they're literally building the airplane as we're going. This is their first time. Hopefully you have an HR leader that has come in and done it before, but again, that's not always the case.

(22:51): Maybe it's their first time being the person in that seat as well, right?

Sam Melnick (22:55): Yeah. And it's also like the HR leader isn't always able to wrangle a founder. Founder wrangling, you know it as well as anyone. Founder wrangling is a real thing. And I have so much respect for founders. Literally my first startup job, I sat next to the CMO or VP of product, VPO marketing, co-founder, and the COO on the other side in this auto sales place that had these big windows. And it was like a 30 person startup. And I've worked with four or five sets of founders over the years for years on end. And what they do is the fact to take that risk to go from nothing, but they are hard personalities to wrangle often. Rarely are they thinking about you, Alicia, or Sam once in a while and they want to grow this business because they're laser focused and the only way they can is to be laser focused, otherwise they don't survive.

Alicia Thomas (23:50): Another great example of this, and I was talking to someone the other day who has worked for a founder for a while and I'm like, "Oh, performance review season, how's that going? " I'm like, "I work for a founder and they're basically like, cool. If we have a problem, I'll let you know, but I'm going to give you one word answers. Great job. Keep going. " That's not the priority. They don't want to spend time on the paperwork. They want to make sure we're going and hitting the goals. So that's a different ... I mean, again, another episode, how to work with a founder or for founder. It's different. You're not going to get the handholding of paragraphs and paragraphs on your work. It's like, "No, it's good. Let's ship it. Keep going. "

Sam Melnick (24:27): Founders evolve too. Early days, they're just like, "Yeah, I don't care. I do not want to think about that. " And that can either mean tough, tough, you're not getting that. I think you worked for one like that. Or other times they're like, "Yeah, sure, whatever. Take it, go away. It doesn't cost me more money or equity. Have your title." And I suppose it sometimes lands between, but I really think they're basically like, "How do I make this go away as soon as possible?" And it's either literally shut up, go away, or shut up, take it, go away. One of the two. But then at certain point, either they learn or they hire a COO or a people leader who does have influence and trust that they need to actually put in process. And then they kind of revert back to a bit more of the mean, but they'll still go into founder mode if it's the right moment person situation.

Alicia Thomas (25:24):From my experience working in tech, usually you try and get the person who's getting promoted to be operating already at the level that you want them to, taking on those responsibilities for that new title. But sometimes you get promoted and then suddenly the scorecard changes and you're expected to make decisions in a different way or to have different results. And sometimes people move into a more senior role and they're like, "I don't like this. Hey, I was an operator and now have to be a manager." And that's a whole conversation in itself. But it's so interesting to talk to people who have been chasing titles or want to move up, but they haven't really thought about what that life or work life looks like.

Sam Melnick (26:07): Yeah. I mean, I think that jump from I see to manager and I see to manager of a bunch of people at startups, you can't lose high performance and you want to give people an opportunity. And you could sit there and be like, are you sure you want to be a manager? I don't know if that ... You can't be like, I don't know if you'd be a good manager. You can, but that's a hard conversations manager. You want to be like, okay, you want to give it a go? I'll coach you. I'll do this. But you're also not sitting there spending your days coaching ICs to be managers. You got your own IC work to do. And so I wish it was more normalized or there was an easier way to have those or a better path to have those conversations, both from a manager perspective and a formerly IC perspective of like, "This manager thing ain't working out for me.

(26:53): What's the off-ramp?" I'm

Alicia Thomas (26:55): Going to say, I think in all of the companies I worked for, the day I was counting, it was like seven different tech companies I've been at as an in- house employee that's not consulting.

Alicia Thomas (27:05): Have only experienced there being manager training or that type of thing at one company, and I want to say it was like a series C company and everybody was like, "Wow, this is cool." And other people are like, "Isn't this standard?" I'm like, "I literally have never heard or seen this happen before." Go people team, this is unusual. At some point it needs to happen, but it's usually not going to be, in my opinion, before 200 people.

Sam Melnick (27:30): The other thing that's unfair, not unfair, but yes, we've had it at postscript on and off, but that's somewhat unfair is often the senior leadership team will have executive coaches or career coaches on retainer for the SLT or this executive team. And I've seen it here a few times and usually it's like when budget is more flush, that'll have more expanded. But to a certain extent, the first time managers should be the ones getting the career or executive coaching or managerial coaching, not the more seasoned execs. Because usually, assuming we're at a series B, certainly series C or D, those folks have been people leaders before and they have an approach and a style and they also are paid more and they can pay for either groups or exec coaches themselves.

Alicia Thomas (28:30):I think that's a good thing to bring up. And I've negotiated for a career coach before when going into a role, just because I mean, I could see the writing on the wall. I was like, "This isn't going to be pretty unless I have a dedicated resource and it's not coming from my manager or the founders. They don't have time for that. Can I have someone to just chat to and give me advice about how to handle things?" But even then you've got to find someone who's a good match based on the company you're at. Getting a career coach who previously worked at Apple and Facebook is not going to really help you out when you're working at like a 50 person startup, right? That's a match as well, but that's something that people should definitely think about negotiating with when they're going through the promotion cycle.

(29:12): How can I move up but also make sure there are things that can help me do what I need to do?

Sam Melnick (29:18): That is an important point. And even as a manager, I try and provide that option for people as they're moving up as a point of leverage and what can you get as your next step or promotion? Maybe there's not a promotion, but I can get you that. But the other is that's something to think about not just around coaching, but as you come into an organization, that's the point of highest leverage and whether it's title, comp, equity, thinking about that and what's important to you at that moment and what might be important in six to 12 months, because it's a heck of a lot easier to get that thing when they're trying to get you to sign an offer letter than it is nine months later or 12 months later after or a year. So I think that's important to ask what happens when you get put in these situations where it's like you're kind of being asked to take on more different role or something that maybe you're not ready for or want.

(30:13): Sometimes you do have leverage that maybe it's not a title or more comp, but you can say, "Hey, I'm going to do this, but can I get coaching?" Or there's a bunch of groups and communities out there that are paid and finding the right one there is another place that I found value in as well, like finding those peers. I've joined ones that they've changed in the past. I would say the other thing that I've done for myself, the title of your podcast is the non-founder crew. And you have to take your career into your own hands and that goes beyond just title and comp. So I have a group in Boston that I've been running for over a decade called, it's called Marketing Tech in the Hub. And we're doing a lot more of them pre- COVID and then we do them more sporadically, but that's a group that I can tap into to get recommendations or get feedback and investing in that type of stuff, whether it's like a small side hustle, like where you have time.

(31:13):I got two kids. I don't have as much time to do it as I did when I first founded it, but that can be really valuable. So whether you join a community, maybe you have a small group, a group chat counts, or if you launch a small kind of a local community, those are all good things to get.

Alicia Thomas (31:31): So right now we're seeing a ton of layoffs happen in tech. We're seeing everyone talk about AI, the fear that AI is going to come take everyone's job. It's not uncommon to join a tech company, stay there for a while, get some promotions and be pretty well compensated. I'm curious, having gone through layoffs before, both you and I, how you think people should think about the state of the world layoffs, how do you progress and get what you need, but still not get on the shopping block? I mean, that's a reality, right? You are a line item at the end of the day.

Sam Melnick (32:06):Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm screwed when AGI gets here because I swear at my LLMs, my Claude, my GPT way too much. So that's the first thing. So if this is being scraped, I want to apologize to our future AI robot overlords. Please spare me. This is a tough one. And I think the first thing is there is some benefits of being startup in situations like these because at a large Fortune 500 tech company, more likely than not, you're a number in a spreadsheet that somebody maybe internally or maybe externally is looking at. And if you have a larger ... If you're out of band or whatnot, you're more likely to get affected. Whereas at a startup up to pretty large size, if you are delivering high quality work, that's going to be your best way to stay safe. That doesn't mean you are safe.

(32:59):Sometimes hard decisions are made if the company's not doing well, if it's really out of line, if they need to pivot and move in a different direction, there's plenty of reasons. But if the company is fairly stable and has a path to growth and path to profitability or margin increase or whatever that is, if you're doing above average, but ideally well above average work, even if you're 50K overcompensated, generally they don't want to lose those folks because they're hard to find. And if you're doing really good work, even in hard job markets, there will be opportunity. So I think that's the first thing is really tighten where you're spending time, how your work is delivering value to business and how you communicate that to your manager, but elsewhere. And I think the other is know your value. So find market comps. Ideally you have peers, those communities.

(34:05):If a recruiter, even if you're not looking, take a call from a recruiter and get their feedback on where you should be comped and just understand that. And I think the third thing is really don't love when people are giving advice to like, "Oh, you should take less money. Don't ask for more money." Because you should stand by ... Again, if you're doing good work, you should always stand behind the value and try and maximize your value because that's what these companies are doing for themselves. They're trying to make as much money possible, exit so that the investors and the founders who will always do better than you as a non-founder or non-investor have an exit. So it's hard and it is anxiety inducing. Most people in tech are thinking about it one way or the other, but try and control the controllables and do great work.

(35:01):That generally will keep you safe as long as a company is still not doing a 50% reduction.

Alicia Thomas (35:07): This is where we'll leave it for now, but trust me, there's more coming from Sam. I think today's conversation was packed with so many insights into navigating titles and roles in startups. It's messy, but hey, that's what makes it interesting. Before we wrap up, I want to share something we call the Survive and Thrive Toolkit. It's a resource to help you think through some of the trickier moments in your career and focus on what matters as you move forward. So today's tip, super simple, but it can really help you avoid a headache down the line. And hey, you might already do this, but if you don't, it's quick and easy to solve. So when you leave a company, keeping your address current in equity management platforms like Carta is genuinely very important. But I don't just mean updating it in the system. You also want to send a quick note to your HR or admin team, so there's a paper trail on their end too.

(35:58): Trust me on this one. I learned this lesson the hard way. Anytime you move, make sure you update your information with your former employers. That's it. Thank you for listening to Non-Founder Crew. If you want more insights, learnings, and stories from the trenches, sign up for my newsletter by going to www.nonfoundercrew.com.

And hey, listen, if you know a friend who could stand to hear this advice, send it to them.

See you next time.